The scourge here in the US are the "patent whores" who make a business model of doing little more than patenting as many ideas as they can and then sit and wait for someone else to implement an idea and then slam them with a lawsuit for "intellectual property rights infringement." It baffles me how anyone would allow such lawsuits to make their way through the system.<br>
<br>But then again, we are talking about a country where I can sue a fast food chain if my coffee is too hot. Maybe that's why they now offer "iced coffee" ?<br><br>Even if the coffee cup has posted that its contents are hot there's someone ready to sue. A while back I saw on the news where a woman sued because her mother "burned" her lip from hot coffee purchased at a fast food drive-through window and her defense was that her mother was not a native English speaker, and thus could not understand the message "Caution: Contents May Be Hot"<br>
<br>Guess what? She was awarded half a million $. <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 2:28 AM, Tedd Hansen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:tedd@nimbustech.no">tedd@nimbustech.no</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">Hi</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">Actually the patent system should work fine and encourage
innovation. It *<b>should</b>* have a block against patenting things that are a
natural evolution of existing technology.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">Sadly, as with all things, the US justice system seems to allow
any party to sue any part for anything and I think that has rubbed off on
patenting (imho). Now companies are patenting everything just to avoid getting
sued. We see examples of this in IBM, Microsoft, etc where they patent it just
to release it to everyone. (Anyone remember the MS-patent for “Dynamic loading and
binding of modules” I found researching for script engine? ;) )</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">Doing some researching for a patent here in Norway a few years
back I found that it was near impossible (here) to get a patent unless what you
made was revolutionary new. Anything that would be considered the next step was
not enough for a patent.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US">Br,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> Tedd</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-US">From:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-US"> <a href="mailto:opensim-dev-bounces@lists.berlios.de" target="_blank">opensim-dev-bounces@lists.berlios.de</a>
[mailto:<a href="mailto:opensim-dev-bounces@lists.berlios.de" target="_blank">opensim-dev-bounces@lists.berlios.de</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Mark Malewski<br>
<b>Sent:</b> 12. februar 2010 06:01<div class="im"><br>
<b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de" target="_blank">opensim-dev@lists.berlios.de</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Opensim-dev] How Was OpenSim "Born"?</div></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span><b><i><span style="font-size: 10pt;">> I honestly believe that the
patent system, by its very nature, </span></i></b></span></p><div><div></div><div class="h5">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span><b><i><span style="font-size: 10pt;">> is the worst thing ever when
it comes to stifling innovation</span></i></b></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span><b><i><span style="font-size: 10pt;">> and technological
advancement.</span></i></b></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span><span>Agreed.</span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br>