Linked by weildish on Sat 24th Jan 2009 22:44 UTC
Legal Several days ago when Apple hinted at legal action against Palm, we held our breath to see just what would happen. Now Palm has stepped up to the plate boldly and hinted that they'd fight whatever legal action is thrown at them.
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gustl
Member since:
2006-01-19

Patents are a very important component in enforcement of the right to retain IP. Your denial of that doesn't negate the fact of it.


What is IP?
It is a artificial term which sums up things like trademarks, patents, copyrights, creator's rights, ... .

And it is a murky territory nowadays.

Whereas patents are necessary for pharmaceutic innovation (long development times, long testing times, high development costs), patents in areas like mechanical engineering are less useful as a tool to foster innovation.
For software, ideas are vast, the development costs are close to zero, obtaining a software patent costs as much as the person who does the PTO paperwork costs. Consequently, software patents are not worth protecting. Nobody would protect a single one dollar bill, whereas Fort Knox with all it's gold is heavily guarded.
Patents are a tool to make people and companies innovate, despite high costs of innovation. if innovation does not cost much, patents are not needed, quite the contrary, they are a hindrance to innovation.

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