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.