But for every successful indie dev there are already many more unsuccessful ones irrespective of patents. The question is, how many successful devs get hit out of the pool of successful devs?

The odds are already pretty long for being a successful dev, but if these letters take out 10, 15, or 20% of the would-be successful ones, that's a big deal.

I agree they are rare and there are 100 potential pitfals before patents would become a concern for a startup, but they are still starting to scare a lot of people with the current press they are getting. It is a tricky issue for me to decide on. On one hand I fully understand the need for patents, there would be a lot more horror stories of the little guys getting squashed without them. On the other hand I hate the way huge companies are using them as a revenue stream. I personal would like to see patents become unenforcible if you can not show that you are currently working on a product that utilizes the patent or have a product in production that utilizes it. Stop letting companies just own a patent for the hell of it.