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Yes, listing 235 numbers is turr'ble hard work

Yes, listing 235 numbers is turr'ble hard work

Posted May 31, 2007 22:38 UTC (Thu) by felixfix (subscriber, #242)
In reply to: Yes, listing 235 numbers is turr'ble hard work by giraffedata
Parent article: OSBC: The Microsoft/Novell panel

It's as simple as a press release or even just a web page listing the patent numbers. Requests for licensing, if any, could be turned into a profit center, I am sure Microsoft knows how to do that.

Other requests; what would they be? Clarification of the patent? Refer them to the press release or web page. It's a very simple process.

Challenges, lawsuits, etc.; what would those be? Seems to me a tacit admission they have weak patents.

Industry custom; sorry. Physical products have patent numbers listed on the packaging and on the product itself. What makes software so special? Could it be that their patents are worthless for anything more than an initial stock jump from the announcement?


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Yes, listing 235 numbers is turr'ble hard work

Posted Jun 1, 2007 3:25 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

Industry custom; sorry. Physical products have patent numbers listed on the packaging and on the product itself. What makes software so special?

They don't label software with the patents it uses like they do physical products?

It doesn't matter, though, because this is not the industry custom the Microsoft lawyer referred to. He referred to a custom of not publicly announcing specifically which products you suspect of infringing which of your patents (presumably in spite of the fact that you publicly announce that you have such suspicions) until you're ready to do something about it. (I don't think anyone cares which Microsoft products use which Microsoft patents).

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