Are all software patents just "tax"? [LWN.net]

Are all software patents just "tax"?

Posted Apr 17, 2007 17:27 UTC (Tue) by beveal (guest, #43638)
Parent article: Windows vs. Linux: The Patent Tax (Software Freedom Law Center)

How much of that patent "tax" actually goes to companies who pay their developers to come up with useful, non-obvious ideas for software? I'll agree that the answer probably isn't "all of it." But I don't think it's "none of it," either, as the article seems to suggest.

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Are all software patents just "tax"?

Posted Apr 17, 2007 23:05 UTC (Tue) by AJWM (subscriber, #15888) [Link]

> How much of that patent "tax" actually goes to companies who pay their developers to come up with useful, non-obvious ideas for software?

I would guess "none". Are there really any companies that pay developers to do specifically that? There are plenty of software companies that pay developers to develop specific projects, and happily pass on to their lawyers almost everything they do on the off-chance that there's something vaguely patentable (under USPTO's current interpretation of the law, anyway) in there, but that's not the same thing at all.

Close to none

Posted Apr 18, 2007 1:04 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

Companies that are still developing product usally cross-license their patents with the big players. You can't sue Microsoft for patent infringement while you yourself are in the software business, as they will just turn around and sue you for infringing one or more of their patents.

Close to none

Posted Apr 18, 2007 2:25 UTC (Wed) by fjf33 (subscriber, #5768) [Link]

Unless you yourself are not doing anything. Then you cannot be sued but can sue the skin out of everyone else.