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From: sichermn@beach.csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman)
Subject: Re: hayes lawsuit
Message-ID: <1991May17.231253.15534@beach.csulb.edu>
Organization: Cal State Long Beach
References: <4913@orbit.cts.com> <9BDBC58@xds13.ferranti.com> <1991May17.214226.10776@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Fri, 17 May 1991 23:12:53 GMT

In article <1991May17.214226.10776@m.cs.uiuc.edu> gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Don Gillies) writes:
>In this case, I don't think it's reasonable to rag on Hayes.  I have
>heard that they license the command set for a very reasonable price.
>You can either (a) spend thousands of times as much money on lawyers
>in attempt to get something for nothing, or (b) pay Hayes some respect
>for establishing a useful standard, and license the command set.

 Perhaps true, depending on your set of values, but the command set
is *not* the subject of the patent. (In general, I dont think you
can patent languages, which a command set essentially is.)

>
>It's sort of like this guy who has the patent on the microprocessor.
>Sure, it scares everyone to death, but what if he's willing to license
>it for $.00001 per microprocessor?  Wouldn't it be worth it for the
>industry to pay him the $100,000 or so he has coming in order to
>settle the issue?  It's cheaper than hiring one corporate lawyer for a
>year, and it settles the issue once and for all.
>

  True, provising you think the patent is valid. If not, it just
encourages people and companies to patent minor elements of major
industrial successes for the purpose of extorting large sums of
money at just a little per unit. Somewhat akin to stealing the
round-off errors from bank transactions and depositing them in your
account: "but nobody will notice or be hurt".