U.S. politicians appeared sympathetic to tech companies' cries for help combating what are commonly called "patent trolls" -- companies that supposedly hold patents for no reason other than coaxing inflated settlements out of wealthy corporations. "The patent system should reward creativity, not legal gamesmanship," Rep. Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who chairs a House of Representatives intellectual-property panel, said at a hearing titled "Patent Trolls: Fact or Fiction?"