Stew-
(To others, this is OT at the beginning, but on-topic at the end - skip down to where I say BEGIN ON TOPIC.)
I have no problems protecting intellectual property. Like I said, I'm a capitalist. If Microsoft wants to patent the text engine for Word, then I'm all in favor of it. If they develop a compression algorithm for streaming video and patent that, go for it.
If they try to patent "word processing" or "image displaying" as concepts, then that's crossing the line.
I'm more ok with patenting specific implementations of concepts rather than patenting concepts. On a philosophical level, if Microsoft had patented word processing so nobody could compete in that space, then we'd have no innovation, and word processors would be stuck in the dark ages.
What if Ford had gotten the patent for "Cars," and nobody else was allowed to build any other 4-wheeled gasoline-powered vehicles? What if Ford had gotten the patent for "assembly line," and nobody else could take advantage of that advance without paying Ford a royalty?
I think patenting "sending HTML over satellite" is ridiculous. If you want to patent how you do it, that's one thing. If you patent the chips you use, the algorithms you use, that's fine. But if I develop my own chips and my own algorithms and I put my own satellite up and don't copy you at all, you shouldn't be able to sue me just because I deliver HTML over the satellite.
But regardless, the law disagrees with me. If I'm a company, I try to patent everything I can, because if I get the patent, it's potentially worth alot of money.
***BEGIN ON TOPIC***
IATV's patents... does IATV have a patent that covers interactive television? If so, how can Wink, WGAT, etc. compete in our space? If not, why have we not tried to secure those patents? I know we have several patents and are applying for several more, and one of the goals was to gain favorable leverage over the competition...
Stew - would you as a Gemstar shareholder change your tune if you found out that anything regarding interactive television fell under an IATV patent? You may have the patent for putting certain panels on the screen and what not but in order to get to that point, you'd have to go through an IATV patent, and if you got input from a user you'd hit another IATV patent. (I don't think IATV patents actually cover this, this is a hypothetical).
Sorry for being mostly off-topic.
-Mike |
