Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!crdgw1!montnaro From: montnaro@spyder.crd.ge.com (Skip Montanaro) Newsgroups: comp.windows.x Subject: Re: Software patents Message-ID: Date: 1 Mar 91 17:54:27 GMT References: <9102262229.AA07555@mole.ai.mit.edu> <9102272125.AA09794@shasta.tivoli.com> <2799@codonics.COM> Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com Reply-To: montanaro@crdgw1.ge.com (Skip Montanaro) Organization: GE Corporate Research & Development, Schenectady, NY Lines: 33 In-reply-to: bret@codonics.COM's message of 28 Feb 91 22:53:54 GMT bret@codonics.COM (Bret Orsburn) and kk@shasta.tivoli.COM (Kerry Kimbrough) write: kk> So why fight? Pay the royalty or negotiate a patent swap. This is SOP kk> for patents; sw is no different. bo> So software patents have no appreciable effect on large organizations bo> with large patent portfolios, substantial profit margins and large legal bo> staffs. bo> At the same time, they can have a decisive impact on small organizations bo> and individuals. I read "small organizations" as one- or two-person software houses. (You can debate whether the X Consortium is a small organization. I'm looking at the extreme.) It's quite easy to infringe on a software patent. Anybody with a brain an a few bucks for an IBM-PC clone can go off and start writing software. Shareware and other low-cost distribution mechanisms make it relatively easy to publish software. Contrast that a patent by a (hypothetical and completely made up) patent by Ford on the angle of the cylinder heads in a V-8 engine. If GM and Chrysler wanted to use the content of that patent, they could probably swap some patents that Ford wanted. There's virtually no way I, as a "small organization", can violate that patent. I don't have the resources to produce a car. I do have the means necessary to violate all sorts of software patents, however. Software is a whole 'nuther ball game... -- Skip (montanaro@crdgw1.ge.com)