"If large incumbents didn't have broad software patents to bury start-ups, they would use their market coverage." I'm not sure what you mean by market coverage

"If large incumbents didn't have broad software patents to bury start-ups, they would use their market coverage." I'm not sure what you mean by market coverage but if you mean their incumbent product then that's exactly what a startup usually seeks to disrupt (successful or not this is the challenge the startup is taking on anyway). "If they don't use that, then they can just use their connections to the government to legislate start-ups out of existence." In a way this is exactly what the current patent system accomplishes. Except it's through litigation, not legislation (but it's legislation allowing for the grounds of litigation). "If they don't use that, they can just buy the property the start-up physically occupies and burn it to the ground." Now you're just being absurd. "Gigantic, established companies will always have an edge, regardless of patents. Abolishing the system and creating a wild-west scenario is ridiculous." What we have now is a wild-west scenario where submarine patents and overly broad patents allow trolls (and even practicing entities looking to squash competition) can simply litigate at will and the costs of defending overwhelm their competition (unless they're equally large or play the same game with cross licensing patents).