Moser references James Bessen who wrote a highly-cited paper that has been largely debunked [1][2][3]. Specifically, the paper claimed patents cost the economy $29B per year.

> "Actually it's good to have someone actually look into the data and challenge the dominant assumptions"

Challenging the dominant assumption would be to challenge Bessen's number and the numerous articles that automatically assume that value to be true.

[1] http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117421 [2] http://www.iam-media.com/blog/Detail.aspx?g=454c1adc-52c3-4c... [3] https://gametimeip.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/patent-scholars-...