Z:gnu-www-ja-software-patents--54fa76-There is a situation where lic/en

There is a situation where licensing patents is a very good solution. That is if you are a multinational mega-corporation. Because these companies own a lot of patents, and they cross-license with each other. That way, they escape most of the harm that the patent system does and they only get the good. IBM published an  article in Think magazine. I believe it was issue No. 5 of 1990 on IBM's patent portfolio, which said that IBM got two kinds of benefit from its 9000 US patents. I believe the number is larger today. These were first, collecting royalties and second, getting access to the patents of others. They said that the latter benefit is an order of magnitude greater. So the benefit that IBM got from being allowed to use the ideas that were patented by others was 10 times the direct benefit IBM could get from licensing patents. What does this really mean?