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Schwartz: Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal
Jonathan Schwartz writes about patent attacks, and Apple's attack on Android in particular. "Having watched this movie play out many times, suing a competitor typically makes them more relevant, not less. Developers I know arent getting less interested in Googles Android platform, theyre getting more interested - Apples actions are enhancing that interest." He also says that Microsoft tried to shake down Sun with patent claims on OpenOffice.org.
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Schwartz: Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal Posted Mar 10, 2010 17:53 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] He's basically saying that Sun was able to resist patent threats from Apple and Microsoft because of its own strong patent portfolio and long history, and that Apple and Microsoft copied many of their "inventions". But this doesn't help newer players, and even the big guys are vulnerable to trolls.
Perhaps we should welcome the patent trolls? Posted Mar 10, 2010 18:22 UTC (Wed) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]
Perhaps we should welcome the patent trolls? Contrary to what most people think, traditionally patents have not really been money makers for most companies. But, they are defended strongly by large businesses because they are effective weapons against new small startup businesses. Bring patent trolls into the mix, and now patents (not just software patents) are becoming a nuisance to large corporations also. The larger the nuisance, the less large companies will defend the idea of patents, and eventually in the long term, perhaps we could see their abandon... "Bring on the patent trolls!"?
Doesn't seem to work like that Posted Mar 10, 2010 18:41 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] Sounds plausible, but, the opposite is happening. Trolls have been a problem for years, and the megacorps (bar Sun) still love software patents. Some megacorps that were strongly against software patents in 1994 (when the USPTO held a bunch of hearings) are lobbying *for* software patents. Oracle's 1994 anti-swpat position is one example. There are more on this site but I can't find the page right now. I've made a place-holder page on the en.swpat.org wiki just now, and I'll fill in the info later tonight: Some people also welcomed TRIPS because they thought it was such as disaster, it would never be let happen ever again. And now we're watching ACTA happening without any problems or concern for the public interest.
Doesn't seem to work like that Posted Mar 10, 2010 18:59 UTC (Wed) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]
Perhaps the patent trolls simply aren't a big enough problem yet. In other words, as software companies are growing, there are now bigger software companies than in 1994, and naturally: the patent weapon against smaller companies is simply becoming more useful. If the patent troll pain is not growing proportionally more than this "utility" than, it follows that patents will still be seen in good light for larger companies. Do you have any evidence that this patent troll pain is indeed growing as fast as the larger companies' utility of patents as a weapon is growing? If not, I am not quite sure you can say that "the opposite is happening", unless you are merely responding to this small part of my post: "perhaps we could see their abandon"...
Doesn't seem to work like that Posted Mar 10, 2010 19:30 UTC (Wed) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]
PriceWaterHouseCoopers recently did a patent litigation study.
http://www.pwc.com/us/en/forensic-services/publications/a...
A few of the conclusions:
The report also goes on to say:
There's no details about what changes, exactly, the software companies were pushing for in the 2009 Patent Reform Act. I doubt that the companies wanted to abolish software patents completely, but they may well have wanted to abolish some of the more egregious abuses.
Fake Steve got it Posted Mar 10, 2010 22:24 UTC (Wed) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] It's hard for me to take Jonathan Schwartz seriously. Fake Steve Jobs seems to have nailed him a little too precisely. Why he, and Sun -- and Microsoft -- ever thought that Java had or would ever have any commercial value remains a mystery.It's fun that Fake Steve pretends not to remember the conversation, as a way to (pretend to) admit that it really did occur.
Fake Steve got it Posted Mar 11, 2010 16:29 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
"Fake Steve Jobs" is Lyin' Dan Lyons, a hack tech reporter who was one of SCO's biggest cheerleaders during the attack on Linux.
Schwartz: Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal Posted Mar 11, 2010 6:46 UTC (Thu) by cyperpunks (subscriber, #39406) [Link]
I always wondered if he wrote his blogs himself when was working for Sun.
Now it's clear that blogging was the only thing he did.
Schwartz: Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal Posted Mar 11, 2010 14:27 UTC (Thu) by tstover (subscriber, #56283) [Link]
What a culture. I'm too young to know, but did we get this kind of whining after then end of empires like DEC and Data General? I suspect not. A classic example of a "corporatist", pony tail was one who's side exactly? It's not that he is against software patents, just that he has a personal need to gossip. What ever happened to business concepts like failure, retirement, and dignity? Sun made its choices, and this is the way it worked out. Live with it.
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