There is  a family of patents associated with the approach to  integrate optical and electronics within the same package. I  think  that many regard these as placeholders to  build  upon so that when someone like Intel uses the successful technology/material set/secret sauce they would  use for  example the POET patent to  support the applications that they would  expect to  use.  In other words license the POET optical interposer if it meets their requirements for use in their applications. It would support their patent.

Patents/technologies are continuously being mixed and matched to  achieve an end goal.