Yes, the vast, vast majority of patents licensing and disputes are settled out of court. This is almost always confidential and there is no data about what real

Yes, the vast, vast majority of patents licensing and disputes are settled out of court. This is almost always confidential and there is no data about what really goes on. We can draw few conclusions from this lack of data. However what we can determine is that expensive and time-wasting lawsuits, which you hold to be the symptoms of a "broken system" are extremely rare, and so this arguably is a good thing. Also, when litigation does occur, small companies are initiating it significantly often. This sheds little light on how small companies use patents outside litigation -- there are surveys showing startups in different industries use patents differently -- but it certainly shows that the small guy vs big guy scenario is much more common than grandparent assumed. There is no evidence at all that the vast majority of regular, non-litigation activity is problematic. The only major complaint was trolls, but when the GAO investigated the problem they put out a report that essentially said, "meh". Admittedly the requisite data about mass-mailed demand letters is not available, but there is legislation in the works on that front. > That is not how the landscape looks in e.g. the pharmaceutical industry. Just because somebody doesn't make a pithy infographic about it does not mean it doesn't happen: http://www.fiercepharma.com/tags/patent-lawsuits http://www.fiercepharma.com/tags/patent-lawsuits Note that this link only lists articles from 2008. If you google a bit with a custom time range, you'll find tons more patent lawsuit articles from before 2008 too. The reasons you don't hear about it is because any combination of: a) it's been this way forever, so whenever a new drug suit happens it's just the usual; b) pharma lawsuits don't generate rageviews which end up posted on HN; and c) you probably are not in the pharma industry. Just parroting the "patent system is broken" line the media puts out does not make it so.