Pieter Hintjens, the president of the FFII, is the author of this remarkable quote:
“The day when I, as the owner of a tiny software company, seek to buy patents like I buy domain names and trademarks, will be the day that the patent system has finally made the jump from the age of steel to the age of brains.”
According to the closing remarks at public hearing on future patent policy, Commissioner Charlie McCreevy stated that small firms use 80% of their patents, whereas large firms use slightly less than 60% of their patents. Since large firms hold almost threequarters of all the patents, in absolute terms their sleeping patents make up a significant reserve of technologies that could be potentially exploited possibly by other parties.