Techies oppose US patent reform bill
,----[ Quote ]
| More than 430 organizations spanning all fifty US states have fired off a
| letter urging Senate leaders to oppose a bill that would overhaul the
| country's patent system. And that includes tech outfits like Qualcomm and
| AmberWave.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/25/techies_send_letter_to_senate_against_patent_reform_bill/
Vonage settles Verizon's patent suit
,----[ Quote ]
| The lawsuit, along with two filed by other phone companies, had cast a heavy
| shadow over Vonage's future. The company's service enables subscribers to
| connect their phones to their broadband connections for about $25 a month
| using a Vonage adapter.
`----
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071025/ap_on_hi_te/vonage_verizon_suit
Microsoft continues to complain about 'the nasty trolls' <
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000119312507225854/d10q.htm
> and uses some proxies like Acacia to attack Linux while using 'patent
terrorism' against Linux and patent poison (in its licences) against the GPL.
The defensive suit is on (not just a threat anymore).
Sun countersuit: NetApp violates 12 patents
,----[ Quote ]
| A month ago, Network Appliance sued Sun Microsystems, alleging the server and
| software company's ZFS file system infringes seven NetApp patents. Sun on
| Thursday fired back with a suit that claims NetApp violates 12 of Sun's.
|
| Sun's suit also argues that NetApp's patents are invalid and that it doesn't
| infringe them anyway.
`----
http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9804898-39.html
Just beforehand:
NetApp founder brushes off Sun threat
http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9804867-39.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
The lawyers must be happy. They are the only ones that benefit, at the expense
(also pain) of everyone else.
Related:
Patently wrong
,----[ Quote ]
| Every schoolyard has a bully who uses his size to intimidate the
| other kids, or a rich brat who threatens to take his ball home if
| he doesn't get his way.
`----
http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=business6_may22_2007
Critic of Software Patents Wins Nobel Prize in Economics
.----[ Quote ]
| doom writes "You've probably already heard that the Nobel Prize
| for Economics was given to three gents who were working on advances
| in mechanism design theory. What you may not have heard is what one
| of those recipients was using that theory to study: 'One recent
| subject of Professor Maskin's wide-ranging research has been on the
| value of software patents. He determined that software was a market
| where innovations tended to be sequential, in that they were built
| closely on the work of predecessors, and innovators could take many
| different paths to the same goal. In such markets, he said, patents
| might serve as a wall that inhibited innovation rather than
| stimulating progress.' Here's one of Maskin's papers on the
| subject: Sequential Innovation, Patents, limitation (pdf).
`----
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotYourRightsOnline/~3/170631743/article.pl
|
|
