Quora: Costs and benefits of patents for start-ups

Advice and experience from someone who's been there Ken Tola's answer to In what scenarios will software patents filed during the early stages of a startup become a defensive barrier?:

"patents and NDA's are only as good as your lawyers and your legal budgets. Having been involved in patent litigation, I can tell you that they are easily some of the most complex cases around and the uncertainty of winning a case is extremely high. "To go further down the negative path, it takes 2-3 years to get a patent and about $50K - do you really have that kind of money?"

It looks like his experience hasn't been that great but he sees them as a necessary evil to get early seed money.