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At 10:24 AM 1/16/2004, Bill Kearney wrote:
>A half-billion? That's utterly ridiculous. Fortunately MS can afford to drag
>them to the poor house on appeals.
Sigh.
Regardless of the amount, I think there is prior art for this patent. But
we are all losers when it is so difficult and expensive to determine who
owns intellectual property. If your patent is spurious, you still have a
chance in court, where decisions will be made by people who may not
understand the IP issues. If you have a valid patent, that doesn't mean
that you can ever enforce it against a company with better lawyers than you
have, and you may not have enough money to even try. I have friends who
have decided not to file patents for just this reason, and one who decided
not to start a business for just this reason.
If we want to encourage innovation in this company, we need a patent system
that works for both large, established companies and small startups.
Jonathan
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