Everyone will game the IP tax by valuing it at pennies -- after all, they may not directly be using it may not have a fair market value before they take someone to court.
As a real-life example of people gaming these types of taxes, people buy expensive (>100K USD) cars in europe directly (i.e. taking delivery in stuttgart) to save on the sales tax: driving it around for a bit ensures that the car is technically "used" when brought back here, circumventing new car taxes.
I think that the idea is that if you declare the taxable value, then later try to sue someone for a much higher value, then you've now committed fraud against the IRS.
Of course, the easy work around to this is the claim that it's value increased suddenly when the patent became more useful; you start paying more tax when you start suing others.
Considering that low maintenance costs don't prevent domain squatting, I'm not sure this would be an effective tactic to prevent lots of silly patents.
I haven't thought through OP's proposal, but your objection is covered - by valuing a patent at pennies, a company would cause compulsory licenses/willful infringment penalties to also be worth pennies.
No but the taxes would have to be paid only after a successful patent case. The point is that the patent has no real market price until the first successful willful infringement penalty. Until that point, the price is arbitrary.
Until _before_ a patent case. The taxes are what gives you the ability to sue (and a limit to the damage you can be awarded), and there is no guarantee you will win your case of that your patent will not be invalidated.
Again, you have to pay the tax _before_ you can sue, and then you can only sue for the value reflected by the tax for that year, no more (and you are still subject to invalidation, etc).
As a real-life example of people gaming these types of taxes, people buy expensive (>100K USD) cars in europe directly (i.e. taking delivery in stuttgart) to save on the sales tax: driving it around for a bit ensures that the car is technically "used" when brought back here, circumventing new car taxes.