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From: mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.misc,comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: hayes lawsuit
Message-ID: <7e19222w164w@mantis.co.uk>
Date: 20 May 91 13:53:05 GMT
References: <1991May17.214226.10776@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.
Lines: 24

gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Don Gillies) writes:
> 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?

This is a key point.

I, and I suspect many other people, would be happier with the idea of
software patents if the licensing fees were restricted, and if the patent
owners were required to grant licenses to all applicants at the same rate.
We would end up with something like the proposed payment system for reading
text in Xanadu, or like the 1 cent per CD which Philips makes.

Unfortunately, quite what is a reasonable amount of payment is open to
debate. Also, there would be problems with free software; but then, software
which costs 5 cents in patent payments is as near to free as makes no
difference to most people.


mathew