### Comment:
No. You're right.  Companies that hold patents often allow others to use them, only usually there's a licensing fee involved.  Plenty of companies (Google comes to mind) allow competitors to use their technology without paying for the privilege, but it's a very uncommon practice.

### REPLY:
Yeah I think the reasoning is it makes that tech more prevalent and more people using it means faster growth for them or something like that. It's almost like reverse psychology in a way, or at least it doesn't seem to make much sense but I'm sure they wouldn't do it without reason.

### END.