China Says Microsoft Violates IP With Windows, Bars Sales

from the well,-look-at-that dept

For years, Microsoft has been among the loudest complainers concerning "piracy" in China, so it's a bit of a surprise to see things switched around a bit. Mesanna was the first of a few to alert us that a Chinese court has found Microsoft guilty of violating the intellectual property of a local firm, Zhongyi Electronics, and demanded that the company cease selling Windows XP throughout China. The issue is the Chinese character fonts. According to Zhongyi, Microsoft licensed them for Windows 95, but not other versions. Microsoft, of course, insists that it is not infringing, and says it will appeal the ruling.

Still, with this ruling, as well as the recent attack on Google for violating copyright in China, it makes you wonder if China is doing this in an attempt to show American firms what might happen if they actually get what they "want" in terms of stronger copyright enforcement in China.

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Google Doesn't Rely On Intellectual Property For Its Leadership Position

from the stop-saying-it dept

In the various debates we have on intellectual property, we often hear people insisting that Google's dominance is based on intellectual property -- even though there's very little evidence to support this at all. The people who make this argument are guilty of the same mistake made in studies that count all things covered by intellectual property laws as if they only exist because of those laws. Entertainment industry lobbyists, like The Copyright Alliance, love to tout that "$1.52 trillion of the nation's GDP" comes from intellectual property. But that's both misleading and wrong. The number itself is exaggerated, but it also gives credit to intellectual property for anything that touches IP. For example, when we dug into the methodology, we saw that the study counts things that clearly were not because of IP law: such as furniture and jewelry. Are the Copyright Alliance and its entertainment backers really trying to suggest that without copyright law we would have no furniture or jewelry?

Similarly, Google often gets lumped into these discussions, with people insisting that its position in the market is due to copyright and patents. Google does, in fact, have a bunch of patents -- but I watch the patent app filings and patent grants on a bunch of different companies each week, and Google tends to file significantly fewer patents than other comparable companies. Furthermore, I don't know of a single case where Google even hinted at or threatened another company with a patent infringement suit (if there are any examples, please let me know). It appears that Google has focused very much on just using patents for defensive purposes, since it is regularly sued by others for infringement.

Matt Asay, over at News.com, has now highlighted an even stronger example of how Google is showing that it's not relying on intellectual property, but on execution, for its business position. The company recently open sourced its Closure tools, which it uses to build its web services (disclosure: I'm good friends with one of the folks involved in this project, and yes, he reads Techdirt regularly). As Asay puts it:

In many ways, Google is giving away the recipe to those that would like to build a Google clone.

The problem? Google is so much more than software.

In fact, one of the primary reasons that Google can write and open-source so much software is that it isn't a software company. Not even remotely. I could have every line of Google's software, both open source and proprietary, and I couldn't hope to compete with Google.

Google is what Google does with the software, and not the software itself.

It's the execution, not the idea. It's the service, not the code.

In fact, this sort of activity confuses the hell out of companies that do rely on intellectual property. Again, Asay makes this clear:

Google and Red Hat have moved beyond software. Software enables their operations, but software doesn't define such operations. Google, for its part, is open sourcing Microsoft, one line of code at a time, and Microsoft hasn't a clue as to how to respond, because it only knows the old world: competition through better IP.

And that -- right there -- is the key point we keep trying to make around here. You don't need to rely on intellectual property. And, if you do, you are opening yourself up wide to competition that doesn't rely on IP and innovates in a way that simply cuts your legs out from under you. Yet... we'll still hear stories for years about how all of Google's billions are because of its intellectual property, even as it gives away more and more of it each and every day.

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Network World Highlights BSA's Dirty Extortion Tricks

from the how-is-this-legal dept

We've highlighted how the BSA uses completely bogus stats to push its agenda, but an even bigger issue is how the company uses incredibly underhanded tactics to effectively extort companies into paying massive sums, even if they've legally purchased their software. A few years ago, the Associated Press started calling out some of the BSA's nastier tricks, but it's not like it made a difference. Stories of such tactics continue to pop up. Over at Network World, James Gaskin has devoted an entire column to highlighting underhanded tricks by the BSA, which it uses to bully small companies into paying thousands of dollars:

I'm concerned about how the BSA bullies small companies that lose paperwork, or are victimized by angry employees who destroy the single piece of evidence the BSA considers acceptable. What evidence is that? Want to guess? If you guess wrong, you pay a fine.

