Re: Software Patent Concerns => New Black Markets?

["Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca>]

"Ludovic Brenta" <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org> wrote in message news:m3wuddwt2n.fsf@insalien.org...
> Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> writes:
> > Suppose I wrote "Marin's OS" and it started becoming enormously
> > popular. Bill gates comes around and wants to buy it from me and I
> > don't want Microsoft to crush it. I say "O.K. You can buy it for
> > Thirty Seven Trillion Dollars and you have to kiss my ass on PBS
> > during their fund raisers for the next 5 years." You think he'd get
> > the message? :-)

I like your thinking here! 8-)

> 2) Sue *you* for patent infringement, over one of their 18,459
>    software patents (though probably not the one that covers the "use
>    of the colour blue in a screen that warns the user about a fatal
>    condition that caused the operating system to become inoperative").
>    You'd have no option but to give them your source code, for free,
>    _and_ under NDA, so that no-one else will benefit from it.

I find the software patents trend to be a very disturbing one. The
patent system will soon be so tied up that you will no longer be
able to sell anything without infringing upon someone's patented
rights. Of course they won't bother you while you're struggling to
get established. They'll sue you only after you have "made it",
or will sue you to put you out of business.

What is even MORE disturbing, is that you soon won't be able to
distribute or share software either, without infringing upon
some patented software process. Imagine that you discover some
very efficient way to produce thumbnails of images, and you
post and/or give the code away. You then get sued for patent
infringement on somebody's patented method that you discovered
independently!

If this goes its full course, there'll be few software development
companies in the business, and less software sharing. Geeks
will be forced back into a "black market", by the greed of
those taking advantage of the "law".

Is it any wonder that there are caustic lawyer jokes?

-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg