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http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5063444 ... _lede2_hed
Microsoft must pay 0.521 billion


Evidence that jurors are stupid

How does exactly one patent "plugins"? Probably submit a patent that says something vague like "modular pieces that go in another program" and presto, you own "plugins".

Wonder if Photoshop or 3D Studio Max will have to pay for their "plugins".

That's the beauty of patents in the computer age. The idiots approving the patents have no idea what they mean, and will happily award vaguely worded patents which require almost no work to create and can potentially govern half the computing industry someday.

The patent office seriously needs to re-evaluate old patents, and perhaps even go so far as to put a moratorium on all computer-related patents until they can work out a coherent strategy for dealing with them.

I wonder if i can patent the mouse click or compression?

Darth Wong wrote:The patent office seriously needs to re-evaluate old patents, and perhaps even go so far as to put a moratorium on all computer-related patents until they can work out a coherent strategy for dealing with them.

It's a common problem, because the patent office is very fond of awarding patents for almost anything. It's possible to patent a business concept, which might be acceptable for some things but often ends up being abused.

Hethrir wrote:I wonder if i can patent the mouse click or compression?

Yes you can. Look at the patent on lzw compression (used in GIFs).

They should have an enforcement rule like trademarks, eg if you don't enforce patents, you can't charge for it, to prevent companies from charging for something after it has become standardized over years of nonenforcement- eg the lzw patent and the mp3 patents (though everyone appears to ignore the mp3 patents).