Is the original software packaging enough? Pay a fine. The Certificate of Authenticity on the computer? Pay a fine. The original disks holding the software? Pay a fine.

He also highlights how badly the deck is stacked against small companies, and how there are almost no legal rulings on these sorts of things, because the BSA and its biggest members (such as Microsoft, Adobe and Autodesk) know that it's cheaper for companies to settle rather than fight in court. As you read through the article, it just gets more and more ridiculous. Here's just a sampling:

Adobe, another BSA founding member, has started a program to audit companies for font abuse. Yes, fonts. Each font includes a copyright and you need a license. If someone sends you a Word document with a licensed font, and that font gets used by anyone in your company, it becomes a federal case. Literally.

One of the BSA tricks Scott really hates is its unbundling tactic. Say you have a copy of Microsoft Office you can't prove is yours. Perhaps the shipping clerk stole the invoice as he left your company to call the BSA and get a reward (it happens all the time). The BSA comes, and charges you not for one piece of software, Office, but individually for each application within Office, like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. Each one brings a fine for illegal use.

As Glaskin notes, none of this makes using unauthorized software right (especially these days, when there are so many legitimate alternatives), but the BSA's tactics are much worse. It's difficult to see how these sorts of things are allowed -- but as we've seen, various industry associations seem to get pretty much free reign in bullying whomever they want.

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Court Once Again Confirms Right Of First Sale For Software: You Own It, Not License It

from the good-news dept

Excellent news. In the ongoing case involving Autodesk and a guy, Timothy Vernor, who was trying to sell legally acquired used versions of AutoCAD on eBay, the district court judge has ruled that Autodesk has no right to restrict the sales of its used software. This wasn't a huge surprise, as the court indicated as much last year, when it refused to grant Autodesk's motion to dismiss the case. But this is an important ruling for a variety of reasons. Beyond just reiterating the well-established right of first sale on software, it also helps clarify that when you by a piece of software, you own it, rather than just license it. As the judge noted:

"The transfer of AutoCAD copies via the license is a transfer of ownership."

The judge also mocked Autodesk's claim that allowing such sales to go forward promoted piracy:

"Vernor's sale of AutoCAD packages promote piracy no more so than Autodesk's sales of the same packages."

Autodesk, of course, will likely appeal the ruling, so this isn't done yet. But, so far, this is definitely good news.

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Paul Graham: Content Really Was Just A Way To Mark Up Paper

from the welcome-to-the-future dept

YCombinator creator Paul Graham is the latest "deep thinker" to grasp the deeper economic meaning of infinite goods: they can't be sold. In fact, Graham recognizes that there's never been a real content business. It's always been about selling the scarcity:

Almost every form of publishing has been organized as if the medium was what they were selling, and the content was irrelevant. Book publishers, for example, set prices based on the cost of producing and distributing books. They treat the words printed in the book the same way a textile manufacturer treats the patterns printed on its fabrics.

Economically, the print media are in the business of marking up paper. We can all imagine an old-style editor getting a scoop and saying "this will sell a lot of papers!" Cross out that final S and you're describing their business model. The reason they make less money now is that people don't need as much paper.

He goes on to explore how this applies to music, movies, books, newspapers and software. From there, he comes to the same conclusion many of us have been discussing for years:

What happens to publishing if you can't sell content? You have two choices: give it away and make money from it indirectly, or find ways to embody it in things people will pay for.

The first is probably the future of most current media. Give music away and make money from concerts and t-shirts. Publish articles for free and make money from one of a dozen permutations of advertising. Both publishers and investors are down on advertising at the moment, but it has more potential than they realize.

I'm not claiming that potential will be realized by the existing players. The optimal ways to make money from the written word probably require different words written by different people.

Good stuff and worth reading the whole thing, though I think he misses one key important ingredient. If you take a step back and look at the overall economics of such markets, you quickly realize how much bigger they get when you free the content from the constraints and scarcity of physical media. This is the hardest part for some people to see, at times, but the key to recognizing it is realizing that the content itself is a resource, rather than a final product, and you've just increased the availability and massively decreased the cost of that resource -- and you can then use it (for free!) to make many other things more valuable. That, in a nutshell, is the most exciting part about freeing up digital content.

