I remember 5-10 years ago it was seen as a big item on the startup checklist to have a few patents under your belt. Is that still the case now that open source is eating the world? Are patents even defensible?
I'm not sure it's ever been common for (non-hardware) startups to seek patents.<p>I think it's becoming less common, both because modern startups are less likely to be producing patentable inventions, and because the US Supreme Court invalidated a wide area of software patents previously considered valid in the _Alice_ case in 2014.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_United_States_patent_law#Alice_case" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_United_...</a>