> How is this worse than starting a business without a patent? The argument in the article is that if you don't have the resources to commercially exploit a pa

> How is this worse than starting a business without a patent? The argument in the article is that if you don't have the resources to commercially exploit a patent yourself, then no one else will pay you for your invention, because a) the frictional costs in licensing from you are too high, especially when b) they can just steal the idea, since you are too poor to defend yourself in court. That creates an inefficient market. Personally, I think the effect of b) is smaller than implied, since an inventor could always sell the patent to a troll who can afford to defend it (though discounted by some large risk premium)... nevertheless I've heard of it happening. The effect of a) is very real. Just consider any software product given away for free... even a requirement to count how many copies are distributed for the purposes of computing a royalty may be inimical to the business model.