The VirtualDub case is an interesting one. I wish the author would have pushed it a bit more. I suspect that there was no threat of a lawsuit, but rather an engineer who saw VirtualDub and was POed. Legal at companies like Intel, IBM, and MS generally won't let someone from the actual product team call another company on a legal matter.
My suspicion is that it was just a rogue employee who frankly probably wouldn't have had support from legal, since legal at these organizations tend to be more strategic than tactical (they don't care about one-off infringers, but are usually pushing a bigger strategic story, where patents infringement is just part of it).
My suspicion is that it was just a rogue employee who frankly probably wouldn't have had support from legal, since legal at these organizations tend to be more strategic than tactical (they don't care about one-off infringers, but are usually pushing a bigger strategic story, where patents infringement is just part of it).