On Llu, 2003-12-08 at 17:06, Phil Payne wrote: > http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/34391.html
Hardly suprising. US patent and legal messes create a clear economic incentive to do nothing but sue each other. Making products is far too risky. Its also another incentive for the mass removal of US jobs. Its only safe to develop abroad, import and having no assets of note at risk if sued in the USA - be it for patents or spilling hot coffee. I've had discussions with companies all over the place whose business model is patent something, license it to a chinese company, have an unrelated 3rd party import it into the USA: the US company cant make anything or risk patent countersuits when it sues IBM and MS, the makers can't risk the major capital being exposed to US lawsuits so makes it outside, and the third party importer keeps all its money out of US hands and folds each time its sued then creates a new one. The interesting thing is this model basically destroys the notion of defensive patenting. There is no interest in licensing, and all the giant companies patent pools are worthless defences. Its an economic response to a political problem. Business seeing a new opportunity created by politicians. If you look at the theories beyond disruptive technologies then apply them to nation states and consider "doing things efficiently" the technology, then the west should lose all the lower tech jobs, then lose the next layer, moving up until nothing is left but lawyers at which point it collapses catastrophically. They havent outsourced all the financial industry yet but that seems to be the last layer left before the lawyers ;)
