Quote:
Originally Posted by Harmon
I think this has more to do with the state of the law concerning patents than it does with a change in Apple. There's a kind of patent arms race going on because of the odd nature of patent law. Basically, just because you acquire a patent doesn't mean that you have established the right to exploit the item you have patented. The only way to find out if a patent is any good is to have a lawsuit about it. Nobody knows if the allegations are false until a court has ruled on whether the patent is actually viable. So we have a legal environment involving bluff, and counter-bluff, that centers around protecting your ability to make new products. In my view, this is another aspect of what I see as the meltdown of the concept of Intellectual Property in the face of technological change.
It's not just Apple.
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And there is a simple legal fact... if you don't defend it then at some point it is deemed to be undefended and back in the public domain... otherwise known as use it or lose it...