On Sep 24, 12:25 pm, "Phil Da Lick!"
<phil_the_l...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Robin T Cox wrote:
> The whole problem is that the IP agenda is being driven by basically a
> combination of patent lawyers and big business interests.
Actually it has much more to do with the patent lawyers than the big
business interests. Most big businesses file for patents to prevent
someone ELSE from suing THEM. Normally, patent royalties on truly
original ideas aren't that expensive, usually less than 1% of the
purchase price.
The problem is that there are patent lawyers who are more than willing
to take the word of some "kitchen table inventor" that his idea is
original, file a poorly researched patent application, do the absolute
minimal patent search (searching the patent office archives only and
only the actual patent applications), and attempt to get it past the
patent office. If the patent office grants the patent, the lawyer
waits 2-3 years, and then starts filing lawsuits against big companies
who are using similar, but not quite identical, devices. The problem
is that if the company doesn't already have a patent on the device,
the unethical lawyer can tie the company up in red tape for years, and
might even be able to get an injunction - forcing the company to
cancel production - while another company who settles for pennies per
item enters the same market and takes over the market share.
If the lawyer is really sleazy, he will start filing thousands of
discovery motions (the way SCO did), claiming to try to find some
prove that the big company knew about his client's idea and therefore
violated the patent. Of course, this usually means digging up every
research note on the product, which can cost several million dollars
in legal and clerical fees.
Microsoft started getting the same kind of paranoia after losing
several patent lawsuits to poachers. The juries may have been voting
for the "sweet little old man" who they liked better than that
"arrogant Microsoft lawyer and his witnesses". Or they might have
found that, based on a prepondedrance of the evidence - that Microsoft
should have to pay a huge sum of money to the poacher defendent (with
the patent lawyer getting a third in contingencies and another third
as equal partner in the patent).
> I remember 20 years ago Bill Gates at a seminar somewhere mocking IBM
> for being a lumbering old dinosaur stuck in the past whilst MS and Apple
> were the dynamic future.
Twenty years ago Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were adamantly opposed to
software patents. They knew that most of the technology they were
introducing in micro-computers, later to evolve into PCs, were
essentially taken directly from the minicomputer world. MS-DOS was
very similar to RT-11 for a good reason, it was something Bill Gates
had been using at his time share job.
Even graphics devices had existed in terminals such as the VT100 and
the 3270 style terminals. Not much was new.
If it had been possible to patent software, IBM might have been able
to stop the PC market in it's tracks, locking everybody into sticking
with the block-screen terminals connected to their very expensive and
profitable mainframes.
Instead, 30 years later, it's SCO and Microsoft who are now trying to
claim ownership of technology that IBM had developed 20 years before
the first PC ever rolled off the assembly line.
> He didn't like it then that IBM were using
> protectionist tactics and now 20 years on MS is becoming as bad, if not
> worse. I suppose its part of the big business lifecycle. Big question is
> will MS reinvent itself as IBM did?
I think eventually they will have no choice. And they already are.
Entry into Game Machines, cell phones, and other markets shows that
they are trying to diversify.
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