[Sussex] Patent bites patenter.

[Geoffrey J. Teale]

On Fri, 2005-05-20 at 19:49 +0100, Andrew Guard wrote:
> The best way of look at patent I have been told is this.  It only worth 
>   how much you can afforded to spend to defended it.
> 
> So if all can afforded it 100 then it only worth 100.

That sounds good, and it's the point Paul's making as well, but the
reality is not that.  If you have a good patent and your opponent has no
strong case against it then it will cost very little to defend it.   In
this case, as Paul stated, if you're opponent is very wealthy they will
either agree to pay a licensing fee or buy you out.  From the point of
view of most businesses either outcome is desirable.  If you don't have
a good patent or your opponent does have a good case then the law (as it
stands right now) has been properly served.

The real problem comes when the patent holder is a rich organisation,
and the target of thier litigation is a small business.  In this
situation it's more likely that the rich organisation can frighten the
smaller  organisation into giving up without a fight.  In this case it
is cannot be said that the law has been upheld.   I see parallels here
to the way SCO sent out thinly veiled threats to companies using Linux
to pay them a license fee or suffer the consequences in court (even
though they had not established a legitemate claim to such licensing).

These inbalances and injustices are the negative aspect of a capitalist
economy and it's related legal system.  Note that I do not use the term
"free market economy" - no such economy exists.  I think most people
would agree that all alternative economic and legal structures that have
been tried so far throw up similar abuses of power.  

-- 
Geoffrey J. Teale <tealeg at member.fsf.org>
Free Software Foundation