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Blue Meme, The anger is more directed toward how abuse of the patent system has led pharmaceutical and medical technology companies to extort the public beyond reason to the point that it's harming us economically. in the name of public good it is something that should be limited, not eliminated. patent litigation actually tends to be minimal. it's a drawn out process. innovation in Silicon Valley is more about getting popular and building a following with an idea. usually when an idea has come out, all the tech guys steal it and build on it and so on. are you unaware of just how Mac, DOS, Windows came to be? all those guys stole from each other, built on each other, and creatively collaborated often quite competitively. Silicon Valley is and always has been driven not by patents but by free thought and creativity and collaboration. I'm getting the feeling you might actually be what is called a "patent troll", based on how much of an advocate you are for litigation and patents. because while there are formalities to getting a patent on an tech innovations, the process really is so fluid and open that if you've totally robbed someone of an idea you're called on it and unable to truly capitalize. recourse in the legal system over patents is actually not that common, and when it is, it's usually so far after the fact to be profitable that it clearly wasn't a crucial aspect of driving the innovation within technology to begin with, this is in Silicon Valley especially! - Chris Engel