[agounaris]

What I don't understand with patent trolls is how this will even go a trial? How does this work?

There is a random lawsuit therefore you'll either have to pay or go to a trial? Who accepted the lawsuit in the first place and based on what legal ground?

[acomjean]

Basically they say you are violating their patent. You can license it for $X and then everything is good. If you don't license it we will sue you for patent infringement.

The problem is typically defending yourself cost you a lot more money than it would be to just pay the $X. In other countries if you defended yourself and won, the loser would have to pay your cost, but not in the US making it a less risky venture.

Often times small companies are quite busy and just pay the license fee to make the trolls go away. Unfortunately that just ends up creating more trolls.

There are ways to invalidate a patent, but the US Patent Office that granted the bad patent is immune from any financial liability from the damage their bad patent caused, so the US Patent Office keeps granting them.