It's tough.
Clearly though, if you hold patents and you pursue them aggressively, you will cause a change in the law, to *your* detriment. Patent law, particularly in software, just won't stand up if pushed too hard.
You'd better be careful about how aggressively you pursue your intellectual property rights, otherwise the community will turn around and throw those rights away.
The fact that this is true only goes to show how feeble the entire situation is. Patent law is there so that the powerful can keep the 'not powerful' underneath them. It's basically disgusting.
I don't know what we should do about human obsolescence though..
John.