Geoff Let's not mix the FOSS movement, politics, emotion or opinion with economics.
The simple economics are that for the entire software industry - the cost of software patents far outweighs the economic benefit unlike the pharmaceutical industry. The cost == cost of writing, issuing, enforcing The benefit == increased revenue to the company d On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 1:38 PM, geoffrey mendelson < geoffreymendel...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Aug 13, 2009, at 1:14 PM, Shachar Shemesh wrote: > > Where has Microsoft's junk patents given them any money? Unless they are >> using extortion (possible) to quietly threaten potential FOSS defecties >> away, that is. They are not selling those, and they have never sued anyone >> (well, one). It also seems that not many are taking their threats too >> seriously - we did not exactly see the FOSS world grind to a halt, after >> all. >> >> If they are not making much money off their silly patents, and they are >> losing, then their loses outweight their gains. >> > > > > Or in plain English, you can't. > > From the USPTO website: > > Searching US Patent Collection... > > Results of Search in US Patent Collection db for: > AN/microsoft: 12062 patents. > > > You are claiming that with 12062 patents since 1976 assigned to Microsoft, > the ones that are software related have netted them a total of zero or lost > them money. > > Your are also discounting the the fact that people did not compete due to > patent protection which may be in the end more valuable than licensing fees. > > You are also went from claiming software patents to "junk patents". Define > "junk patent" and explain how the term applies to all, as you did, software > patents. > > The FOSS world exists not because of there are no software patents, it > exists because people have dedicated their work to the public domain, which > is a very different thing. IBM has dedicated many of their patents to the > public domain because they are a hardware marketing company, and as the old > IBM addage says "nothing sells hardware better and faster than software". > > > > > Geoff. > > -- > geoffrey mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM > Jerusalem Israel geoffreymendel...@gmail.com > > > _______________________________________________ > Linux-il mailing list > Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il > http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il > -- Danny Lieberman ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Protect your data: http://www.software.co.il Twitter: http://twitter.com/onlyjazz Skype: dannyl50 Warsaw:+48-79-609-5964 Israel: +972 8 9701485 Mobile: +972 - 54 447 1114
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