[marcinzm]

Now image if there weren't patents. The larger entities would simply wait for their smaller competitors, copy their products and then use their capital to more efficiently/cheaply manufacture/market them.

edit: While also maintaining massive private documentation stores that further give them a moat. Patents are public so you at least know what someone did 20 years ago even if you're a one person shop. Without them you'd be in trouble unless you had access to a large companies massive and very private internal invention documentation store.

[kiba]

Larger entities have lawyers and can afford more of them. It doesn't protect the little guys so much as allow larger entities monopoly power.

Patents are by themselves not a business model. They merely buy a seat at the negotiation table. Leverage is another matter entirely.