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A comment on Goodreads was the future of book reviews. Then Amazon bought it. Parent comment

Re:Goodreads was the future of book reviews. Then Amazon bou... by londons_explore on Monday July 03, 2023 @01:52PM (#36576493)
You could have other restrictions on mergers... For example, "All IP (trademarks, copyright, patents) from one of the two merged companies gets released to the public"

Or perhaps "Anyone with contractual obligations to one of the merged companies is released from those obligations".

Both of those would be half way to just dissolving one of the companies and re-hiring the staff by the other company to release a similar product.

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Re:Goodreads was the future of book reviews. Then Amazon bou... by GTP on Monday July 03, 2023 @02:01PM (#36576593)
> "All IP (trademarks, copyright, patents) from one of the two merged companies gets released to the public"

This sounds very extreme to me, sometimes acquisitions are done exactly because the buyer is interested in the other company's IP. This would be a showstopper even in the cases where the buyer really wants to use the IP it is going to aquire.

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Re:Goodreads was the future of book reviews. Then Amazon bou... by int_19h on Monday July 03, 2023 @03:39PM (#36577817)
> sometimes acquisitions are done exactly because the buyer is interested in the other company's IP

How many of those cases produce an outcome that is beneficial to the public?

[ Parent | on HN ]