3 ms·

The interesting bit that seems to be forgotten was that the US Govt went after Xerox for monopoly reasons [0]. That is how much profit they made picking one of

The interesting bit that seems to be forgotten was that the US Govt went after Xerox for monopoly reasons [0]. That is how much profit they made picking one of the many technologies that came out of PARC. If they had picked multiple maybe they wouldn't have been as successful? Its really hard for a company to excel in multiple different physical product lines. https://www.nytimes.com/1972/12/13/archives/xerox-monopoly-on-office-copiers-charged-by-ftc-salespractice.html https://www.nytimes.com/1972/12/13/archives/xerox-monopoly-o...

AlbertCory 4y ago
The timeline is off. The antitrust complaint was about xerography, which did not come out of PARC. There IS a connection, though: Xerox settled the suit by licensing its patents, which led management to think "holy shit, we're losing the monopoly, we'd better do something" and start up PARC.
- mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
  You are right, I was thinking about this earlier and that I think the government forced Xerox to release laser printer patents in the mid 1980's but as an unpaid internet commenter I ended up at an article from a decade before then.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    > the government forced Xerox to release laser printer patents Really? I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I don't recall that.
    - mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
      It was in the 70s and copiers. From Wikipedia: “Following these years of record profits, in 1975, Xerox resolved an anti-trust suit with the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which at the time was under the direction of Frederic M. Scherer. The Xerox consent decree resulted in the forced licensing of the company's entire patent portfolio, mainly to Japanese competitors. Within four years of the consent decree, Xerox's share of the U.S. copier market dropped from nearly 100% to less than 14%.[31]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox#1970s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox#1970s

AlbertCory 4y ago

The timeline is off. The antitrust complaint was about xerography, which did not come out of PARC. There IS a connection, though: Xerox settled the suit by licensing its patents, which led management to think "holy shit, we're losing the monopoly, we'd better do something" and start up PARC.

mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
You are right, I was thinking about this earlier and that I think the government forced Xerox to release laser printer patents in the mid 1980's but as an unpaid internet commenter I ended up at an article from a decade before then.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  > the government forced Xerox to release laser printer patents Really? I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I don't recall that.
  - mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
    It was in the 70s and copiers. From Wikipedia: “Following these years of record profits, in 1975, Xerox resolved an anti-trust suit with the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which at the time was under the direction of Frederic M. Scherer. The Xerox consent decree resulted in the forced licensing of the company's entire patent portfolio, mainly to Japanese competitors. Within four years of the consent decree, Xerox's share of the U.S. copier market dropped from nearly 100% to less than 14%.[31]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox#1970s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox#1970s