[StrictDabbler]

It's also a "prisoner's dilemma" that involves playing against every other company on the planet.

If you don't patent an idea that you use somebody else will and they will extract rent from you.

So you must "defect" by paying lawyers to search through every product you make looking for ideas you've used that don't have a patent.

You cannot "cooperate" by refusing to patent ideas.

You cannot "cooperate" by refusing to inform people they've violated your patent, because somebody else who uses the idea may also be granted a patent and now you have to go to court or settle.

The result is a flood of articles saying "Apple patents obvious idea X! What bastards!", when in fact every major corporation has no sane option to avoid that behavior.

[loupol]

The dynamics at play at play are definitely similar, but not completely so.

In the prisoner's dilemma, the highest theoretical yield for each prisoner is achieved by everyone "cooperating", but that isn't really the case here.

The fixed patent fees and inadequate institutions granting them mean big companies are disproportionately able to rack up on patents and increase their yield as they "defect" and play the game. They could lobby to strongly restrict or even abolish certain types of patents but they don't have much of an interest to do so, since patents solidify their already strong position in the market.