On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 8:44 PM, Reinier Zwitserloot <[email protected]>wrote:
> There are no basement inventors. Unless you're watching movies. However, > anti-software-patent campaigners certainly aren't just looking at the > googles and the IBMs of this world. That's the point! They're looking at > smaller software companies who can basically just be destroyed overnight by > a big company by suing them with their patent portfolio in hand. There's > just nothing a small company can do in the face of such a claim other than > fold and hope the company in question throws them a bone and buys them out > for pennies on the dollar so they don't walk away with nothing except a big > legal bill. > > There are also small companies that make no products at all and just buy up > patents. These companies are called 'patent trolls' for a reason. There are > also no basement inventors who got some money by selling their idea to such > a troll - the portfolio of trolls either stems from a company that created > the troll as a spinoff, or by buying out patents owned by bankrupt > companies, or by patenting a bunch of obvious ideas themselves (they are > staffed by lawyers, after all). > > So, the system of today doesn't just not work, its a major parasite on > innovation > Your message looks a lot like the previous one I commented on: you make good arguments in your first two paragraphs and suddenly, out of nowhere, you claim that the system is broken even though 1) this claim has no logical connection to these two paragraphs and 2) this claim is widely contradicted by the facts (a lot of software innovation is happening in the US on a daily basis, probably more than any other country in the world). > Case in point: At least 6 of the 8 patents that Oracle is suing Google with > are clearly total hogwash > There is no "case in point". This is still going through the judicial system, so until a verdict is reached, what is going on neither invalidates nor confirms the claim that the system is broken. Let's talk again after a judge has made a decision. Look, I've been on both ends of the software patent war, I have some first-hand experience on the impact that it can have on a business and a technological stack. It's never fun when you need to find a different way of doing something because of existing patents, but by now, I firmly believe that it *does* force you to innovate more than if the software patent law didn't exist in the first place to keep you honest. -- 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.
