Apple is just doing what makes them money, and the Chinese company that bought Segway is also just doing what makes it money.
The real issue is a patent system that allows someone to refuse to license a patent. That goes against the whole point of patents. You're supposed to be getting the innovative technology out there in exchange for the right to royalties. If technological progress has not been furthered by the publicization of your patent (by other companies building novel devices that they otherwise wouldn't have, using what they learned from your patent), then you don't really have a patent. You have a trade secret that the government is helping you protect for some reason.
Patents should require licensing to keep them alive in about the same way that trademarks require defending to keep them alive.
>The real issue is a patent system that allows someone to refuse to license a patent.
One solution (suggested in the book "Radical Markets" - http://radicalmarkets.com/ ) is pretty straightforward: charge a yearly tax of around 7% on the patent equal to whatever the patent owner claims it is worth, with the caveat that they MUST sell the entire patent to whoever is willing to pay the claimed "value" of said patent - this prevents under-pricing AND over-pricing and ensures maximal societal benefit of said government-granted monopoly.
The book goes into a lot more detail, and the authors have good solutions for the more obvious arguments against such a scheme.
The real issue is a patent system that allows someone to refuse to license a patent. That goes against the whole point of patents. You're supposed to be getting the innovative technology out there in exchange for the right to royalties. If technological progress has not been furthered by the publicization of your patent (by other companies building novel devices that they otherwise wouldn't have, using what they learned from your patent), then you don't really have a patent. You have a trade secret that the government is helping you protect for some reason.
Patents should require licensing to keep them alive in about the same way that trademarks require defending to keep them alive.