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Study: Microsoft patents could threaten Linux

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Zombie9920:
Could Microsoft

hm_murdock:
The problem is that these days, you're allowed to patent vague concepts and ideas and not just tangible things.

If you had to patent CODE... things would be different.

Things would be different if I ran things.

flap:
Well the whole purpose of patents is to cover ideas and concepts, and not tangible things. There wouldn't be any need to patent specific code since that's covered by copyright.

Aloone_Jonez:
For patent to hold water it must be innovative and original, for example if I managed to patent a normal bog standard broom it wouldn't hold up in court as people have used brooms for many years. But if I patented a new light weight fold up broom that would as if by magic by the flick of a switch fold up into a foot-long easy carry case then that would be worthy of a patent. Since MS has yet to patent anything that is innovative I think we have nothing to worry about.

We should be more concerned about HP, Intel, Novel.
 
quote:
JimmyJames:
The problem is that these days, you're allowed to patent vague concepts and ideas and not just tangible things.
--- End quote ---

Yes, I agree the patent system needs to change, it was origionaly there to protect people's ideas not fat monopoly's.

 
quote:
JimmyJames:
 Things would be different if I ran things.
--- End quote ---
  :D   No doubt they would be!

flap:

quote:For patent to hold water it must be innovative and original
--- End quote ---


Unfortunately that isn't the case, especially not with software. Software Patents would be bad enough even if they were only granted for 'novel' ideas, but the situation is made worse by the fact that such trivial, obvious ideas can be and are patented.

 
quote:Since MS has yet to patent anything that is innovative I think we have nothing to worry about.
--- End quote ---


The point of the article is that there are specific patents held by Microsoft and others that are already potentially infringed upon by Linux.

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