Les Mikesell wrote:
On Fri, 2006-06-23 at 08:44 -0700, alan wrote:
I bet if you looked at IBM or Microsoft, you would find similar
applications/patents. Some companies will patent anything and everything
they can "just in case".
But this points to a problem with the patent system, not the company.
The danger of these "protective patents" is not now, but later.
We are seeing companies that filed CYA patents and then got bought out by
another company. That company then uses the patents as a blunt object on
all concerned.
Just because the company is not using it against you now does not mean it
will not get used against you later when they get bought out. (And that
includes a company as big as Sun, if they keep struggling as they have
been.)
I don't see a solution there... Either a company patents it now as a
protective measure or they let someone else do it. Either way
it might end up owned by someone else later. What's the alternative?
Patent it, then put the patent into the Public Domain. That's what
Benjamin Franklin, who argued passionately against having patents
at all, used to do.
Do you expect the patent office to suddenly start doing their job
and disallowing patents that are obvious or mathematical algorithms?
The Patent Office does not issue patents for algorithms, only for
applications of them to particular processes, or as improvements
thereto.
Mike
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