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A comment on Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS developers. Parent comment

Re:Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS... by ynniv on Monday May 16, 2011 @11:30AM (#2552830)
Getting a patent is annoying enough (> 5 years of waiting and prodding a cube worker) and expensive enough (tens of $k) to kill most altruistic patent seeking. People are motivated to get them by a return on their investment, not the happy notion that the world is marginally less bad.
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Re:Lodsys explains in-app patent warning letters sent to iOS... by watmough on Monday May 16, 2011 @09:53PM (#2554990)
"People are motivated to get them by a return on their investment, not the happy notion that the world is marginally less bad."

I've always understood that as well as restricting other companies from competing with a patent holder, there is also an element of "mutually assured destruction" which would potentially allow negotiation and cross-licensing with companies asserting a patent. Didn't SUN maintain patents for exactly this process?

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