How the software industry's litigation explosion is devastating small startups.

The Real Victims in the Patent Wars by Timothy Lee on Slate

From the article:

Last May, James Thompson, the maker of a popular calculator app for the iPhone, got a nasty surprise. "Just got hit by very worrying threat of patent infringement lawsuit," he tweeted.

The letter came from a Texas company called Lodsys LLC. The firm, widely described as a "patent troll," doesn't produce any useful products. Rather, its primary business is suing other companies that accidentally infringe its portfolio of patents, including one on the concept of buying content from within a mobile application.

Read the rest at Slate.com: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/02/patent_wars_silicon_valley_and_diy_software_innovators_.single.html