11 Nov
2002
11 Nov
'02
3:54 p.m.
On Mon, 11 Nov 2002 19:26:20 +0000, Simon Jenkins wrote:
The big boys might fight amongst themselves about this
stuff at the
moment, but if free software ever starts to seriously threaten them
they could very quickly forget their differences, gang up, and start
licensing the patents to/from each other.
I guess if that happened then it would be time to petition the OSS
community and the FSF and try to mount some sort of defense as that
would set a nasty precident. I think the FSF was trying to do
something similar in the DeCSS case but that eneded up going nowhere
for them and so they dropped it.
Does a patent get stronger if you're actually
earning money from it?
I don't think so.. I think it takes actual review or court action.
At least there is nothing in the history docs I have about any
royalities.
--
Richard A. Smith Bitworks, Inc.
rsmith(a)bitworks.com 479.846.5777 x104
Sr. Design Engineer http://www.bitworks.com