Saving money in intellectual property

Many business types view intellectual property as a business expense rather than as a business opportunity. There have been recent trends to cut costs in patent prosecution by offshoring work to countries such as India. A recent board post suggests another area:

I had a meeting with a GC of a multi zillion dollar conglomerate the other day. He was so fixated on opting out of global IP protection where they didn't have much commercial activity in order to save money that he hadn't stopped to think about having an IP position in countries where his major global competitors are located.