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Indeed, however, I suppose another company could have applied for and gotten the same patent and started trolling with it.
by emarcotte 16y ago
Indeed, however, I suppose another company could have applied for and gotten the same patent and started trolling with it.
- jacquesm 16y agoBut that's not really an excuse. Bogus patents should not be applied for and when they are applied for they should not be awarded. Applying for them on the grounds that someone else will do it is not a valid reason, and google is not exactly the most transparent company in the world. If they're so generous they should donate the patent to a neutral party. Most - if not all - software patents are bogus.
- emarcotte 16y agoI am not suggesting it is valid or acceptable behavior. I'm just trying to point out that "It could be worse" :)
- btilly 16y agoMost - if not all - software patents are bogus. Many years ago I saw a lawyer say that he had examined a random sample of IBM's software patents, and estimated that about 70% of them wouldn't stand up in court. And it was his belief that IBM had better patents than most companies out there. The problem was, of course, that if they drop a stack of 15 patents on you neither you nor they know what they will get to stick, but they will definitely get you with something. And why not file those patents? Their main purpose is to be an unused threat, and they are threatening whether or not they are used. Therefore even by the very relaxed standards the that US legal system does, most software patents are bogus. If you hold a higher intellectual standard, then it isn't hard for that 70% to become 100%, or close enough to it to make the exceptions negligible. (There is hope that Bilski will restore some sanity to the US system.)