I refute this notion.
Patents in the US are dooming people who wish to make things cheap and profit. For instance, Apple spent A LOT of money and brainpower on R&D with the iPhone. They patented their work assuming that the vast sums and efforts they made would be rewarded via some exclusivity for the features/design they came up with.
Along comes a company like Google that just wants a piece of the action to further ensure their advertising revenue doesn't dry up. They don't innovate - they copy. There's no reason they can't pay license fees to people like Oracle and Apple who invested greatly in time and money to put together the technology Google decided to just copy. No reason except for the fact that doing so would keep them from profitting.
I can't see how patents are stopping innovation - I think that they actually spur it. You aren't going to be able to join in the profit taking unless you first invest in coming up with something new, and if it's good enough other people will pay you to use it. That's just how capitalism works. Apple and other innovators don't have as much incentive to do the heavy lifting if within a year or so everyone else has everything they paid dearly to invent.
As other people pointed out, Apple doesn't seem to have the same fear of patent infringement as Google (even though they are often sued for it). There's a reason for that - and it has to do with innovation.
