It’s called “patent squatting”. Coming up with an “idea” (often just a slight modification of an existing technology – or no modification at all, as in some cases it is just something that has lain undeveloped in the public domain), registering a patent on it, doing nothing to develop it, waiting for a company to (generally quite separately) develop and implement the same or similar idea, and then suing them. Often these patent challenges can be successfully defended, but it is expensive to do so – so companies often just pay off the squatters.
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