"I bet you don't personally know a single "little innovator guy" who has successfully been protected by a patent." I know plenty. My last boss being one of th

"I bet you don't personally know a single "little innovator guy" who has successfully been protected by a patent." I know plenty. My last boss being one of them. His product was copied by a competitor (the entire design) and sold under a different name. It got so bad that people were calling up think we were this company and it hurt sales overall. He sued them in court, won, and actually got the entire company as a settlement (in addition to around $500,000. His product was simple enough to copy and without legal protections, a much larger company would could easily steal his entire market share.