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> It would be nice to have a way to protect the "little guy" when they figured out a break through, showed it to the "big guy" and was then ripped off.

It was the "big guys" that lobbied for increased IP protections in the 1990's, for a pretty good reason: protection from foreign competitors. I worked with a big router company once, who told me that a Chinese company had ripped off their router designs down to the English silk-screened assembly instructions on the PCBs. All of the little-company versus big-company stuff is small potatoes compared to that overarching concern.

That's why a lot of big technology companies are still strong supporters of patents. They don't want Chinese companies copying their chips down to bugs in the firmware and undercutting them on the market because they don't have any need to recoup R&D costs.

your statement is contradictory - you claim large corps increased IP protection yet what we see today is that patents are the weakest they've ever been.

That's not true. While recent Supreme Court decisions have cut back certain kinds of patents, the U.S. has successfully exported its patent system abroad through treaties and the WTO. Protection of IP in say China is a lot stronger now than a couple of decades ago.

sure, there are numerous jurisdictions outside of the U.S. where patents have become stronger, but enforcing a U.S. patent is the weakest it's ever been.

> for a pretty good reason: protection from foreign competitors

How do US patents protect from foreign competitors? Are you referring only to the US market or otherwise? Depending on the industry outside of the US might be a far larger market so I don't know how successful patents are in this area. I'm curious as to the data about this.

I'll be honest though I wish patents worked.

I'm glad patents don't work. I've always felt there's something very deeply wrong with owning an idea.

I don't mean in the form that they exist today but the original ideal behind them: that they can protect someone with little to no money from being steam rolled when they come up with a new invention / novel idea that is taken by the bigger guys. At least this felt like the original intent of patents but it simply can't work like that today.

And yeah owning an idea is terrible. It would have been nice to at least be required to demonstrate the idea being patented. But that opens all sorts of issues.

> But in practice the "little guy" would need millions of dollars just to create the case and go after the "big guy".

This is the exact problem that many patent trolls solve. If your patent is strong enough, they will take your case on "contingency" and take a (huge) cut of the winnings, if any. Patent trolls can help even the imbalance between the big guys and the little guys.

Not surprising then that the loudest complaints about patent trolls come from the "big guys". Unfortunately for them, multiple studies, including by the GAO and professors like Michael Risch and Coleen Chien show that there is no real patent troll litigation crisis. Fortunately for them, tech media is happy to regurgitate their PR for the rage-view value, and most people are happy to accept it uncritically.

Not... quite.

People criticize the patent trolls that are using generic/obvious patents that somehow got approved when they should have been rejected.

"Interface for opening a door by use of hand and twisting motion" (aka: a doorknob)

Those types of patents. The ones worded ever so carefully as to try and sneak by being declined. When people refer to patent trolls they are mostly referring to the companies that purchase the rights to these kinds of patents and go on a litigation hunt of any big fish they find infringing to try and sucker out payments.

I do not see it as patent trolling when someone who say... invented a jetpack and has a patent on the technology in use going through a firm to sue an infringing superbody who has infringed upon the patent to sell their jetpack because they can mass manufacture and undersell the small business. That's what I see as a "legitimate use" of patents.

On the other hand, "Backpack to be worn to fly through the air through means of jet propulsion technology" (aka: jetpack with no working functionality patented) is not a legitimate patent in my eyes and is sat on to prevent anyone from making jetpacks because the moment they invent a jetpack they'd be sued. That's what stifles innovation.

As with my reply to monochromatic, I guess the issue here is the definition of the term "patent troll". People often use the term anytime a patent they don't like is asserted. However, studies suggest that patent trolls don't assert patents any worse or better than those that practicing entities assert. See for instance, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1792442 for a limited by illustrative empirical study which also references several other related papers. This study also indicates that NPEs are probably a significant avenue for assertion of patents from individual inventors.

I will agree that there is a substantial patent quality problem, with a number of overly broad and poorly-defined patents being asserted by firms, non-practicing or otherwise. However, from my observation over almost a decade, I would also say that this problem is declining rapidly, as most of these patents were issued during a period when the PTO had no idea how to deal with them two decades ago.

Patent trolls don't (traditionally anyway) do stuff on contingency. They buy patents, and then they monetize them.

I have seen the term "patent troll" being applied to law firms who take patent cases on contingency. I guess the issue here is the definition of the term "patent troll". People tend to twist it freely to mean "somebody using some patents in a way that I don't like".

Too true. "Non-practicing entity" feels like (and is, I guess) doublespeak, but at least it would make it clearer that a law firm doesn't qualify.

> But in practice the "little guy" would need millions of dollars just to create the case and go after the "big guy".

Not true at all. If you have a good case, you can probably find a law firm willing to handle it on contingency.