If you read the decision, it seems that it is not really about shareholder maximization as we are discussing here. Instead, Jim and Craig actively worked to minimize the value of eBay's shares. Also, the very article you cite discusses a few ways in which companies can fail to perfectly maximize profits yet still stay on the correct side of the law. One example is philanthropy.
Except corporate philanthropy has limits. If the CEO of Exxon decided to donate 50% of all profits to philanthropy you can bet there would be a host of successful lawsuits.
If on the other hand a company's charter stats that 50% of all profits are donated to charity before it goes public then you your unlikely to successively sue them for continuing to do so.
On the third hand, extreme examples might not be relevant to a more minor tweak of profits like suing or not suing over one-click. If it's a matter of degrees, degrees matter.
True, enough. There are plenty of company's like IBM where giving up patent revenue without changes to the patent system would heavily impact there profits. However, IBM has donated a fair number of patents in the past.
http://www.litigationandtrial.com/2010/09/articles/series/sp...