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Worrying about the giant lawsuits is the wrong angle. Any time MegaCorp 1 accuses MegaCorp 2 of stealing its stuff, it's going to be expensive to resolve. Eve
by danielweber 13y ago
Worrying about the giant lawsuits is the wrong angle.
Any time MegaCorp 1 accuses MegaCorp 2 of stealing its stuff, it's going to be expensive to resolve. Even if you draw the line at "copyright, not patent" MegaCorp 2 is just going to push the line that much further in how closely they can copy MegaCorp 1.
- georgemcbay 13y agoIt is way easier to avoid committing a copyright violation than a patent one because the USPTO has let way too many fundamental and obvious ideas be patented. As a developer, if I write 100 lines of code I have probably violated at least one active patent and probably more like 3, completely unknowingly. Copyright violations require a much more willful sort of of idea "theft".
- rayiner 13y agoI agree with both of you. On one hand, when you have a personal pissing match like Apple v. Samsung, if it wasn't about patents it'd be about something else. On the other hand, requiring a showing of willful violation would cut down on patent suits against smaller companies.
- belorn 13y agoAlso, a larger part of the Apple v. Samsung cases was about design patents rather than software patents.
- brianpgordon 13y agoIt's so easy to accidentally violate a software patent. It's a two-character difference in this case: http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#IntegerAbs http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#IntegerA...