IBM Backpedals on No-Business-Method-Patent Pledge

theodp writes: "IBM positioned itself as quite the patent reformer as it dropped a pure-PR-poison claim for a US patent on offshoring US jobs. But the AP reports that Big Blue has no intention of giving up its claim for a patent on profiting from patents. An IBM spokesman acknowledged that 'Extracting Value From a Portfolio of Assets' does indeed describe a business method patent, which Big Blue publicly professes to loathe, but argued that it passes IBM's significant technical merit smell-test for patents. Take a whiff and judge for yourself!"