???In Technology Wars, Using the Patent as a Sword??? - New York Times Feature

[Tzafrir Cohen]

On Tue, Oct 09, 2012 at 07:23:51PM +0200, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
> Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
>
>> | http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/google-closes-12-5-billion-deal-to-buy-motorola-mobility/
>> | (last visited May 24, 2012). Google has since said that of the $12.5B, $5.5 were
>> | for patents, which is still a staggering sum.
>
> No, it's not. It's actually a meager sum when you consider that they  
> bought more than 17,000 active and 7,500 pending patents.
>
> Google calculator tells me that's $265,000 for each patent, which is  
> pretty cheap considering it supposed to cover the costs of the  
> developers, patent fees, lawyers, etc.

Patents also expire after a certain period. Patents may also be pure
crap that will not stand in court.

As for covering developer time and lawyer time: why was this time spent
in the first place? This is part of the overhead of the company. Why
would you expect such activity to be profitable?

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