One thought on all this stuff... it's hard to know when a startup violates your patent. most of the code is hidden, so the only things that are obvious are what's known via the UI. And if you are a startup, you probably fall under the radar. It's kind of a lost cause to go after a startup for cash as they don't have any. And startup's don't have the resources to figure out if they violate some obscure patent, so they ignore the problem.
What you end up with is large companies with giant patent portfolios. My understanding (via my company's corporate patent lawyer) is that companies have these patent hoards to protect against being sued. If a company sues for patent breach it can lead to both companies having to open their company's IP for patent audits. So it becomes a stalemate usually as companies don't want the uncertainty of a giant patent-auditing lawsuit. In short, the big winners in the software patent game are the lawyers. 2011/3/10 Cédric Beust ♔ <[email protected]> > > > On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Russel Winder <[email protected]>wrote: > >> > I'm curious how you draw this conclusion. If anything, this makes it >> > worse, because UNLESS you have a giant portfolio, you don't dare try >> > and create something for fear of infringing someone else. >> >> The new business model: have a great idea, begin a startup, create >> product, hawk yourself around the Big Players in hope you get bought up >> by a Big Player before a patent troll or Big Player notices you have >> violated patents and lands you with a stonking great patent suit which >> means they can buy you for next to nothing. >> > > That's certainly not what we are seeing. Start ups get acquired left and > right for various sums of money, sometimes for the team, sometimes for the > product and sometimes for the IP. > > Again, if the nightmare scenario you depict were accurate, nobody would > even dare to create start ups in the first place. > > -- > 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.
