Well, a friend of mine is involved in a deal to buy part of another company. One of the positive points is that the other company has already paid off the patent troll that is suing everyone (and I do mean everyone) which means they can now go into deals and say, hey has "competitor" paid for the royalties on this technology? IOWs, the competition is being made out to be a liability risk.
Now how twisted is that? Kirk On Mar 4, 2011, at 9:22 AM, Ralph Goers wrote: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent_debate has a decent overview of > both sides. However, I'd argue that on the "pro" side the idea that patents > promote development and public disclosure (i.e. - educational benefit) are > fallacies. Software patents are actually fairly new in the U.S. and software > development was doing just fine before they arrived on the scene and the idea > that software developers are going to go to the USPTO to read patents to > actually learn something is laughable. Most patents are written in the > broadest possible language such that they are hardly readable, let alone make > any sense to a software developer. As for the third point, protection, what > most companies are doing is building up their patent portfolio to keep from > being sued by someone else over their patents. That kind of "protection" > reminds me a bit of how the Mafia gangs worked. As for the 4th point of > economic benefit, it certainly benefits the patent trolls but it doesn't > protect the small companies. Sure, small companies might be able to afford > the cost of getting a patent, but they cannot even come close to affording > the cost of defending it. > > As for lone inventors getting robbed, see > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kearns which was recently documented in > the movie Flash of Genius. Although he eventually won his lawsuit, a "normal" > person would have thrown in the towel instead of losing their marriage and > almost everything else instead of being devoted to a court case that took 12 > years. > > Ralph > > > On Mar 3, 2011, at 10:30 PM, Cédric Beust ♔ wrote: > >> >> >> On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 9:40 PM, Nick Brown <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Now the question of whether or not today's patent system is effective >> at reaching that goal is perfectly valid question, and I think it is >> clear that it is not. >> >> What you said up until this point made perfect sense, but there is a clear >> logical gap between your premise and this conclusion. Theoretically, the >> risk is there, but is it actually happening? How often do we read about lone >> inventors that get robbed of ideas by rich corporations because of a failure >> in the USPTO process? >> >> Also, I'd argue that there are plenty of counter examples to your proposal. >> Look no further than Facebook. Created and implemented by one person who >> started without any money and ended up being the youngest billionaire in the >> country. How come no corporations came along and stole his idea? >> >> Sorry to sound like a broken record but when I see the amount of software >> innovation that keeps happening in the US every day, I become more firmly >> convinced that the burden of proof lies on people claiming that the system >> is broken. Show us some hard evidence. >> >> -- >> Cédric >> >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "The Java Posse" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The Java Posse" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
