There are no basement inventors. Unless you're watching movies. However, anti-software-patent campaigners certainly aren't just looking at the googles and the IBMs of this world. That's the point! They're looking at smaller software companies who can basically just be destroyed overnight by a big company by suing them with their patent portfolio in hand. There's just nothing a small company can do in the face of such a claim other than fold and hope the company in question throws them a bone and buys them out for pennies on the dollar so they don't walk away with nothing except a big legal bill.
There are also small companies that make no products at all and just buy up patents. These companies are called 'patent trolls' for a reason. There are also no basement inventors who got some money by selling their idea to such a troll - the portfolio of trolls either stems from a company that created the troll as a spinoff, or by buying out patents owned by bankrupt companies, or by patenting a bunch of obvious ideas themselves (they are staffed by lawyers, after all). So, the system of today doesn't just not work, its a major parasite on innovation. Until someone shows me a plan to revamp software patents that seems reasonably on target for being efficient, I'm going to stuck to the clear truism that no law is perfect, and that if no law can be made that does more good than harm, then the world will have to move on without support from the legal system even if at least in theory some hypothetical near perfect law could make the world a better place in that regard. Also, your argument that 'crappy patents will just come out when you try to enforce' them is glossing over some rather important details. Such as the hundreds of thousands of dollars you need to defend and cover the risk when you do get sued for them, even if they are baloney. Case in point: At least 6 of the 8 patents that Oracle is suing Google with are clearly total hogwash, not novel in the slightest, and I can name at least 20 companies for every single one in clear infringement, with me being 100% certain those companies came up with the idea all by themselves. And yet no judge is even close to throwing them out as invalid. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to javaposse@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
