[freyr]

You're assuming that patents promote innovation once they're defended in court.

Another argument would be that they promote innovation by (1) preventing blatant rip offs in the first place, (2) incentivizing individual inventors who invest their time and money with the assurance that their efforts won't be blatantly ripped off in the end by someone with more resources.

There are countless examples of truly innovative patents filed by individuals who devoted their lives to creating new things. Some of the inventors profited directly from their patents, others spent their life savings in court trying to defend their patents.

There are also countless patents for idiotic ideas, and countless idiotic patents that shouldn't have been filed in the first place. But saying all patents are bad might be throwing out the baby with the bathwater.