Hmm. If you really wanted to "stop feeding the troll", you could make it more expensive for people to give companies like Lodsys money.
That is, you could apply those "refuse to ship or sell there" tactics to deny business to companies who are Lodsys licensees. According to http://www.lodsys.com/-licensees.html those licensees include Ooma, Roku, Box, Photobucket, Surveymonkey, Oracle, Qualcomm, Delta Airlines, the Cleveland Clinic, and Office Depot, among plenty of other familiar names.
If your choice is between "settle for $1" or "expensive litigation", the choice that maximizes shareholder value is fairly clear. If your choice is between "settle for $1 and now you're blacklisted from using the following X products" and "expensive litigation", maybe the calculus changes a little and you are more free to make a decision that you really wanted to (but couldn't justify to your board).
That is, you could apply those "refuse to ship or sell there" tactics to deny business to companies who are Lodsys licensees. According to http://www.lodsys.com/-licensees.html those licensees include Ooma, Roku, Box, Photobucket, Surveymonkey, Oracle, Qualcomm, Delta Airlines, the Cleveland Clinic, and Office Depot, among plenty of other familiar names.
If your choice is between "settle for $1" or "expensive litigation", the choice that maximizes shareholder value is fairly clear. If your choice is between "settle for $1 and now you're blacklisted from using the following X products" and "expensive litigation", maybe the calculus changes a little and you are more free to make a decision that you really wanted to (but couldn't justify to your board).