

Microsoft Files Suit: Linux Violates Our Patents - escapade
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-files-suit-linux-violates-our-patents-2009-2

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cosmo7
Situation: Microsoft is in court with a GPS company over some patents.

Problem: News story is boring.

Solution: Headline "Microsoft Sues Linux", add picture of Steve Ballmer
looking mean. Sprinkle with spelling mistakes and "no word yet"
unprofessionalisms. Lame.

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spot
the lawsuit includes the patent on long filenames in the fat32 filesystem.
this is a big deal.

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alnayyir
aren't there BSD licensed solutions to this plus prior art?

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jrockway
If this actually poses a threat to Linux, you can bet IBM (and Google) are
going to be taking Microsoft to court over their patents that Microsoft
probably infringes on.

Software patents are like nuclear weapons. You bring them out, and everyone
loses.

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mjgoins
And much like nukes, having them in the first place was a backward idea.

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likpok
No. Patents are _required_ for certain kinds of development. Places where
there are _extremely_ high costs of R&D, and easy reverse engineering. Take
pharmaceuticals. It costs several hundred million dollars for the studies to
prove that the drug works, and more for the research. Furthermore, it is easy
to reverse engineer drugs (the compounds are printed on the package!).

This means that there is little incentive to develop a drug unless you can
guarantee exclusivity for a period (everyone else can always undercut you
because they don't have the R&D costs).

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wheels
This probably isn't over any system components since Microsoft is of course
aware of the _Open Innovation Network_ which has a patent portfolio
specifically for defensive use in case there is an attempt for any company to
sue another company for usage of base system components (which goes all the
way up to the desktop, excluding media codecs).

<http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/>

