That out of the way, when it comes to the legal defense; Open Source has little to stand on. For example, the whole point of Android was to be Open Source and freely disemenated; yet apparently Google is paying $9 in royalties to MSFT for every device using Android.
Doesn't this obliterate any superiority to the Open Source movement? Chances are that no matter what you do, someone has patented it.
May well be.. but Linux video drivers are as a rule slower on nvidia than Xp or 7
That goes for any software,in-fact any product. If you get big enough somebody will sue you,and it might be cheaper to just settle, pay them off. It doesn’t matter if the Patents are valid or not,just have a look at Oracle vs Google. Also,MSFT is getting money from HTC not from Google,Big difference. I am sure if it actually went to court,all patents would have been invalidated or at most easily bypassed by changed to the code. However,legal extortion still works.
I read that article, but unless I missed it, it did not explain what technology HTC and Samsung were paying MSFT for.
Actually these people are PAYING for things MS claims are covered by their patents, not by any proven or court order. And its not google, its the MANUFACTURERS, though now with google makign phones they may have inherited any agreement motorola may have had with MSFT.
As a software developer myself, I find the whole patent thing a bit crazy, the patent office has no idea what they issue patents for..
For instance, entering a password to unlock it is a “PATENT”.. that’s crazy! But the Patent office issued a patent for it.. so that is why your droid has a different zip to the circles in the right order, its all just silliness.
Innovation is stifled by desigining around bogus patents that are meaningless except to lawyers and moochers.
I have no issues giving a patent to someone who truly invents something new, say a new encryption algorithm or something, but swiping a screen left to right is a patententable thing? Come on... its crazy.