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ES&S Sues Former Workers Over Taking Buggy, Vulnerability-Filled Code

from the why-would-they-bother? dept

Michael Scott alerts us to the news that e-voting firm ES&S has sued two former employees, claiming copyright infringement over code they took with them from ES&S, along with additional trade secrets. I have no idea whether or not this is true, but all I can ask is "why?" As has been documented time and time again, ES&S's e-voting code has a ton of problems. Remember, these are the machines that have been found to have serious security vulnerabilities, with some serious bugs, such as adding votes to the wrong election, calibration problems that lead to people voting for the wrong candidate, and bugs that resulted in phantom votes. And ES&S is the company that knew about some of these bugs, and let them be used in elections anyway. So if you were going to go off and start your own e-voting company (and it's not clear these individuals did that), wouldn't you be better off starting from scratch?

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IBM Claims Software Patents Promoted Open Source Software?

from the but-how? dept

The folks over at Slashdot point us to an interesting tidbit buried in IBM's amicus brief for the Bilski case, where the company claims that software patents helped drive open source software development:

Patent protection has promoted the free sharing of source code on a patentee's terms--which has fueled the explosive growth of open source software development.

The original report linked above conveniently drops the "on a patentee's terms" which makes for a better story, but is a bit misleading. It's that clause that explains what IBM means by this claim, though it shows absolutely no substantiation of the claim, whatsoever. And that's because even with that clause added back in, it makes no sense. At all. Yes, software patents may make some developers more willing to share code with others... but that's got nothing to do with open source development or the growth of open source software. The situations where a patent makes a developer more comfortable showing source code are clearly cases of proprietary software, where the developer/patent holder is worried about the software being copied. With open source software, there's no such "worry" because that's actually a feature of the system.

So why does IBM simply get to make stuff up in a filing for the Supreme Court?

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Forget Software Copyrights And Patents... How About Trade Dress?

from the protect-any-way-you-can... dept

There are already concerns over the fact that software can be covered by both copyright and patents, but why not add trade dress to the mix? Via Michael Scott we learn that Fidelity is suing a competing company because its software looks like Fidelity's, and that the basic look and feel of Fidelity's software is protected by trade dress. While you can understand Fidelity's annoyance at having to compete with software that looks the same, the history of the software market is littered with "copycat" software products that drove markets forward. Apple, famously, copied the GUI from Xerox PARC. Microsoft copied the GUI from Apple (and there was a nice little lawsuit about all of that -- though it focused on copyright and contractual issues, rather than trade dress). The spreadsheet was first created by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston -- but Lotus eventually came out with a very similar product that (again) drove the market forward. Word Processors look quite similar to one another, and that's (mostly) a good thing. CRM software. Email software. It goes on and on. Is it really so terrible if "loan syndication" software looks similar? Yes, sometimes someone strikes out in a new direction and tries something different (and sometimes that different innovation is quite useful), but that hardly means that only one company should get to stop others from using a particular layout.

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BSA Jumps Onto The Three Strikes Bandwagon

from the with-some-weasel-words dept

So, this was really weird. I was having an instant messenger chat with a colleague here about the various "three strikes" proposals that have been popping up around the world, and he asked me whether or not the BSA had taken a stance on the issue. I noted not remembering hearing anything from them on it, and assumed that it was because the BSA mainly focuses on business users, for which a three strikes policy is not really an issue, and that the BSA would hopefully realize that cutting people off from the internet would almost certainly hurt the software industry a lot more than help it. But, literally 10 seconds after I sent that last text, I flipped over to my RSS reader and up popped an article about how the BSA has come out in favor of a three strikes plan. Freaky.

Guess I should have known better than to assume the BSA was smarter than the RIAA on this issue. As the article at Ars explains, the BSA tries to put in a bunch of caveats about due process and judicial oversight, but spends a bunch of time in its statement explaining how ISPs can get around all that due process and judicial oversight by simply putting three strikes into their contractual language -- meaning that they can just decide on their own to cut users off. Good luck with that.

More troubling, however, is that when questioned about the new statement by Ars Technica, the BSA said it was necessary because "last year our industry lost over $50 billion (USD) worldwide." Hmm. It's really quite troubling that the BSA still stands by these numbers when they've been debunked so thoroughly over and over again. They count the "retail value" of every piece of software as being "lost," which is clearly a lie. Five years ago, the research company that runs these studies for the BSA, IDG, flat out said that the BSA was wrong in claiming that "the retail value" of the software is the same as "losses." So why does the BSA continue to get away with claiming it?

