If they're trolly but a real company, each of you can sue the other; it's basically MAD. Won't work with an actual troll/NPE, but it's the reason why tech companies build patent portfolios even if they don't intend to sue anyone.
Yeah you nailed it. This was ostensibly a technology company but they haven’t put out any real products I’m aware of in long time and have extracted some large amounts from big tech over the years. If they tried to knock us off or invalidate our patent the university would have gotten involved, that’s not a profitable avenue for them. Without that protection they likely would have set up a meeting to say “oh that’s really interesting work, but you know we have a patent that covers this so really it’s our work you understand”