I have friends who have gone through this experience. I was pretty surprised too that the company was willing to pay so much to defend their patents. Granted...

I have friends who have gone through this experience. I was pretty surprised too that the company was willing to pay so much to defend their patents. Granted... my friend's rate was fairly reasonable... I think between $500-$1000/hour in probably the early 2000s. It really depends on the patent in the end of the day. If a company can potentially lose tens or hundreds of millions over a lost lawsuit, spending a million on legal defense would be very reasonable. I have not talked to my employer about this. I wanted to get some collective wisdom from the HN community before approaching them. But yeah, I'll definitely give it a shot. It doesn't hurt to ask.