Yes and no. Patents are often licensed or traded in bulk, but only a foolish entity would pay anything for a patent they have not read. However, patents are typ

Yes and no. Patents are often licensed or traded in bulk, but only a foolish entity would pay anything for a patent they have not read. However, patents are typically traded as part of a portfolio, and often the portfolio is structured so that it has a few really good ones and a bunch of nuisance or filler patents. Ideally you don't want to pay for those at all, but the seller won't sell anything other than the whole portfolio. Say they offer it for some amount X. So essentially you have to go back and say, "look, these 3 are OK but the rest are really narrow/useless/invalid/crappy, so we think your portfolio is worth much less than X." And negotiation happens. I can't say how the bonuses are handed out once a portfolio is sold. Ideally, you'd guess the inventors of the "better" patents would get bigger bonuses. The most likely scenario, unfortunately, is that the inventors get nothing, and very likely are not even aware. It's a shame inventors are so unaware of the value companies reap from their IP.