Comment Re:Hostile to small business? (Score 1) 168
He didn't just look at startup numbers--you missed the concentration measures, which are based on total market share.
But you're right that you really can't draw any ironclad conclusions from this paper. The best summary I'd give would be to say that everyone predicted gloom and doom with software patents, and then it turned out patents likely impacted the software industry the same way they affected every other industry. Which is, on the whole, not that much except to shift some money away from larger businesses and into the hands of some combination of innovators and trolls. (They may also have helped some large companies squish smaller ones, but given the expense of litigation, large companies usually have far better means of squishing smaller ones)
But you're right that you really can't draw any ironclad conclusions from this paper. The best summary I'd give would be to say that everyone predicted gloom and doom with software patents, and then it turned out patents likely impacted the software industry the same way they affected every other industry. Which is, on the whole, not that much except to shift some money away from larger businesses and into the hands of some combination of innovators and trolls. (They may also have helped some large companies squish smaller ones, but given the expense of litigation, large companies usually have far better means of squishing smaller ones)
