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descriptive naming of your opponentdescriptive naming of your opponentPosted Oct 16, 2007 1:09 UTC (Tue) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270)In reply to: descriptive naming of your opponent by drag Parent article: A visit from the trolls
Note (a) that the monetary numbers cited are ludicrously underestimated. A patent defense against an issued patent held by a company serious about pursuing it would typically cost multiple millions. When you're paying lawyers >$500/hour and disclosure is likely to provide you with tens of thousands of documents you have to pay lawyers to read, it adds up quickly.
Note (b) again, even though the trolls don't innovate on their own behalf, their existence makes the patents valuable, and that residual value figures in companies' decisions to invest in developing new technologies.
As I said, terms are way too long and the barriers have fallen enough that software patents don't make a lot of sense anymore. But trashing the trolls because their only stake in the game is money is silly - money is the same thing IBM or Microsoft or the Linux Foundation bring to the table - money drives large-scale innovation. As I said, I don't think the protection is needed anymore, for software, but in the mid-80s, it made a big difference.
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