> It is a service in the sense that a case can be made that it is > unavailable from anybody else. You can bring a suit against somebody > for refusing to license for questionable terms. > > Especially, as in this case, when the licenser is not in direct > competition with the licensee. > There is cases where such a thing can happen, but only very specific conditions such as large economic damage to society if the patent isn't available for licensing under reasonable terms. If the patent was licensed to other browser vendors and those browser were made available at a reasonable cost to consumers it will be hard to show that there is an harm to society if a single vendor does not obtain a license.
> You can see parallels with the recent Java brouhaha between Sun and MS. > The phone and cable companies have already been down this road as have > several other industries. > I don't see the parallels myself, could you clarify? > The broadly applicable position of this patent also would make it > easier > to claim "universal need" for the technology thus forcing the company > to > license to anyone that could claim a dependency on the technology for > their business. > I don't see where having plug-ins is required for Microsoft. > However all of this is a moot point: Eolas is obviously not interested > in toppling MS but in making so quick cash. If it comes to it they > won't balk at licensing to anybody with deep enough pockets. > I don't know, there were some interesting quotes from the Eolas shared by Cringley that seem to suggest at least me otherwise. Matt Liotta President & CEO Montara Software, Inc. http://www.MontaraSoftware.com (888) 408-0900 x901 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm?link=t:4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm?link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Signup for the Fusion Authority news alert and keep up with the latest news in ColdFusion and related topics. http://www.fusionauthority.com/signup.cfm
