I am starting to believe that large, established, companies with large market share and large patent portfolios have little use for 95% of their patent portfolio. First, many patents are either weak or outdated by the time they issue. Maybe the company has changed directions from the time the patent application was filed. Or, there also might be a "file first and ask questions later policy" for many companies, so that valuable inventions are captured along with the junk patents, a bycatch of sorts. Then, the company can enhance their reputation in some communities by giving away patent rights. Second, the purpose of patents is to exclude others from making your invention for a period of time in exchange for teaching the invention to the public. This can be useful for smaller players, including individual inventors, who do not have a large market share and comparatively little money. Larger companies do not have as much need to exclude competition through use of IP, because they have already excluded competition in the market. Although, there are still the clash of the titans, such as Apple and Samsung.
A patent troll is one who abuses such patents - not one who only files for them.
If Google is to be believed, they file and desire to buy these sort of patents to prevent patent trolls from trolling with said patents.
Google has promised (and so far has kept this promise) to only use patents defensively. A patent troll uses patents offensively by filing for absurd patents and then enforcing their right to the patented thing.
Given their history, I have less concern for Google being awarded these patents then a possible patent troll filing for the same patents but choosing to use them offensively.
