[idspispopd]

I don't see patents, or patent defence as a problem. The problem is that patents are being granted for lowest-bar "innovations", which are leading to these cases by companies that are merely using it as yet another competition tactic. In tech we're seeing patent cases are over trivial, often minor, features which others can accidentally infringe upon without noticing.

Pharma is a different beast, it's much more difficult to have a low-bar pharmaceutical, usually by the time the work is done the medication far exceeds the threshold of patentability. (Patent exploitation does still happen, as others have pointed out with insincere drug enhancements.) It's not about regulating specific industries(which would be exploited), but rather about raising the bar on what is indeed an original invention.

The blame for this mess lay on the USPTO. The patent system is being run like a commercial entity. A granted patent will attract over $5,000 in fees to USPTO, a rejected patent will only garner $125, with much of the granted fees attributed to curiously undefined 'maintenance' cost.

http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/patents.jsp#heading-6