During my tenure at GE, quite a few years ago, there was an intense company-wide drive to patent practically anything at all. We were given incentives to do so, of course. We were told that GE only uses patents defensively, i.e. for negotiations other companies. The incentives got many employees to patent industry-wide practices, or trivially simple stuff, or really convoluted methods that no one in their right minds will use anyway.
I haven't followed GE's track record closely after I got out, but I think they still live by that guideline. In any case, GE is not a software company, and it's unlikely they'd want to (or can) go after software companies on the basis of patents such as this one.
The patent system is broken, and GE is just another company, in a long list, that is abusing it for some reason. But so far, GE has given me little reason to believe they'll come after me for infringing on these kinds of patents.
That's what I'm hoping for as well. It would have been a completely different situation if this patent were granted to a non-practicing entity with a track record of litigating in the Eastern District of Texas.
