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Hellmark, patents have to be "enabling." If a patent is sufficiently vague that it does NOT enable someone "skilled in the art" to create such a device then it is easily challenged. It doesn't have to enable someone in the general public but it would have to enable a specialist in that technical field.
There is a different cost to challenging patents depending on whether you want some input to the re-examination ("inter parte" versus "ex parte"). Including legal fees it commonly runs $10-50K to re-examine a US patent (assuming the USPTO agrees to do it) and can run higher if you have several inter parte rounds that require significant patent attorney time. That is one order of magnitude less expensive than a similar lawsuit in a US court.
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