LG to Increase Patent Experts for "Patent War"

As reported by Displaybank, LG Electronics has announced that it will increase the number of its patent professionals by 30% over the current number of 200 by 2013.  It is doing so in order to protect intellectual property in the U.S., China and Europe.   The article contains some interesting detail on LG's strategy.
In a broader context, some industry estimates are that as much as 80 percent of the global ICT market consists of software and content, with the other 20 percent consisting of hardware.   Despite the remarkable developments in hardware, including electronic devices of all sorts and more powerful digital networks, the information content and communication between human beings is still the most salient aspect of the emerging information age.  This means that intellectual property in general, a subset of which consists of patents, will become more and more important.