Re:Patent Troll: Bloomberg calls it what it is
by lionhearted on Wednesday June 02, 2010 @02:30AM
(#1397296)
Accidentally upvoted you.
1. The point is that the legal system is broken and he's doing something scummy by weaponizing the law. Just because something is legal/illegal doesn't change the right/wrongness of it. What he's doing is wrong.
2. "companies that are already rich" - this has a ripple effect that matters for everyone. All the money that is siphoned into the legal process isn't going to R&D, hiring, expansion, or giving people money to invest into other productive endeavors. But that's not the worst part, the worst part is it creates a huge scary barrier to entry for little guys who want to innovate.
3. It's not that he's making money off of something he didn't create, it's that he's not adding any value. He's not even pretending to add value, or questionably adding value. He's a parasite. Shopkeepers display and store things for you to use and make it easier to get what you want. Immigrants to the USA from the Soviet Union would always be amazed at supermarkets - "There's all this food? And you can just... buy it?" Truly, we live in a great era if people don't realize that stuff doesn't just magically appear all over the place for them to buy whenever they want. That kind of sorting, storing, logistics, display, packing, unpacking, and cleaning takes a lot of work and effort and planning, and adds a lot of value. This court lawsuit extortion racket does not add value, it destroys value.
1. The point is that the legal system is broken and he's doing something scummy by weaponizing the law. Just because something is legal/illegal doesn't change the right/wrongness of it. What he's doing is wrong.
2. "companies that are already rich" - this has a ripple effect that matters for everyone. All the money that is siphoned into the legal process isn't going to R&D, hiring, expansion, or giving people money to invest into other productive endeavors. But that's not the worst part, the worst part is it creates a huge scary barrier to entry for little guys who want to innovate.
3. It's not that he's making money off of something he didn't create, it's that he's not adding any value. He's not even pretending to add value, or questionably adding value. He's a parasite. Shopkeepers display and store things for you to use and make it easier to get what you want. Immigrants to the USA from the Soviet Union would always be amazed at supermarkets - "There's all this food? And you can just... buy it?" Truly, we live in a great era if people don't realize that stuff doesn't just magically appear all over the place for them to buy whenever they want. That kind of sorting, storing, logistics, display, packing, unpacking, and cleaning takes a lot of work and effort and planning, and adds a lot of value. This court lawsuit extortion racket does not add value, it destroys value.