If whoever is holding the patent is not using it for anything other than sue people, then I really don't care that Apple infringed it without licensing.
That sort of goes in the face of your "licensing or selling it to others" above though, right?
Let's say you have a patent. You're trying to get someone to license it. They decide, no, we'd rather just use it for free instead. Now you have no buyers, and no licensors -- what is your option but a lawsuit?
If you can demonstrate that you were trying to get it into production, then there's nothing wrong with a lawsuit. I mean, maybe there are better solutions (making them more and more expensive to hold the older they get was mentioned by someone). The goal should be to prevent hoarding for the purpose of rent seeking, without intention for ever actually producing anything. That is, that patents are to protect your invention while you implement it, in order to encourage innovation.
But honestly, I'd be happier to just abolish patents altogether.
