I'm not making your point. You had a small part of the truth. It's much more complicated than you think. Sometimes MAD works, but sometimes the rivals do cross

I'm not making your point. You had a small part of the truth. It's much more complicated than you think. Sometimes MAD works, but sometimes the rivals do cross-licensing. "Getting more patents just in case we need them" is maybe one of the reasons, but there are so many others: 1) To protect the things we're already doing 2) To protect things we MIGHT do 3) Because that's what big companies do. Herd-following. 4) To keep someone else from horning in on our space 5) To use for cross-licensing or counter-suits 6) To sell in case we never want to commercialize Don't underestimate #3. Every business "analyst" looks at your patent production.