It seems like everyday a new article comes out talking about patent trolls affecting our startup ecosystem. Most of these articles cite one or two famous patent trolls (Lodsys, etc). To begin to deal with these problems, just today over on Linkedin, a proposal calls for startup patent troll insurance, while Twitter is touting its Innovator’s Patent Agreement, Vermont is passing laws and suing patent trolls, while John Conryn introduced a new patent law reform bill. All of these may be fine solutions, but I would not be surprised if at this point the distraction of talking about patent trolls outweighed the distraction from actually dealing with patent trolls. While it is clear that some startups have been bothered by demand letters, at this point the hype seems to be outweighing the facts. I’d love to hear your thoughts.