I'm sorry to dig up a post from friday, but I couldn't find that 1Rare1's question (as I understood it) was answered. As I understood it, the question assumed that when the patents expire, the licensing revenue expires. This is NOT true. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't understand all of the nuances but if I owned a patent that was, for example, valid from 2000-2009, and you infringed that patent that whole time and made millions, I can still sue you and collect damages despite the fact that the patent is no longer (today, in 2010) still valid. It would be like a thief arguing that he shouldn't have to give me back my TV because the house he stole it from got torn down last year. Again, perhaps a real lawyer could chime in to explain this more.