I'm actually more worried about what the current day patent battles portend for the future than what impact they are having now. We now have Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, and a horde of patent trolls aggressively patenting every possible concept they can, whether they are using it or not. And they are perfecting the art of getting patents through the patent office which are as general as possible in nature. If this continues in 20 years you will essentially need a license to practice software development from one or more of the big companies because every form of computation will be patented at the fundamental level. Large companies will be able to terminate any small startup by simply drafting a letter with a list of basic patents they are violating.

If this happens, the US will simply become less and less competitive unless it (the country) goes out of business.