on the IBM patent "donation" to OSS

[David Nicol]

better to have a castle than to be a ronin.

 
> The whole patent system seems to be a money making device for large corporations
> (and governments) with armies of attorneys. Instead of really investing time and
> energy in research that may lead to some legitimate breakthrough, corps divert
> their resources to paying attorneys to file patents for insipid ideas and
> obvious techniques (see one-click shopping).
> 
> Sure, some of the patents these corps get are for truly revolutionary things and
> are well-deserved so that they can recover the costs of developing the ideas and
> make a reasonable profit. But I fear that much of the patent filing is a hedge
> so that they can take money out of the pockets of the little guys who
> independently discover the same obvious techniques, etc.
> 
> I'm talking out of my league here as I'm not a lawyer. Sorry about that.

-- 
David L Nicol
Communication is neither obvious nor inscrutable.