All those companies are there precisely as cover for the few that really drive the lobbying efforts, so that people like you can pop up on the internet and say how it is not just a minority of companies perverting the law in their own favor. You can fall for it or you can see through it (assuming you are not a paid shill in the first place) - I think we should see through it and call it for what it is: a small minority of enormous companies manipulating laws in their own favor and to the detriment of the people.
I guess that's one perspective. For those that do want a list of the "big" companies, here are the ones that I recognize and thought of as "big names":
3M
Adobe Systems
Boston Scientific
Dolby Laboratories
The Dow Chemical Company
DuPont
Fairchild Semiconductor
Fairfield Crystal Technology
General Electric
IBM
IEEE-USA
Johnson & Johnson
Microsoft
Procter & Gamble
Qualcomm
Xerox Corporation
This is probably not a complete list, since I am not very tuned in and may not be familiar with the "big names" that others are.
Things like "Medical Device Manufacturers Association" probably count in that list as they exist solely as a lobbying group. http://www.medicaldevices.org/
That's a reasonable criticism, and I would certainly agree such an insinuation would be a step too far. However I would also argue that the tone and context of my comment make it quite clear that I don't consider the poster to be a shill, but merely allow for that possibility in qualifying my statements, which is quite different to what you are suggesting.
Since accusations of "shilling" have been made anyway, check this out: Remember when the Judge made his "Name Your Shills" order in Oracle v Google? Guess what! The author of TFA was named in Google's list of shills! I guess that makes him a legally certified shill! And since you're so quick to support the author's viewpoint...
To be fair, I don't think the author's a shill. But I've been following him since he wrote for Ars (and he's also on HN sometimes), so I can tell he certainly has drunk some Kool-aid, and it has a slight Google flavor. He interned there after all, so that may explain why Microsoft was highlighted in the headlines.
But notably, he also is (or was) a "scholar" at the Cato Institute, which believes in "limited government and free markets" and seems to have anti-IP leanings. Unsurprisingly the author's articles (even this one!) often uncritically cite the works published by academics like James Bessen, which like to paint a "sky is falling" situation with respect to US IP policies, even though these works have time and again been strongly called into question by other academics. Given that he's a scholar himself, I'd be surprised if he's unaware of that, but his articles only ever present one side.
So the Kool-aid may have other, stronger flavors as well, but he's definitely drunk some.
I find having the list in full is great, because they need to be named and shamed, too. Each and every one of them deserves a negative business impact for signing it.
