Beso et al. are bullies. btw:<p><a href="http://webshop.ffii.org/" rel="nofollow">http://webshop.ffii.org/</a><p>"Reback often tells the story of how a team of IBM patent lawyers went to Sun Microsystems Inc. in the 1980s and claimed that the then start-up was infringing on seven of its patents. After Sun engineers explained why they were not infringing, the IBM lawyers responded that with 10,000 patents, they would be sure to find some infringement somewhere." The Washington Post<p>"One could be tempted to consider ever stricter IP protection regimes to provide ever more stimuli for innovation. This conclusion is wrong, however. A prime example is patents on software, which might at first sight be seen as a logical expansion of the classic technology patent. But creating software differs markedly from creating machinery and the like."
Deutsche Bank Research<p>"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today."
Bill Gates (1991)<p>"The world's patent systems need reform so that innovation can be properly rewarded. (...) It is becoming ever more apparent that the patent system isn't working."
The Economist (11 November 2004)<p>"Building up a patent portfolio by engaging in defensive patenting cannot always protect against hold-up."
Federal Trade Commission of the USA<p>"More patents in more industries and with greater breadth are not always the best ways to maximize consumer welfare."
Federal Trade Commission of the USA<p>"The mild regime of IP protection in the past has led to a very innovative and competitive software industry with low entry barriers. A software patent, which serves to protect inventions of a non-technical nature, could kill the high innovation rate." PriceWaterhouseCoopers<p>"SMEs are crucial providers of pathbreaking innovations, but would be most adversely affected by patentability. The majority of them is deterred by the costs of patenting themselves, but would have to navigate around software patent portfolios of large corporations."
Deutsche Bank Research<p>"Many large companies operating on a global scale, including European ones, seem to be in favour of a software patenting regime. But most small enterprises are strongly opposed."
PriceWaterhouseCoopers<p>Microsoft Corp. warned Asian governments on Thursday they could face patent lawsuits for using the Linux operating system instead of its Windows software.
Reuters (18 November 2004)<p>"A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high: Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors."
Bill Gates (1991)<p>"Patent law provides to inventors an exclusive right to new technology in return for publication of the technology. This is not appropriate for industries such as software development in which innovations occur rapidly, can be made without a substantial capital investment, and tend to be creative combinations of previously-known techniques."
Oracle Corporation Patent Policy