Reading stories like this greatly decreases my motivation for creating software and services. Based on the evidence, it seems that anything I create, even if it

Reading stories like this greatly decreases my motivation for creating software and services. Based on the evidence, it seems that anything I create, even if it is wholly original to me, will probably get me sued for patent infringement if I ever start making any money from it. It seems even the most obvious and easy to implement software functionality is now covered by multiple overlapping patents. When I was a kid in the mid 1980s, my best friend and I spent countless hours brainstorming what the computers of the future would be used for. We correctly anticipated just about everything and if our 10 year old selves had found a good patent lawyer, I guess I'd be a rich patent troll instead of just another developer Angry at the Man.