Innovation != Patents

Let’s Compete on Innovation Rather Than Patents: "In the tech world, patents don’t foster innovation; they inhibit it. They are like nuclear weapons in an arms race, in that companies use them to hold competitors back or to extort license fees from companies that can’t afford the time and cost of litigation. These battles play out every week in Silicon Valley: among the behemoths—Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle, and SAP—and between behemoths, startups, patent trolls, and large corporations. Startup entrepreneurs live in constant fear that behemoths or patent trolls will bankrupt them with frivolous lawsuits."