[Jeff Gordon]

I wouldn’t call them cheap.

I did not say that patents were cheap. I said they are relatively cheap. Cheap compared to cost of defending the patent. Of course, most patents are not valuable enough for a Microsoft or GM to attack.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Of course, most patents are not valuable enough for a Microsoft or GM to attack.

---

I disagree with your implication that large companies are on the lookout for valuable patents to infringe. Infringement happens, and when the invention is very valuable, it will get litigated. But in those cases, the owner of a valuable patent can usually fund the litigation process from the revenues added by owning the patent.

And those big boys do sometimes lose (I was personally involved in a litigation where one of those companies paid out a fraction of a Billion dollars to the owner of the patent they infringed.)

I can attest that of the hundreds of patents I have obtained in my career, only one has ever been litigated. But many (surely not all, or even a majority) provide an ample economic benefit to their owners.

Last year, I had patent clients (of my solo office, I’m not in a big firm) that were acquired in friendly buyouts for $100m and $6b, respectively. You think that would not have happened if they had no protection for their technology? (Granted, I did a lot of trademark protection work for the $100m company.)