[MegaButts]

I was curious what IBM still makes that people use since they sold their Thinkpad division to Lenovo years ago, so I googled it:

> IBM produces and sells computer hardware, middleware and software, and provides hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. IBM is also a major research organization, holding the record for most U.S. patents generated by a business (as of 2019) for 26 consecutive years.

What on Earth are all of those patents for?

[2sk21]

As an ex-IBMer with a few dozen patents, I can explain this. The company offer a big cash bonus for filing patents. But I do have to mention that it's not very easy to get an a patent idea through the internal review process. These patents are mostly for enabling horse trading with other big tech companies. For example, Google bought a big batch of patents from IBM when they got hit by the first wave of lawsuits about 9 years ago.

[blihp]

Something that can be listed as (intangible) assets on their balance sheet as well as for use as defensive/offensive weapons against other companies. The majority of them likely have very little actual value.

[rxhernandez]

I had someone from IBM service my Lenovo P50 Thinkpad last week so they still do that apparently.

[atkbrah]

I was also recently surprised when I made a service call for one of our lenovos and the replies to it came from an ibm.com address.

[riffraff]

they have patents on a ton of stuff, I'm sure some of those make sense. As they say, "9,100 patents granted in 2018" [0]

[0] https://www.research.ibm.com/patents/