Software Patents Drive Me Crazy
(home)I don’t think that software patents are need to be an evil thing. However, when companies use this vehicle to patent the insanely obvious and then claim it as their “innovation” my blood just boils.
Take for example KAM Industrieswho make software to control model train sets. They were awarded patents for their “innovation” of sending messages from a client to a server. Following this, they attempted to assert their “rights” over some guy who wrote software to do a similar task and released it for free.
Follow the rest here, I’m too stunned to summon the words.
April 20th, 2006 at 8:33 pm
Oh, I want more! I need closure!
I’d really love for them to actually try something more than just threatening letters. I’d especially like to see what happens if they tried to bring legal action against Sourceforge
What’s frightening is that while lawyers are in general evil fucks, they are evil fucks on a leash. This means that someone is actually authorising this legalised harassment, and might actually think they have a chance of reaching an outcome that they think is desirable.
On a more general note I think we’re going to see more and more claims like this brought against open source over the next few years. It is purely a sign of depreciated business models trying to cling to what life they have.
April 20th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
I too would like to see them try to take it further, and in the process getting their patents invalidated.
I think the aim of these actions is the typical aim of any legal proceedings, to draw settlement.