Companies Get Smart and Give Patents Away

The Associated Press (via the Cincinnati Post) ran a story about companies giving away dormant patents, particularly to non-profits and governments to develop. It's not pure altruism and also not just about tax deductions. The article quotes an expert saying 90 to 95 percent of all patents are idle. I've heard somewhat lower numbers from various IP experts, but it's still well over 80 percent. Now multiple that by the number of patents large companies hold and then by $100,000 - which is the conservative amount of hard costs for maintaining a patent over its lifetime. Big companies went on sprees patenting everything because of the once popular thought that there was uncounted wealth waiting in the unprotected and undeveloped intellectual property they owned. Instead, the exercise turned out to be massively expensive. So cutting losses and sweeping out the cabinets is a wise thing.