You're the one misunderstanding. A big company don't take any risk to file a patent, it's a few thousand of dollars and a few lawyer hours, and that's chump change for them. And that's a great sum for the small guy.

That's why you see companies like IBM, Samsung, Microsft and Apple patenting the hell out of everything[1]. It's actually a great defense move (so, yeah, it's the inverse of risk) and sometimes take no research (just lawyers and money).

There are some patents that USPTO keeps rejecting from Apple, and Apple just changes the wording and try again[2] (no small guy can afford that) until they finally get the patent. Such a wonderfully new researched and risky idea shouldn't take more than one try on the USPTO, don't you think?

Sources:

[1] A Patent Warrior’s Education: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/technology/patent-wars-amo...

[2] The Patent Bureaucracy: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/technology/patent-wars-amo...