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IBM First Company to Win 4,000 Patents in a Year, More Than Microsoft and Intel Combined
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kleptoman
01/14/09

In reply to IBM First Company to Win 4,000 Patents in a Year, More Than Microsoft and Intel Combined
4,000 patents probably translates to about 4,000,000 hours of legal counsel. As usual, the only people who benefit from this ingenuity are the lawyers...
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N@tedog
01/14/09

@kleptoman: I was gonna say... Their legal council must be the same size as R&D.
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OMG! Ponies!
01/14/09

In reply to IBM First Company to Win 4,000 Patents in a Year, More Than Microsoft and Intel Combined
For the record, I am the world's first supercomputer sex machine.
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Monty
01/14/09

@OMG! Ponies!: Time for a firmware upgrade?
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damnelantra™
01/14/09

In reply to IBM First Company to Win 4,000 Patents in a Year, More Than Microsoft and Intel Combined
any top picks from that list of 4k. im sure there are some real eyeopeners
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Monty
01/14/09

In reply to IBM First Company to Win 4,000 Patents in a Year, More Than Microsoft and Intel Combined
I assume this is the nuclear missile philosophy thrown into the patent world. We need thousands of them because they have thousands of them, and if any of us ever use them, we're all fucked.
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damnelantra™
01/14/09

@Monty: mutually assured lawsuit?

or M.A.L.
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Mpls_Mikey
01/14/09

@Monty: Actually, IBM is slightly different. They get a lot of patents so they can earn a lot in licensing revenues. I believe it was also the first company to earn $1 Billion in IP licensing revenues. So IBM looks at patents sort of like blue chip stocks.

That being said, I am sure they also are known to get into litigation over their core business.
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Monty
01/14/09

@Mpls_Mikey: They had a little known case against SCO that says they may be more than willing to litigate to protect their property. That said, I understand what you are saying. They certainly are a number of steps above the businesses that do nothing but buy patents.
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