[ale] EU Software Patent Vote

[Jim Popovitch]

On Sun, 2005-07-17 at 16:10 -0700, Ken Arromdee wrote:
> Umm, the corporate interests 
 
:-)  

Not all corporations have sinister interests.   In fact I think the
majority of software patent problems arise from a minority of
individuals and companies (incorporated or not).

The company I work for (a multinational software company with
development centers around the globe) was forced into a patent issue
simply because we were sued by a "competitor".  They sued us, so we went
and bought (at a cost of several million dollars) the rights to patents
that they were infringing upon.  In the end (recently) both suits were
settled out of court for no significant cost (yet we had to spend
millions on "third-party" patents to protect ourselves).  Our corp
lawyers are paid by salary, presumably the same for the other company,
so this wasn't a "make the lawyers rich" scheme.  In my mind the
original suitor sued solely because they couldn't compete in the market
place.

-Jim P.