Comment 13 for bug 287428

If you want the menu key to pop up contextual menus, then Václav Šmilauer's solution works. If you want it to act as a compose key, you can edit /usr/share/X11/xkb/keycodes/evdev and map the lessthangreaterthan key onto it and select that as the compose key in your keyboard preferences. In both these cases, the function key continues to behave the same as the menu key in xev, but it continues to do its function key job properly.

If you can make the key behave as it should through some hacks in /usr/share/X11/xkb, then I find it hard to see how this could be a kernel issue, and certainly not a BIOS issue. In other words I too cannot see the value in kicking this off to the hotkeys people.