Amazon sued over Kindle SO screensavers

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by teh603

Never thought about licensing it? Gives you a lot more control over the rights than a flat- out sale.

IMO, just making patents to sell is kinda like starting a company whose only goal is to be bought out by a bigger company. Its like how toy companies trying to get bought out by Wal-Mart, or tech companies trying to get bought out by Google; the products they made were usually second- rate or non- existent, and they hadn't even tried licensing out what patents and copyrights they had.

Kinda degrades the entrepreneurial spirit, doesn't it? Believing that the best overall outcome is to be consumed by a growing megacorp?

There are inventors who are only good at inventing, and couldn't run a company. For them, it makes sense to invent, and sell the patent so they can go back to inventing something else. The problem is with nonsense patents that get through the system.

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

FYI, that wasn't a Kindle SO; it was an AmazonLocal offer. Those offers are freely available to anyone who wants one and Kindle ownership isn't required.

The SO's have really tapered off since the holidays. Instead, we're being spammed by these AmazonLocal ads. My Kindle currently has seven of them right now.

Come to think of it, I did take advantage of romance ebooks for $1-- I got a bundle of 3 books for $1. That's the kindle offers then?

I don't mind the local stuff, it's less spammy than LivingSocial in my email.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Joykins

Come to think of it, I did take advantage of romance ebooks for $1-- I got a bundle of 3 books for $1. That's the kindle offers then?

Yes, the romance offer was a special offer. Kindle Special Offers are unique to Kindle SO owners and have unique promo codes attached to them.

[geenp]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

You say reasonable amount. from what I can tell nothing would be a reasonable amount. These people are parasites.

Reasonable would mean a fee agreeable to Amazon and the troll or the courts, if it ever makes it that far. Of course, when it comes to patent trolling, whether they should be paid at all or not is debatable.

[pruss]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

There are two questions.

(1) Are Kindles "Personal Computers"?
(2) If so, are Kindles and Amazon's servers part of a "Personal Computer Network"

I'd say no to both.

They are computers. But are they *personal* computers? I think of personal computers as a species of general-purpose computers. And while a Kindle can be converted to a general-purpose computer (jailbreak, and then you can run whatever you like on it), it isn't one out of the box.