Defensive Patent Strategies

The "defense" part is that big company X with a large patent portfolio might sue you for infringing on a patent - unless you have a large patent portfolio because then if they sue you, your lawyers can review everything they're doing and compare it to your patent portfolio and find ways to sue them. This is something like mutually assured destruction.It seems preposterous to me, but this is also the basic idea I've got from working at multiple big companies where they have

Google is not the only company who accumulated a patent portfolio to be used defensively. If they start suing people they can expect to be sued back. It would also potentially ruin Google's relationship with other companies who would be reluctant to work with them if it could lead to a chance to be sued: e.g. If you sell some technology to Google to use they can discover that it has something that looks like something that they patented, which is enough grounds to sue you. This is too much

Protected from me patenting it and then suing small companies that use it.

They've probably got a ton of lawyers who would come after you based on their patents. Doubt op has mega cash to fight that.

Because owning the patent protects you from predatory companies. Any technology you use that conceivably could be patented, but isn't yet, is a legal risk - and "conceivably" includes things that are obvious, absurd patents from a developer's point of view but that the Patent Office might approve anyway.It doesn't matter whether or not you plan to do predatory lawsuits. The current nature of patent law means that the incentive is to get away with as much as you can, as soon as you can - or

Patents are offensive only. Even if you have a patent over your product, you can still infringe another patent.The reason big companies want patents "as defense" is because they can use those patents against a competitor if the competitor sues.A good example is Apple v. Samsung. They both asserted many patents against each other.Patent trolls, however, don't infringe any patents. You can't hit them back.

If a patent claim is made against a large company they are likely to fight back legally. If multiple claims are made against small sellers, they are likely to either stop selling, or settle. Settling means money and possibly some legal precedent (IANAL).I've heard of practices like this in several different industries. It seems to be a tactic that has little to do with the actual purpose (intent) of the patent system.

Some large companies only patent defensively, in order to prevent other companies from patenting their ideas and then suing them. Enforcing patents is difficult.

In theory, yes.In practice, the big companies usually have a ton of vague questionable defensive patents that cover a huge space of "inventions", so even if the smaller companies try to sue, they will get avalanched by an array of patent suits that could potentially bankrupt the company.

If I had to guess, it's because he doesn't want to sue a company he has a stake in. That's like suing yourself. Patent and intellectual property copyright is a funny thing; the owner can enforce (or try to get it enforced) when they feel like it. They usually let it go when it's to their benefit.