[YBA] i4i vs MS?

[geoffrey mendelson]

On Aug 13, 2009, at 2:49 PM, Danny Lieberman wrote:
>
> They later wrote a full length 323 page book - which I got after  
> reading the paper (which was a teaser I guess...)

Ok, the GROKLAW article said they were in the process of writing. I'd  
love to see that book.


> The book deals with fundamental problems of patents - fuzzy,  
> unpredictable boundaries, possession and scope of rights, patent  
> flood (software/way of doing business patents are relatively new...)  
> The empirical evidence is that patents don't behave like property.

At least the evidence shown. Evidence is not proof. Evidence is always  
limited by your filters. In this case what you know, what you read,  
and what they told you.


> They spend an entire chapter bringing empirical data regarding how  
> much patents are worth to their owners -relating market value of  
> public firms to their assets including their patent portfolio.

That also depends upon how much you spend. You can file a patent for  
$100 in the US, but if you want it to hold up at all you have to hire  
someone at the level of Sandy Kolb, which will cost you around $100k  
if there is no need for him to fight it. From experience, if you hire  
a cheap patent agent, you get what you pay for (or don't).


> For example - IBM began listing IP and licensing royalties  in their  
> annual financial reports beginning in 2000 - about $1.5billion +/-  
> per year.  The majority of the $1.5BN is value of IP sold off by IBM  
> including IP held by divisions they sold off as well as custom- 
> development revenue.  The actual amount of revenue from their patent  
> licensing program is far less - about $125M gross the cost of IBM's  
> several hundred patent lawyers.
>
> The $1.,5BN figure is an urban legend.

I disagree. What's the difference between selling off something you  
bought (or created) in one lump sum, or in bits. You can make money on  
selling a live cow or you can make money on selling hamburgers. Same  
as selling off a company, or selling single user licenses.

BTW, I remember when ALL IBM software was free.


Geoff.
-- 
geoffrey mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Jerusalem Israel geoffreymendelson at gmail.com