Linked by Jordan Spencer Cunningham on Tue 6th Oct 2009 21:43 UTC, submitted by Moulinneuf
The patent wars rage on. Eolas, a company that before won US$585 million from Microsoft in 2003 in a suit that challenged the use of ActiveX and AJAX, is now after twenty-three separate companies allegedly because their precious patent was spoiled by all of them.
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RE: The big problem with these...
by galvanash on Tue 6th Oct 2009 22:55
in reply to "The big problem with these..."
Member since:2006-01-25
Patents as such aren't bad - they are necessary to protect the investment of those who create the product.
Leaving out the specific argument of software patentability (I fall firmly on the side of those who think software should NOT be patentable AT ALL), the problem with this particular part of your post is that patent law doesn't require the patent holder to have a product to protect. There is no such requirement. If their were then I might feel a bit differently about patents in general, but as the law stands now they absolutely do more harm than good in the majority of cases.
RE: The big problem with these...
by boldingd on Tue 6th Oct 2009 23:01
in reply to "The big problem with these..."
Member since:2009-02-19
Patents as such aren't bad - they are necessary to protect the investment of those who create the product.
In the field of software specifically, I'm not convinced of the necessity of patents. I do not think it is obvious that software patents are necessary to enable innovation in the software industry; I'm not sure it's even obvious that they help innovation more than they hinder it.
Member since:
2006-04-03
...is the nature of the original patent. Patents as such aren't bad - they are necessary to protect the investment of those who create the product. However, the scope of these patents is what needs to come into question, and whether the original scope is fair and allows for expansion of the idea into something completely new by someone else without infringing the original patent.
The question that needs to be asked in all of this is did they foresee the scope of what they are now claiming, and if they supposedly did lets see the documented evidence of it from the time of the original patent application, because at this stage these guys are basically trying to claim ownership of the 'net. If they can't prove their insight into the future they are nothing but patent trolls and should be treated as such...