Re: [tlug] Patents gone wrong?

[<burlingk@example.com>]

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Message: 7
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 18:55:25 +0900
From: "Josh Glover" <jmglov@example.com>
Subject: Re: [tlug] Patents gone wrong?
To: "Tokyo Linux Users Group" <tlug@example.com>
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	<d8fcc0800608280255j449e8304g6cf7070a360cdf7e@example.com>
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On 28/08/06, Godwin Stewart <godwin.stewart@example.com> wrote:

> That, and the act of clicking on an OK button (patented by M$ IIRC) 

>As an investor, however, I would consider it malpractice for a large 
>corporation not to file patents on a wide variety of such software 
>fluff, to be used defensively if necessary. The patent system is badly 
>broken as it applies to software, but that does not mean that it cannot
>cost you serious money if used against you. IBM, for one, has a huge 
>array of patents, but have a history of using them only defensively.
>-Josh

If I were investing, I personaly would be leary of "fluff patents" as if
they ever did truly come before the supreme court, it would either come
to an expenditure of millions to defend them, or a lost of millions when
they were proved to be the refuse they truly are.  It is kind of hard
for a corporation that can afford layers as good as Microsoft or IBM's,
and claim to have missunderstood patent law in applying for their
patents.  The only thing they would truly have going in their favor is
the fact that someone at the patent office has computer illiterate
enough not to realise that said component existed in every operating
system on the face of the planet (even most text based systems to one
degree or another).