> The fact is to the company and the current legal climate around patents I can assure you each of those patents are worth more than the $$$ they where paying out.

That's utter nonsense. Most patents are absolutely worthless. Even the odd patent that you might find, where you can litigate still requires a risky and costly litigation process.

It's more likely that the company paid too much money to generate too few valuable patents, which is why they scaled back the program. Now that they did find one that is somewhat valuable to them, they want it and they tasked this poor middle manager to get it. But they're also not willing to spend more than 25,000$ on it. So how can this patent be that valuable? It just isn't.