Star Apple, Google, Microsoft Hit by Patent Infringement Lawsuit
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 26th Dec 2008 20:00 UTC
Law and Order Large multinational software companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google, rarely - if ever - initiate patent infringement lawsuits against other software companies, probably because they themselves infringe on lots of patents too. However, they do get sued themselves by smaller companies. Even though the Christian part of the world is all about forgiveness and love and pink ponies during the holidays (or, at least, they ought to be), Apple, Google, and Microsoft have been struck by a patent infringement lawsuit started by Cygnus Systems.
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RE: Can you say...
by tomcat on Fri 26th Dec 2008 20:15 UTC in reply to "Can you say..."
tomcat
Member since:
2006-01-06

...prior art? The article is misleading as it states the patent was filed for in 2001. According to the patent office, "US Patent Issued on March 18, 2008", that is definitely not the case. It normally only takes about 6-12 months for a patent to be issued, and even if longer for some, definitely not 7 years. Looks like a get rich quick scheme to me, targeting the big players that would most likely just pay out some cash in order to squash the negative publicity, true or not.


Actually, that's not true. It's been my personal experience that the USPTO is extraordinarily slow (some would call them methodical -- I wouldn't) in granting patents. I've seen quite a few cases where patents took 5-7 years to issue. It's more common than you think.

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