[CLUE-Talk] Something to think about

[Alex Young]

Richard,

I don't think that the IBM patents are that significant to the rest of the unix vendors.    Most large OS companies hold a lot of conflicting patents they never enforce.

One common stratigie is to threaten cross-suit if a company says it plans to enforce a pattent for a technology in existing software.

It really gets down to a basic misuse of patents in industry.   The number of frivolous patents is huge, and prior art is almost never looked into before a patent is issued.

In short, I think as long as the other unix's play fair they will be safe from IBM, and rightly so.     However, if there was a huge IP war started, say by Microsoft asserting that there is violating technology in Linux, I think the system will have to admit that software and business practice patents don't mean a lot anymore, scrap them and start with a clean slate.

Just my two cents,

Alex
----- Original Message -----
From: "G. Richard Raab" <rraab at plusten.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2003 16:31:34 -0600 
To: clue-talk at clue.denver.co.us
Subject: [CLUE-Talk] Something to think about

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> I have been thinking about IBM's response and if they really have some 
> fundemntal patents, they could throw a rela monkey wrench in Unix, not just 
> SCO.
> 
> Here is something that I posted to LT
> 
> <I>
> IBM is going after SCO with the patents. If the patents are core, it is quite 
> possible that it could hold up the Unix sys V( Of course, i doubt that it is 
> that fundamental, but I suspect that they have patents ).
> 
> At the same time, IBM has talked about ultimatly killing off AIX and moving 
> all customers to Linux. If IBM can hold up SCO from making sales, they could 
> even threaten HPux, Irix, and possibly Solaris. 
> This may have far ranging implications much further than any realize.
> 
> Is this the final battle?
> </I>
> 
> 
> - -- 
> cheers
> g.r.r.
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux)
> 
> iD8DBQE/MtNLhe/sjaHGmTIRAm2NAJ9H6xR39QQ1byTpLiAwXSSJhjOcYQCg6RYz
> upZkRTR0wAfwjM0zPhPcM9s=
> =c34n
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> 
> _______________________________________________
> CLUE-Talk mailing list
> Post messages to: CLUE-Talk at clue.denver.co.us
> Unsubscribe or manage your options: http://clue.denver.co.us/mailman/listinfo/clue-talk
> 

-- 
__________________________________________________________
Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com
http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup

CareerBuilder.com has over 400,000 jobs. Be smarter about your job search
http://corp.mail.com/careers