Apple And Microsoft Behind Patent Troll Armed With Thousands Of Nortel Patents

Re:Apple And Microsoft Behind Patent Troll Armed With Thousa... by beernutz on Saturday May 26, 2012 @06:01PM (#4028513)

I think the REAL issue, is that they lock up IDEAS. Ideas by themselves are inherently worthless. It's the EXECUTION that matters. Everyone has ideas. Some are great, some suck. The idea by itself is really meaningless until someone does something with it. Ideas, to me, are like knowledge. They should never be locked up, and should be freely shared.

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Re:Apple And Microsoft Behind Patent Troll Armed With Thousa... by SoftwareMaven on Saturday May 26, 2012 @08:18PM (#4028799)

Patents aren't supposed to lock up abstract ideas, they are supposed to unlock concrete implementations of ideas (unlock by giving details of the implementation to the public in exchange for a short-term monopoly).

There are good arguments either way for whether this is a good idea, but make the ideas far more abstract (like software) and add incredibly short technology cycles (like software), and there is no doubt it's a bad idea.

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Re:Apple And Microsoft Behind Patent Troll Armed With Thousa... by makomk on Sunday May 27, 2012 @08:54AM (#4030017)

Patents have never actually worked that way though. For instance, take a look at the history of the early US automobile industry sometime.

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Re:Apple And Microsoft Behind Patent Troll Armed With Thousa... by beernutz on Sunday May 27, 2012 @11:45PM (#4031830)

That is an excellent point! The way they are used vs. the way they are MEANT to be used, seem to be worlds apart.

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