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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (51956)	10/22/2000 3:35:03 PM
From: dybdahl	Respond to of 74651

Patents IS monopoly over here... Besides state monopolies, patent, trademarks and copyright is the only way to get something that smells like monopoly. Microsoft may have monopoly on the trademark "Windows" and their product "Windows", as long as they don't monopolize the market for operating systems. But, as I said, the remedies that can be enforces, are not comparable to the U.S. But it might get political, if the U.S. didn't do the DOJ case. As far as I know, a patents in Europe can be forced into licensing if it isn't exploited well enough, but I'm not sure. Right now, there is a big discussion in Europe about software patents, because we don't have as many software patents as you do in the U.S. Germany (80 million people) seems to focus very much on the subject, that patents may not prevent innovation. Other countries are likely to get the same attitude. In the long run, this discussion could theoretically end in a different European attitude on other patent issues, too. There are too many examples of patents being used to prevent other people from innovating, and too few examples of patents that help innovation. This makes patents look bad in public media, especially in these days, where growth comes from IT.