sidenote

[15:32] <ClassBot> kamilnadeem asked: Your reaction on the latest thrashing of
Micro$oft by Barnes & Noble against their way of using litigation instead of
Innovations philosophy?
[15:33] <sabdfl> the biggest mistake microsoft made was to decide that patents
would be an effective defence against new competitors
[15:33] <sabdfl> because that stops you from really innovating yourself
[15:33] <sabdfl> so Microsoft wasted most of a decade, thinking they could use
patents to defend the castle.
[15:33] <sabdfl> Meanwhile, others were innovating for real.
[15:34] <sabdfl> The whole patent system is a sham, unfortunately.
[15:34] <sabdfl> Patent authorities cannot realistically do their job; it
[15:34] <sabdfl> it's an impossible job to do.
[15:34] <sabdfl> and the patent system has slowly been twisted to do the exact
opposite of its PR
[15:35] <sabdfl> it's not, as many think, a system to defend the little inventor
against the big bad corporate.
[15:35] <sabdfl> Instead, it's a system to ensure the big bad corporate doesn't
get any scary new competition.
[15:35] <sabdfl> Patents were invented to encourage inventors to publish their
trade secrets, because society would benefit from the disclosure.
[15:36] <sabdfl> But we now allow patents on things you could never keep secret
in the first place, like software and business methods and medicines.
[15:36] <sabdfl> That's insanity. Innovation happens because people solve
problems, not because they might get a monopoly on it.
[15:37] <sabdfl> The reason this is not being changed is simple: legislation
evolves to suit those who can influence legislators. And large patent holders
tend to be influential in that regard.

#ubuntu-classroom IRC Log on the Freenode IRC network 24-Nov-2011

Duncan McLeod: Looking at all the software patent battles that are going on in the industry at the moment between Apple and Microsoft and Google and Samsung and HTC and so on, what is your view of the situation?

Mark Shuttleworth: The patent system is often misunderstood. It’s sold as a way of giving the little guy an opportunity to create something big … when in fact patents don’t really work that way at all.

What they do very well is keep the big guys entrenched and the little guys out. For example, it’s very common in established industries for all of the majors to buy up or file as many patents as they can covering a particular area. They know and accept that the other majors are all in the same industry and essentially cross-license each other to keep the peace within that defined market. But they use that arsenal to stop new entrants coming in and disrupting the market.

That’s almost the exact opposite of the way people think about the patent system. They think it’s supposed to catalyse disruption and innovation, but in reality it has the opposite effect.

What we’re seeing in the mobile space is that game being played out at large because Google is trying to disrupt that cosy ecosystem by entering the market with a product [Android] that is highly disruptive. And it’s disruptive to all of the majors, so what you’re seeing is this cascading series of suits and countersuits.

None of it is particularly constructive and it’s hugely expensive, often at the cost of end users who don’t have the real range of choice they should have.

Mark Shuttleworth on patents, tablets and the future of Ubuntu | TechCentral

Szerintem igaza van, ez már rég nem patent.