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> And for the last 24 years straight, IBM has earned more patents than any other company (it’s not even close)

That's not a great measure of technical leadership. Shows they have good lawyers though!

Why isn’t that a good measure of technical leadership?

Because any old chump can file a patent request and get it approved. There's a reason patent trolls exist.

Restating your argument: there have been cases in which patents of questionable quality have been granted which recognize questionable rights; there exist entities who act in bad faith to acquire patents for the purpose enforcing those questionable rights; therefore, all patents are of questionable quality in the possession of entities who act in bad faith to enforce questionable rights.

This is self-evidently fallacious reasoning. It also drops the context that tech companies in aggregate spend tens of billions of dollars per year on R&D, creating the incredible world of technology, industry, and human flourishing in which we live.

The point is more that creating patents doesn’t add value whatsoever, nor is it representative of adding value in some other way.

The only people that see a net gain on patents are lawyers, and big corps- that’s why they spend billions on them.

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