... IP-re-lated payments, most of it cash, and nearly all of it pure profit. Canon,Hitachi, Lucent and many other top patent holders enjoy significant re-turns on their R&D investments. And ... software com-panies, Oracle, Microsoft and, yes, IBM again, whose products areintellectual property, protected globally by copyrights and earning bil-lions in sales.No wonder companies of ... prosecution of patent applications, maintenance of issued patents, and the advisability of filing foreign counterpart applications.Much information about a competitor’s developments, plans and products...