and mad.frog especially,

I really didn't want to rekindle the debate about whether patents (or software patents) are a good or bad thing. I've been a /. reader (responder) for quite a while and understand the general consensus about patents here.

I really am only trying to understand what people who have been involved in these programs have seen before. My overall goal of this research is to help develop a program management will accept before anyone says "you work for us, we own the patents anyway" and does away with PIPs all together. Most of the people I work with (including me) love our jobs and I are just trying to get a fair result.

I suppose I should have mentioned that we have a patent/idea review board in place to determine what we would like to spend time on (judge value, creativeness, patentability) before we begin even the provisional process, but I wanted to keep the question simple.

Thank you to all who have chimed in with the various programs you have seen and/or have been involved with.

Thanks again all,

-SoulMaster