February 26th, 2007
USPTO needs an overhaul
Over the last few years, there has been a horrible, ever-increasing trend, of companies patenting, or buying companies that hold patents that are vague and generic and then going after the people with money who have already implemented technologies.
Eolas vs Microsoft on plugins
BlackBoard eLearning Patent
Alcatel-Lucent vs Microsoft on MP3 compression
Texas MP3 Technologies vs Apple, Samsung, Sandisk on MPEG portable sound reproduction
And I’m sure there are tons more than I’m forgetting.
There is a need to protect our designs and technologies, but these recent trend of patenting concepts (w/o a built product) and then suing someone who has built a similar product is getting ugly, and our customers/users are the ones suffering, not ot mention innovation.
