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I'm not buying that. The reality is early stage companies dont bother with patents as mich because of money and time constraints. Really well funded compa oes sure, but the reality is patents are a tool for the big guys, if you have to do battle with google, your startup is probably screwed either way.

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Yes, but this ignores the fact that those patents are transferred to an acquirer upon the sale of your startup. Yes, the patent is largely useless to your startup. However, if you've proven the market, a patent could be an attractive perk to acquire your startup (rather than just copying and crushing it) since they can use that patent to keep other big players out.

This is exactly the problem. Patents used to be a tool that little guys could use against the big guys. Like when Google started with a patent on its search algorithm that prevented Yahoo from copying its idea.

Interestingly, this was also a form of wealth redistribution that forced large companies to give money to smaller companies with good ideas.

If you assume that the patent system is being weakened, it is interesting how it aligns with a reduction in seed funding while at the same time seeing massive market valuations for already enormous tech companies.

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