Quote:
Originally Posted by markbot
new business strategy. install some double agent plants in the patent office. get anything u want patented and start suing everyone.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Barty
The patents include stuff like
Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;
Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection; and
Provide users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document.
MS also patented the status bar, apparently. Poor Tim Berners-Lee must be kicking himself for not patenting the whole freaking WWW!
http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/ |
I'm not sure it is double agents, but you together have hit on an issue that has been a problem for some time. That is the patent office being too willing to grant patent protection to large corporations for very broad all encompassing ideas. Apple and Microsoft seem to be leaders in this. Smaller companies seldom have the wherewithal to mount a challenge to this and so must pay up.