On Tuesday, 12/05/2006 Tom Conley wrote: > Don't forget that IBM no longer has the consent decree hanging over their > head, so they can raise this lawsuit without fear of an anti-trust violation > (although the story alleged that PSI threatened IBM with an anti-trust suit > if IBM didn't back off). IBM apparently has no misgivings about anti-trust > litigation (and with a Republican Justice department, who can blame them?). > All this spells disaster for the little guy, and I think IBM is actually
> shooting itself in the foot trying to become the only z/OS-capable hardware > vendor. We'll know the answer in the next 25 years. <disclaimer> I have no personal knowledge of the details of this lawsuit. There are no subtle hints buried here. </disclaimer> Companies threaten each other all the time. That's how progress is made. :-) But anti-trust is a far cry from intellectual property protection. IMO, a company has every right to protect its patents, doesn't it? "Anti-trust" implies an *unfair* control of the market. It isn't clear to me that preventing patent infringement would be unfair. If that were the case, there would be no incentive to have patents in the first place. Licenses to them are bargaining chips in B2B relationships, whether exchanged for licenses to others' patents or for cash. The licensing of patents is part of IBM's business model. This is discussed in good detail in the 2005 Annual Report ( ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/annualreport/2005/2005_ibm_annual.pdf). As an IBM stockholder, I really do hope they don't allow someone else to duplicate or use patented technology for their financial benefit without compensation. If they derive a benefit, then so, too, should IBM. I expect the same of every company I invest in; *I* expect them to protect *my* investment. And if licensing the technology to someone else would hurt more than it would help, then I see no compelling reason to license it. Alan Altmark Speaking for himself "My comments do not necessarily represent those of the International Business Machines Corporation." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
