Doesn't seem to work like that

Perhaps the patent trolls simply aren't a big enough problem yet. In other words, as software companies are growing, there are now bigger software companies than in 1994, and naturally: the patent weapon against smaller companies is simply becoming more useful. If the patent troll pain is not growing proportionally more than this "utility" than, it follows that patents will still be seen in good light for larger companies. Do you have any evidence that this patent troll pain is indeed growing as fast as the larger companies' utility of patents as a weapon is growing? If not, I am not quite sure you can say that "the opposite is happening", unless you are merely responding to this small part of my post: "perhaps we could see their abandon"...

PriceWaterHouseCoopers recently did a patent litigation study.
http://www.pwc.com/us/en/forensic-services/publications/a...

A few of the conclusions:
* Non-practicing Entities (also known as trolls) are having an increasing impact.
* Damages awards for NPEs have averaged more than double those for practicing entities since 1995.
* Juries tend to find in favor of the patent holder much more often than judges.
* The "reasonable royalties" metric is usually used to calculate damages, rather than "lost profits."

The report also goes on to say:
> High-tech software and telecommunications companies may embed hundreds of
> patented components within their products; thus, they welcome changes to
> current patent law. However, major pharmaceutical companies, biotech
> companies, and NPEs, who typically have a smaller number of patents
> covering their products, prefer the status quo.

There's no details about what changes, exactly, the software companies were pushing for in the 2009 Patent Reform Act. I doubt that the companies wanted to abolish software patents completely, but they may well have wanted to abolish some of the more egregious abuses.