Cheap Patents

I was reading about some farce situation in America where Microsoft have been sued and found guilty by a Court for infringing a patent and fined £175M and also ordered to stop selling MS Word in America. Why? because according to the court, MS have infringed a patent that covers using XML in computer documents like the new MSXML format used in Office (and also other formats used in suites like OpenOffice).
Personally I like to think of MS as the big bully of the software world like everyone else but in this instance, I think it shows up again the problem with the patent system. A patent is to legally protect a good idea. It has to be something novel, not just a play on an existing theme but here is the rub, it only has to be an idea. I can sit at home, come up with idea and do nothing with it other than patent it and hope someone else wants to buy the idea from me.
If indeed the company who filed the patent were commercial, they should have done something with the idea by now and not be allowed to enforce a patent. In software, it is easy to come up with ideas to patent. Why don't I patent using eye-movements to play computer games (except it probably already is) just because it is an obvious next step and then some company can buy the idea from me?
It needs to be overhauled. It's not like Frank Whittle patenting a jet engine which he is developing and doesn't want someone else to copy for a while but software patents? honestly. Let people maybe have a year or so to do something with the idea, perhaps develop it into something practical and if not, the patent is void!! MS, I hope you win the appeal against the stupid conviction.