On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Russel Winder <[email protected]>wrote:
> I believe the patent system generally, but > especially the USA system, is broken because it doesn't support the > little guy > There is certainly a lot of documented cases where "little guys" get strong armed into paying licensing fees just because they couldn't afford a legal battle, but I think arguments can also be made to show the opposite: plenty of small start ups get acquired on a regular basis for their IP portfolio (I work at one, we file a lot of patents). The case of small start ups is actually very interesting to study. Typically, a start up gets acquired for any combination of the following three reasons: 1) product/user base 2) talent (the team) and 3) IP portfolio. Weaken the legal weight of software patents and suddenly, a lot of start ups will become a lot less interesting to acquire for big companies. Again, I'm not saying that the start up market will die if software patents were abolished but it's the kind of angle that software patent opponents have usually not thought much about. Food for thought. -- Cédric -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "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.
