[geeks] Can't decide on an OS

[Mike Meredith]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2013 04:37:56 -0400 (EDT), Mouse wrote:
> > To be fair the patent problem is a world-wide problem;
> 
> To an extent.  The existence of patents is world-wide, or almost; the

There's a US-based research project into the extent of patent trolling
in .eu; I suspect they'll find there's more than anybody realises. I
know of (and I wish I could recall any useful references) a UK company
that slowly declined from a company that did stuff into something
approaching a patent troll.

It's a bit like cutting someone's throat - you can do it silently or
you can make a big song and dance about it. Neither makes a great deal
of difference to the victim, but others might start paying attention if
you make a big song and dance!

And .eu companies have a long history of incidents showing that keeping
things quiet is the best way to hang on to ancient and outdated rights.
See the winding up of the East India Company for one example; see the
history of Muscovy Company for a counter-example.

> Possibly.  Another thing which would help greatly would be to
> drastically reduce patent lifetime.  Most patent systems grant

Even a reduced term would allow for abuse; not conventional patent
trolling, but things like Apple patenting round corners and stopping
others using them.

> Personally, I think patents are something that sounds reasonable at

And copyright, trade marks, etc. Whilst I'm not entirely sure that
scrapping the whole lot without replacing it with _something_ to
protect the "rights" of the inventor, it does seem that the current
system has evolved into something that is more in the interest of
lawyers than anybody else.

> In the case of the USA, I'd actually settle for the relevant
> government office enforcing the legislative criteria on patents,
> perhaps most notably the one of obviousness.  They seem to be leaving

I believe that the reason for that is to prevent a backlog of patent
applications building up. Another example of doing stuff for the
benefit of lawyers!

-- 
Mike Meredith (http://zonky.org/)
But I've never seen the Icarus story as a lesson about the limitations
of humans. I see it as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an
adhesive. -- Somewhere on xkcd.com