It's a cost you can hedge against by owning shares in companies that use patents aggressively. (If you can stomach that morally.) I read a study one time that

It's a cost you can hedge against by owning shares in companies that use patents aggressively. (If you can stomach that morally.) I read a study one time that suggested patents did not stifle innovation in the macro because you typically have to be large and successful before you're targeted for infringing on them. The real cost is that many lawyers and judges are employed in the unproductive pursuit of resolving patent litigation when they could instead spend that in other professions making something of value. I wonder if anyone has any numbers on the total value of labor employed creating, licensing, attacking, defending, etc. patents and patent lawsuits in the world today.