I do not speak for the (small) company I work for in any official capacity, so I will not go into the details. But we have quite a few patents, and they have been useful. There is considerable risk in coming up with a new idea and launching it in the market; a risk that a small company cannot afford to get wrong too many times. There is the risk of failure, and then just the opportunity cost of having your small team work on project A vs project B.
If our work was unprotected then larger companies could just sit and watch the small companies try, and then swoop in and take over the market if the idea is valid and the market is there. Recall that Microsoft received the "evil" moniker (which I don't really agree with, btw) in part because how often they did exactly this.
Sure, there are all kinds of injustices and inequalities in the system; I do not argue the system is perfect, nor do I suggest that I have any idea how to improve the system. There is value, however, in rewarding a company that takes risks and generates new ideas. Perhaps that value is overshadowed by the value destruction by patent trolls, I don't know (would have to see the numbers). But it is a value.