I'm pretty disappointed in an article like this coming from The Economist. This is nothing more than poorly-researched piling onto the popular anti-patent sentiment.

Case In Point 1: If the company suing Spotify is truly a patent troll (i.e. a non-practicing entity), then buying into IV's patent fund would not help them. Having defensive patents only works when the aggressor has a line of business that could be threatened with patent infringement.

Case In Point 2: I have to take issue with Lemley's critique of simultaneous invention. To name two high-profile cases, consider the Bell-Gray simultaneous invention of the telephone, or Dow and Exxon's slugfest over metallocene-catalyzed polyethylene patent protection in the late 1990's.