[rhino369]

Patents lower the playing field. Without them even if you develop an amazing product a big manufacturer can rip off your design and sell it cheaper than you can.

The biggest problem with the patent system is trolling. Which is actually a wealth transfer downwards. Smalltime inventors and lawyers extort F500 companies.

[WildUtah]

The vast majority of patent defendants are small companies. Startups are much more likely to be slammed by a bogus patent suit than to get a patent that proves lucrative.

Patents effectively never level the playing field. Trolls and big companies eliminating competition are the key clients and trolls are mostly multi-million or billion dollar companies like IV and rich scammers like Spangenberg, Hyatt, and Lemelson.

Trolling itself is one of the few parts of the system that sometimes targets big companies and therefore an essential font of reform ideas. Without trolling, big companies would slam startups even harder with patents. The needed reform is to limit patents and keep them away from software, business, finance, 3d-printing, CNC, robotics, and other new tech the patent lawyers are trying to destroy.