Reading through IT patents these days requires patience and tolerance. When you can patent common sense, there is clearly something wrong with the system. But as long as no changes are being made, you are inviting people to exploit what is available and IBM has just demonstrated what may be possible, if one of their most recent patent applications is accepted by the USPTO.
The company felt it would be beneficial to patent the patent strategy process all the way from training inventors, to competitor monitoring and protecting (i.e. suing someone) a patent from infringement. This patent does not describe anything new, but a strategy that is being pursued by anyone who owns a patent and especially patent trolls or people like Paul Allen, who is just taking another shot at suing Google for patent infringement.
The patent application could mean that IBM in fact is working on a software that automates patent management or the company simply felt it was necessary to patent the idea of filing a patent and treating it in the way it could be considered common sense. It is especially revealing how much focus the inventor put on a "defend" module that implies a lawsuit strategy. It would take a genius to figure that out.
Reading through this patent is a good lecture how a patent these days should not look like. IBM is the natural place for this idea as there is no other company that files for as many patents (and receives as many patents) as IBM does. But if the patent idea gets approved, it may not go down so well with virtually every other individual or company that files a patent as the simple filing process and even the ownership and management of a patent could be violating IBM's patent.
Perhaps IBM isn't serious about this patent and simply tries to be funny.
