In my new role as product manager, I recently was tasked with looking at patents, with at least part of the goal, being to work out how to add value through patents. I came to the conclusion that it is possible to make money from patents. In order to do this you need to be:
- A legal company specializing in writing patents for other people, or
- A large company generating lots of ideas that are being patented, or
- A company that makes writing and patenting ideas for yourself (i.e. patenting is the focus not innovation).
Existing Ephox customers will be happy to know that I am not suggesting that we follow any of those options 
.
Related posts:
I saw your page at http://www.rojotek.com/blog/2007/05/04/on-patents/ and was wondering if you have seen http://www.FreePatentsOnline.com ? This site allows free patent searching, free PDF downloading, free alerts, and other account features such as sharing informaiton between users. I thought the link might be a good resource to add to your site.
thanks for the heads up. I’ll keep that in mind for any future patent related work.