A gentleman, hereinafter called the purchaser
I thought the purpose of patents was to spur innovation by giving people who invent something the exclusive use of their innovation for a limited time.
There’s still some of that. But out in Silicon Valley, patents have become the competitive weapon of choice, used by high-tech giants to bludgeon rivals and crush upstarts.
It turns out that the more patents you have, the more likely it is that you can extort exorbitant royalties from people who might have easily come up with the same idea or the same feature that you did but never thought to patent it. And the more patents you have, the more your competitor wants so he can retaliate with a patent suit of his own, claiming that it was you who stole the ideas from him.
