The sky is falling - patents version 

You may have noticed that two economists who are also law professors have received prominence in the New York Times for their view that patents are bad for innovation.  The thesis seems to be that costs of patent litigation in the US alone to patent owning, publicly listed companies by 1999 exceeded the profits they made by almost $1 billion dollars.

Hmmmm ...

New York Times article here (free subscription required).

Patently-O's commentary with links here.