Armaggedon [LWN.net]

Armaggedon

Posted May 14, 2007 11:03 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
In reply to: Armaggedon by gjheydon
Parent article: Microsoft takes on the free world (CNN)

In the end FOSS will end up being patent free 100%

That is, I fear, impossible. There is no way to render ten thousand patents invalid, or to work around them. Not only because of the amount of work required, but because of the money the whole process costs. And how do you work around overbroad patents, like: "Method and apparatus to send data over a computer network"? (Not that that one actually exists... only once).

There are only two solutions, I guess: either someone counter-sues, or the patent system collapses once and for all. Let's hope it is the second option.

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Armaggedon

Posted May 14, 2007 18:44 UTC (Mon) by AJWM (subscriber, #15888) [Link]

> There is no way to render ten thousand patents invalid,

The Supreme Court's recent decision on "obviousness" probably rendered many more than that invalid, or will have when the dust settles. Each one has to be looked at individually, of course, but the "potential for damage" of each one has been greatly reduced.

Patent trolls just suffered a great reduction in their air supply.

Armaggedon

Posted May 15, 2007 8:39 UTC (Tue) by cjl7 (guest, #26116) [Link]

>There is no way to render ten thousand patents invalid,

Then again common sense must prevail... If "business" is all that matters the scope of our problems are bigger then any violation of patents!? (IMHO)

On a side note, China doesn't acknowledge any patents and they are going to be the worlds biggest market soon. So patents only apply to those who care it seems...

//jonas

China

Posted May 17, 2007 16:58 UTC (Thu) by eklitzke (subscriber, #36426) [Link]

China does have a patent system. It's just relatively new (~20 years old), and they're much more "practical" about enforcing patents than we are in America.