Good points, Rob.
In a sense, I think we're all being played. The PR campaigns being run by global corporations would have us believe there are Good Guys and Bad Guys out there, when in fact it's a war for global dominance in which IP litigation is just one salient aspect of the larger battle.
Your next post is right: there are no Good Guys, and no Bad Guys - it's Us vs. Them among contestants with a foot on both sides of the IP fence. The only time they have both feet on the same side of the fence is in court.
Message 23538030
They want competitive advantage, and they want profit: nothing wrong with that. But the war is as much political (for hearts and minds) as it is technological, and politics makes for strange bedfellows. We all know that the first casualty of these wars is truth, the body of which is being badly mangled in global contests.
Despite all the media hype, and notwithstanding recent decisions by The Supremes, I don't expect major changes in patent decisions. Yes, there'll probably be some wingnut decisions, but that's what The Supremes are for.
I suppose that at least some of the controversy around IP (in the public [lay]consciousness, anyway) relates to the linkage between some questionable patents granted by the USPTO in recent years, which in some peoples' minds may be confused with the unrelated question of validity of patents granted when obtaining patents was more rigorous.
In the end, nobody wants patents to disappear - that's a lose/lose proposition. Nobody wants to make patent enforcement more difficult, or ineffective.
Despite current uncertainties, I expect decisions flowing from the law to change minimally, if at all.
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On another note, the poster edhopper re-appeared on Stockhouse's Wi-LAN thread. In '99, we discussed the range of possible royalties on handsets using W-OFDM. If memory serves (and it may not) $0.75 per handset was at the high end of the range.
Jim |
