From Innovation to Rent Seeking - Doug French - Mises Daily

From Innovation to Rent Seeking - Doug French - Mises Daily: "It is possible that companies would have an even greater incentive to innovate if they could not rely on a near twenty-year monopoly.
Instead of spurring innovation, IP appears to be a rat's nest of litigation. For example, Google's chief legal officer, David C. Drummond, estimates that a modern smartphone might be susceptible to as many as 250,000 potential patent claims.

In a study published in 2008, James E. Bessen and a colleague, Michael J. Meurer, professors at the Boston University School of Law, concluded that the costs of litigation were twice the benefits in the areas of software and telecommunications, where "the claims are often so broad and vague that it is completely unpredictable what the patents cover and don't.""