Your numbers don't apply. If those patents were really that valuable (they generally aren't) and the company had the money to pay "senior engineers" 300k then they wouldn't be cutting the compensation like that to save costs. As quoted, he patent/code in question is worth a measly 25,000$ to the company. It's a joke. Nobody in this whole story is a big deal. There's no billion dollar patents here, for the likes of Google or Samsung to fight over.