Four short years ago, eBay Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd. went to court to swat a pesky pair of tiny, Virginia-based companies that claimed, in separate actions, that their patents were being infringed by the technology giants. Not only did the corporate Davids defeat the Goliaths, but eBay and RIM are now each engaged in white-knuckle struggles to stave off injunctions that would virtually shut down their operations. Unless a legal miracle occurs, such as a favorable Supreme Court ruling, two of the world's most admired innovators could be forced to pay settlements that some analysts predict could crest $1 billion. Welcome to the dysfunctional world of patent litigation. The combination of an antiquated patent justice system and spiraling patent litigation costs are stacking the judicial deck against successful companies that want to defend themselves against patent infringement claims. Making matters worse, technical and medical innovators have become such hugely successful businesses that small companies _ known as patent trolls _ with little more than a few patents to their name are flooding courts with lawsuits. It used to be a snap for big companies to defend themselves against patent infringement cases. With deeper pockets, they typically mounted huge battles in a number of legal venues until smaller plaintiffs exhausted their budgets and cried uncle. Today, some courts, particularly federal district court in Virginia, are fast tracking patent cases, taking away big companies' advantage. Faced with these challenges and the potentially devastating outcomes of the RIM and eBay cases, legal experts say it has become too perilous to take patent fights to court.