Joao wrote: > Can Open Office (and other free/opensource software) be accused of stealing > the intellectual property of other programs (in O.o.'s case Microsoft > Office)??
Accused? Yes. Microsoft has a habit of making such claims. Microsoft also has a habit of refusing to provide specifics, on the grounds that doing so will cause said IP to be either invalidated, or found to be false. Be convicted of it. That depends upon what is meant by the term "Intellectual Property". If "Intellectual Property" means "copyright", then probably not. (A jury in a country other than the US won't find a copyright infringement in OOo.) If "Intellectual Property" means "trademark" then no. (Whilst Sun does not protect the OpenOffice.org trademarks, it is reasonable good at not infringing upon the trademark of other organizations. ) If "Intellectual Property" means "patent" then maybe. * Outside of the US software patents are all but meaningless. Minimal chance of a lawsuit even being heard, much less finding against the OOo user. * Inside of the US, it is a whole different story. Microsoft has funded at least three firms whose sole source of income is suing companies who violate there patents. At least one of these companies obtained their initial patents from Microsoft. Between the USPTO granting software patents that are both obvious, and based on prior art, and companies filing patents based on prior art that dates back to 10,000 BPE, and firms who decided that their way of generating income is to abuse the court system, it is possible that OOo will be caught up in the crosshairs of such a lawsuit. The merit of the lawsuit is irrelevant. The only relevant things are: ** For how long the USPTO will issue patents in violation of US Statute Law; ** How much money the bloodsuckers that destroy the economy through filing frivolous lawsuits such as Microsoft v Novell & Redhat have; Recent SCOTUS rulings imply that the Case Law for patents may undergo a radical change. KSR V Teleflex is the most significant such ruling. Effective 1 November 2007, new rules in awarding patents go into effect at USPTO. Whilst it still rewards accepting patents that violate US Statute law, it might slow down such applications. > Does OpenOffice infringe the intellectual property of Microsoft Office? No, but awkward facts like that has not prevented Microsoft from making such claims in the past. Nor does it hinder them in funding companies whose sole function is to harass FLOSS into oblivion, through filing frivolous lawsuits in bad faith. (CF: SCO v IBM, SCO v AutoZone, SCO v DaimlerChrysler.) > if not, why not? For a company like Microsoft, facts are utterly irrelevant. The only thing that matters to them is how many people they can con into believe the lies that they tout. xan jonathon -- OOo can not correct for incompetence in creating documents from MSO. Furthermore,OOo can not compensate for the defective and flawed security measures used by Microsoft. As such, before using this product for exams that require faulty and defective software, ensure that you will not be unjustly penalized for the incompetence of the organization that requires the use of software that is known to be flawed, defective, bug-ridden, and fails to meet ISO file format standards. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
