
Microsoft, TomTom Settle Patent Infringement Battle - nickb
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/Microsoft-TomTom-Settle-Patent-Infringement-Battle-766706/
======
yungchin
I suppose this outcome was inevitable. MS couldn't afford the bad publicity of
an all-out litigation, and would have perhaps risked a ruling that would
render all software patents worthless. TomTom was in a worse position though:
if they'd lost the battle, MS might have demanded an agreement that wasn't
GPL-compatible (see point 7 in GPLv2), and this would have meant the end of
TomTom's business - full stop.

So it sounds like now there's a mostly undisclosed agreement, which is a great
outcome for MS: they get friendly publicity for being soft on TomTom, but the
case is still feeding the FUD on Linux' patent infringements...

------
batasrki
This is BS, utter and complete BS. This just allows Microsoft to perpetuate
their myths and TomTom gets to violate the GPL without actually disclosing it.

Does anyone have the balls to actually stand up to Microsoft and finally
invalidate their patent claims?

~~~
nytntynre
Yes it's called "the rest of the world" who believe that you can't patent the
process of replacing a long word with "~1"

