Friday, August 27, 2010
Why software patents suck
Usually I don't blog about computer issues here, but when Michael Kaplan writes about such an important topic I can't resist.
His blog is well worth reading even if you don't particularly care about internationalization, collation, globalization, or blaxploitation.
Also, Blogger's spell checker doesn't think that "blog" or "blogger" are words. Good job guys.
The general fear that large companies have is that they can do amazing work that someone else can negate because that someone else turns out to have a patent. Since most employees are generally instructed to not search to see if patents exist (to avoid a tripling of a damage award that knowingly violating a patent can easily lead to), and since a ton of patents represent ideas that have not been realized in available products, the fear of an ocean of existing patents that are more profitable to use as a way to sue a big company rather than produce anything is a very real one.
His blog is well worth reading even if you don't particularly care about internationalization, collation, globalization, or blaxploitation.
Also, Blogger's spell checker doesn't think that "blog" or "blogger" are words. Good job guys.
