Comment by threeseed
7 years ago
Maybe you are new to the software industry but at every company I've seen e.g. Apple, Google, Microsoft they strongly encourage you to be filing patents.
And calling it farming is a bit strange considering you're paid by the company to generate the IP in the first place. Plus they typically compensate you extra for it.
IBM pushed what I call reckless patenting. They explicitly said, in multiple situations, that even if you think that it's a trivial idea you should attempt to patent it as it will probably get through. Personally, that sentiment goes against my philosophy. I wouldn't regard the monetary benefit to filing a patent through IBM worth the guilt I would accrue.
Note that I haven't worked for other giant tech conglomerates, but I haven't experienced it in the other medium - large but not ridiculously large companies which I've worked for.