Turn it around: think of Google as a young startup, VST is a big 800-lb gorilla. Startup is working on something cool; big gorilla comes along and says "hey, yo

Turn it around: think of Google as a young startup, VST is a big 800-lb gorilla. Startup is working on something cool; big gorilla comes along and says "hey, you should buy that from me, and/or license my patents". But maybe patents are these all-too-common obvious troll-patents, and startup's stuff is different anyway. But startup would still be rightfully concerned about (arguably frivolous) lawsuits. Seems like the perspective changes depending on who plays David and who is Goliath. Generally, YC crowd is pretty hard core anti-patent, especially where software and algorithms are concerned.