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Asus The Latest To Recognize That BitTorrent Is Quite Useful

from the it-ain't-evil dept

To hear some in the entertainment industry tell the story, you'd think that BitTorrent was an evil technology designed with no redeeming value whatsoever. But, of course, there are tons of legitimate uses for it in a more efficient and economic way to distribute files by spreading the burden out. It's great for Linux distributions, for example. And now it's nice to see more and more companies recognizing that there's value in using BitTorrent technology to their advantage. Apparently, the latest is computer maker Asus, which is using BitTorrent for many software downloads. As the article points out, this is hardly revolutionary, but it is nice to see large corporations recognizing the usefulness of the technology.

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Intuit Pays $120 Million 'Don't Sue Us' Tax To Intellectual Ventures

from the money-wasted dept

It's no secret that I have tremendous problems with Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures, which many have described as the world's biggest patent "trolling" operation. The company has raised a ton of money and uses it to buy up thousands of patents. While it hasn't sued anyone, Myhrvold has made clear that's always an option. The company has remained incredibly secret, but it has somehow convinced some big companies to pay hundreds of millions to IV. Due to the secrecy, the details aren't clear -- and some of the deals apparently are a mix of "licensing" and an equity investment. But, still, the numbers are stunning. The latest, as pointed out by Stephen Kinsella is that Intuit has apparently paid $120 million to IV. For what? The right not to get sued. Think about that for a second. This is a pure dead weight net loss to society. It's $120 million that Intuit could have put towards further innovating, or to pay off investors via a dividend. Instead, it goes towards nothing productive, in terms of actually creating new products. It will now likely be used to buy up more patents so that IV can get similar black hole money grabs from other companies, as well. It's like a black hole where real innovation goes to die.

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Student Wins Against Professor's Threats Over Posting Code Online

from the code-is-speech dept

Reader Kyle Brady writes in to tell us his own story about how he fought back against one of his Computer Science professors, who threatened to fail him because he posted the code he wrote online. Kyle is a CS student, and only posted the code after the assignments were due (so it wasn't helping other students). He did so because he figured it might help him find a job to show examples of his coding skills and also because he believes in the value of sharing code. But his professor claimed that it was a violation of school policies, potentially "cheating" and that he could fail Kyle. Kyle responded by going through the school's Academic Integrity Policy, and not finding anything that he violated. When the professor did not agree with Kyle's response (to put it mildly), Kyle contacted the CS department head and explained his position. The department head researched the situation and finally agreed with Kyle that there was no violation of academic policy -- and, more importantly, that professors could not bar students from posting their code online or penalize students from doing so.

I have to admit that I'm rather surprised that a separate issue did not come up. That is, many schools make students sign something saying that any code they create as a student has the copyright automatically assigned to the school. This has resulted in conflicts, as students are surprised to learn that they can't do anything with the code they created as students. I don't know if SJSU does this or not, but you could see a school claiming that since it holds the copyright on such code, that it could prevent students from posting the content. Luckily, that does not appear to be the case in this situation.

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Thomson Reuters Lawsuit Against Competing Software Product Dismissed

from the reverse-engineering-allowed dept

Last year, we wrote about the troubling lawsuit filed by Thomson Reuters claiming that George Mason University, the makers of an open bibliography software, Zotero, had violated its copyright by reverse engineering the file format used by Thomson Reuters' own proprietary bibliography software, EndNote. Zotero could open bibliographies created in EndNote and then resave them in an open format -- a very useful tool that should be perfectly legal -- but which Thomson Reuters claims violated its license agreement, which bars reverse engineering. Luckily, a judge has tossed out the lawsuit, though (as of right now) it's not entirely clear what the reason for the dismissal was (the ruling doesn't appear to be anywhere online, and the reports on it don't seem to have the details either). Hopefully, Thomson Reuters takes the hint and drops the case, but there's probably a half-decent chance that it will refile the suit or appeal. However, one hopes that the company realizes that felony interference with a business model isn't a crime, and reverse engineering has been held to be perfectly legal. Also, wouldn't it be nice if the company focused on competing by innovating on tools and features, rather than trying to sue competitors out of existence? Update: There's a great analysis of the complaint, that goes much more deeply into the details -- and corrects some misperceptions in this and the earlier post (though, I'd still argue it's copyright law that makes the license enforceable in the first place).

