"People are motivated to get them by a return on their investment, not the happy notion that the world is marginally less bad." I've always understood that as

"People are motivated to get them by a return on their investment, not the happy notion that the world is marginally less bad." I've always understood that as well as restricting other companies from competing with a patent holder, there is also an element of "mutually assured destruction" which would potentially allow negotiation and cross-licensing with companies asserting a patent. Didn't SUN maintain patents for exactly this process?