Clark-Wilson Triple and the Confused Deputy

Well lots of academic institutions see software patents as a form of revenue to be exploited. 

In fact since they rarely produce any commercially viable software themselves (rather they do
things that form the basis of commercial offerings later on) then that puts them in a better
position to make money from software patents then your average software company.

Eolas, for example, when they sued Microsoft for having the audacity to incorporate support
for browser plug-ins were in fact using a patent developed by University of California. UC was
a joint plaintiff along side Eolas and made money from the successful exploitation of the
patent system.

This is one of the problems that people face when fighting software patents.. much of academia
is on the other side of the argument since they have a personal profit motivation.