Of course, it goes both ways and laws often favor the strong against the weak. But it is not all one-sided.
Is that really the case? Does it work? Isn't Instagram basically cloning TIkTok right now? and cloned Snap before that?
Apple with Alfred, Spotlight, F.lux etc are also examples. Seems like for software, either patents aren't utilized or simply can't be enforced.
I only know VMWare from its days as virtualization software. I would put money on them having had a bunch of patents on the specific techniques they used.
Software patents sometimes work out, sometimes not. If I were king of the world I wouldn't get rid of them but narrow the scope down to protecting specific implementations, none of this "Buying stuff of the internet" pantenting that invested the 00s.
That's called competition