When corporations attack
,----[ Quote ]
| My point was that Microsoft is claiming as a magnanimous gesture
| something that is purely in its business interest, and attempting to
| equate with land or buildings something (patent rights) which is, under
| the Constitution, only a limited right, given to authors or inventors
| for a limited time.
|
| [...]
|
| What Microsoft and I have is a political disagreement which firms
| like Microsoft have, over the last decades, written into our law,
| overriding the plain language of the Constitution.
|
| That is the whole notion of Intellectual Property. The Founding Fathers
| would have laughed at such a notion. American publishers routinely
| ignored foreign copyright claims until the late 1800s, when thisc
| ountry gained a positive balance of power in that area.
|
| [...]
|
| Which is just my point. What Microsoft has done should give lawyers
| like Rudin pause. Overly-broad patent claims, overly-restrictive
| copyright claims (which trump technology) are hurting the economy.
|
| If they weren't, Microsoft would be enforcing its "rights," and
| not encouraging everyone to walk all over its virtual lawn.
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http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=797
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