Exactly. And I also try to avoid companies that settle. I totally understand why they do it but still... in my eyes it's like supporting terrorism. I feel it's wrong to give terrorists any money even when it's advantageous to your business or even when you are threatened by them.
That's a fine ideology but when trolls are diverting precious resource and focus away from actual innovation over protracted and expensive legal inventions, settling can be a pragmatic choice for just getting on with life. I'd love to be in RackSpace's position of being able to hammer down these worthless parasites.
Once you settle, other trolls see you as a target. Kipling's Dane-Geld [1] explains this pretty well. "Getting on with life" is not something that paying extortionate patent settlements will always allow you to do.
By spending more resources to not only defend themselves, but also destroy the weapon that the patent troll is using, Rackspace is advertising that not only do other trolls risk spending money in court, but they also risk the invalidation of their patents. Anyone trolling is unlikely to want to risk that.
IMO it's more like "negotiating with terrorists" than outright support (which is bad enough).
The psychology/poli-sci experts have agreed on "don't negotiate terrorists" for a reason, and I think that attitude applies perfectly in this patent troll situation.
