Patents != Licences
Also patents have to be enforced by the companies that own them. If they do not the patent will be invalidated. The requirement for 'enforcement' is a bit vague thought.
I could see it making sense in certain situations. Cloud computing is a good example. If you some of your OS images are parsed across a few machines with only 20 percent usage and if you could devise a way to seamlessly migrate them to other machines so there is more OS image density per machine you could shut down some of the unnecessary capacity. You would obviously leave a few machines open for hot machines if there was a usage spike, but the rest could be shut down and be powered up when the hot spares start to used.
I can see why NASA didn't name it after Colbert. The name would be very culture/time specific. What happens in ten years when Colbert out of the public light and forgotten? I think the treadmill is a wonderful place for Colbert.
Also Serenity is a bit of a loaded name. What if the MPAA sued for copyright infringement of the name? While I think is wouldn't stick in the courts, it would bring some unwanted attention to NASA. Also with Obama's appointment of many RIAA lawyers.. I don't think it would end well for NASA or the public even if they won.
Your mandated to be in schools. Your not mandated to pay attention.
The cost of feathers has risen, even down is up!