I find your username amusing given the context of this thread. IBM could stand to make some money by licencing out some of their patents as they have done in the past:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/yahoo-was-licensing-paten...

http://news.yahoo.com/facebook-buys-patents-ibm-defend-itsel...

Incidentally if anyone is told their work is to be patented and will only be used in defense - bear the above behaviour in mind, over time, companies will not just use patents in defense.

Ha, it seems I'm a bit late to make that prediction - it's already happened.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-14/google-purchases-1-...