I've been a party to the 8-figure sales of more than one company and stand by what I said. I wasn't at Arbor when it sold (for what I assume to be mid-high 9-figures), but I know a lot about how unserious patents were there as well: not a real factor.
Most importantly: the "door-to-door" time from initiating a patent application to bringing it to bear in a legal dispute is something on the order of a decade.
Incidentally: I didn't take your analogy seriously; I just used it as a hook to disagree with you. I'm not an anti-patent zealot. I've just worked in startups for ~20 years and have come to the conclusion that they are a total waste of time for software companies.
I agree that there are a lot of patents that are not factors and generally frivolous. I would argue though that at Arbor the patents / algorithms around classification of flows and DoS detection are a cornerstone of the business being competitive and protected, and should someone else step on their space, they were positioned well for staying competitive. Before InfiniDB I was a Principal Engineer at Tektronix Communications who acquired Arbor and know them very well too (nice company and sounded nice to work at too)
btw, dont get me wrong in saying that if they had their patents they would have been successful. Just one cog in the whole machine. And the timeline I am referring to is there are things back 5-6 years ago that could have been filed before others were doing it, and it would have provided a nice differentiator in the market. It would have helped, but it was not the sole reason.
Most importantly: the "door-to-door" time from initiating a patent application to bringing it to bear in a legal dispute is something on the order of a decade.
Incidentally: I didn't take your analogy seriously; I just used it as a hook to disagree with you. I'm not an anti-patent zealot. I've just worked in startups for ~20 years and have come to the conclusion that they are a total waste of time for software companies.