[wellylug] new MS software patent application

[Brent Wood]

--- Tony Wills <ajwills at paradise.net.nz> wrote:

> At 13:01 21/11/2004, Brent wrote:
> >...
> >The nasty thing is, international enforcement of such patents may be via the
> >WTO, so MS could legitimately call for trade sanctions against countries
> which
> >permit patent infringements to occur.
> 
> If the Govt. goes for a 'free trade' deal with the US, it'll probably be 
> all sorts of rights in the intellectual property area that they will 
> compromise on to get the deal. 
> 

As happened in Oz. With the result that Oz software is now largely deveoped in
India, using Indian expertise. But the software is cheaper :-)

The idea of a free trade agreement meaning that large US corporates are free to
do pretty much what they like.


A recent amusing comment about China: "Windows is actually cheaper than Linux,
as it comes on 1 CD instead of 3". (Both being freely copied & distributed) 

But I'm not sure that is any better as an approach...


And yes, the PUBPAT office successfully overturned the FAT patent (30 Sept),
making the comment:

 "The Patent Office has simply confirmed what we already knew for some time
now, Microsoft's FAT patent is bogus," said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT's Executive
Director.  "I hope those companies that chose to take a license from Microsoft
for the patent negotiated refund clauses so that they can get their money
back."

and on refund clauses, I have no idea :-)


Brent