[cletus]

I couldn't disagree more with the linkage some have between companies only using patents "defensively" and/or financially rewarding employees to file patents. The two are unrelated.

Yahoo is dying. It has been for some time, arguably the better part of a decade. At some point all such companies end up in hands of management and/or a board who simply want to extract every last dime. Much like how some dying stars go supernova, large dying companies often explode in a conflagration of litigation. We saw it with SCO. Now it's Yahoo's turn (apparently).

But to argue that this is a product of acquiring patents is ridiculous. Not doing so will do nothing but hasten your demise. Software patents are ridiculous and should be declared invalid (wholesale) but until that happens, that's the system we live in.

If anything, the more ridiculous patent lawsuits we have, the more it hastens the onset of commonsense and (hopefully meaningful) patent reform.

[Dylan16807]

Only harryh's comment is mentioning that link, so I don't know why you didn't address that point in a reply.

But I think your disagreement is misaimed. I don't see that comment as implying a correlation between aggression and employee rewards. Rather it's saying that all companies eventually aggress with patents, and because of this you can never use claims to the contrary as moral justification for your patent bonus.

[valuegram]

You're wrong about yahoo "dying". They've increased revenue by about 800% and earnings by 1000% in that decade of death you're referring to.

As for "Yahoo the search engine" - that certainly seems to be a lost cause, but Yahoo has built a substantial business over the course of the last decade. Assets such as their Fantasy Sports, Yahoo Finance, and Flickr are thriving - not to mention their stake in Alibaba.

[shingen]

Yahoo is currently hitting a $5 billion per year sales rate.

Sales for fiscal 2005 were $5.3 billion.

Yes, they're obviously a rocket ship of growth.

They're rotting. Worse than their 7 years of stagnation (let's not even inflation adjust for the comparison), is that their leadership is completely non-existent; they have no category killers that are banging out the growth and profits; they no longer produce big innovative products; their core as a portal is eroding; their dominance in display advertising has been eclipsed.

[valuegram]

"A rocket ship of growth" and dying are two very different things.

...and I agree on the leadership issues.

I'm not saying they're perfect, I'm not even saying I agree with their actions in this case - I definitely don't. What I am saying is maintaining/growing (depending on your sample range) revenues and increasing earnings through a global recession isn't dying.

[mindslight]

An alternative process to fix the problem would be to pressure supposed "defensive only" companies to put that promise in writing by offering universal defensive-only patent grants akin to the GPL. Named inventors could even push that change at their own company, in exchange for going on record that their implementation actually counts as an 'invention'.

[shmerl]

To fix this problem, software patents need to be abolished as a practice damaging for society and innovation. While they exists, they'll be abused by trolls.

[mindslight]

I certainly don't disagree - I was just addressing the specific problem of companies convincing themselves/employees that their patents are only for 'defensive purposes', and then suffering a change of priorities. If the company legally commits to defensive-only use, then there can be no change of heart later; as such, employees that take issue with supporting a given patent as a bona fide invention should push for such a committal rather than relying on non-binding promises.

[shmerl]

That's true. In some cases this happens, for example members of OIN have legal obligations not to use patents against each other at least. But I'm not sure there is any company that took a solid legal obligation not to be a patent aggressor in general.

[moonchrome]

You can view patent trolls as the unsung heroes pointing to the inherent flaws of the system :)