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Canadian Patent Office Rejects Software And Business Model Patents

from the one-click-to-reject dept

While the US Supreme Court will soon be considering the question of software and business method patents (and the US Patent Office is still reviewing whether or not Amazon's "one-click patent" is valid), up North, the Canadian Patent Appeal Board (CPAB) appears to have resolved both issues by rejecting all software and business method patents in explaining why it's rejecting Amazon's one-click patent in Canada. Basically, the CPAB found that since software and business method patents haven't been allowed in the past, even if they're not explicitly forbidden by the patent law, it's such a big change that it should require legal action to allow them:

"since patenting business methods would involve a radical departure from the traditional patent regime, and since the patentability of such methods is a highly contentious matter, clear and unequivocal legislation is required for business methods to be patentable."

This actually makes a fair amount of sense. In the US, once the State Street case was decided, there was suddenly a mad rush to patent business methods and software, and part of the problem was that because so many people had considered the two unpatentable before, there wasn't the same set of prior art in the patent system that would have eliminated the worst abuses.

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Is The BSA Purposely Promoting Open Source Alternatives?

from the just-wondering dept

The BSA's actions often seem so short-sighted that it makes you wonder if the organization is actually working against the interests of its membership on purpose. We've detailed in the past how the BSA loves to trot out bogus stats to support its claims about software piracy rates and the supposed "damage" it does to the economy -- but a bigger issue is the practice of BSA software audits. A year and a half ago, the Associated Press exposed the BSA's auditing practices as being highly questionable, bordering on what many would consider to be outright extortion. The organization targets lots of small companies and has no mercy. So even if it was a simple misunderstanding over what a hugely complex software license allowed, the BSA still demands money. And the most stunning part? The BSA keeps the money. According to the AP piece, the BSA (unlike some other organizations) does not distribute the money it gets from fining companies for software licensing violations.

But the bigger issue is that these practices, which are productivity killers for companies, and make many small businesses feel like their software vendors are treating them like criminals, are driving companies to look for alternatives from providers who won't accuse them of infringement at the drop of a hat, and send in a bunch of auditors. Especially in the middle of an economic downturn, treating customers as if they're criminals isn't a very good strategy.

So, what is the BSA doing? Yes, that's right, it's pumping up its software audit program, sending 1,000 audit letters to companies in London, officially demanding they detail their software usage -- while unofficially acting as a tremendous advertisement for open source software, where providers don't treat their customers as if they were criminals.

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BSA Releases BS Numbers Yet Again, Then Says Don't Pay Attention To The Numbers

from the funny-stuff dept

Well, it's the middle of May, and that means (like clockwork) the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and IDC have come out with their annual bogus numbers about software "piracy." They do this every year, despite the fact that their numbers have been totally and completely debunked for years. Last year, they were kind enough to call to discuss my concerns, but stood by the idea that every unauthorized copy can be reasonably counted as a lost sale.

This year, they didn't bother to call.

Instead, it looks like they sought out other publications to pre-publish an attack on anyone who would criticize the numbers. This is pretty funny stuff, actually. They release the totally bogus numbers year after year (even though even the mainstream press has started questioning the ridiculousness of it), and then rather than actually responding to the criticism and perhaps trying to come up with more reasonable numbers, they slam those of us who point out that the BSA is flat out trying to mislead people into believing the "problem" of unauthorized copies is a much bigger issue than it really is.

Meanwhile, Michael Geist digs into the numbers that the BSA has provided, and notes that even if you believe the numbers, they don't seem to support the BSA's own position that countries need to implement the WIPO Copyright Treaty to decrease the unauthorized use of software. So, we've got bogus data that doesn't even support the BSA's own position.

Why does anyone actually take anything the BSA says seriously?

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Software Developer Liability Up For Debate In Europe

from the this-again... dept

A few years ago, there was a lot of attention paid to the question of whether or not software developers should be liable for bugs and security holes found in their software -- with some even suggesting that "lemon laws" should be extended to cover software products, allowing people to return software that was excessively buggy. In a 2005 discussion on the subject, we suggested that adding such liability wouldn't do much good, because software will pretty much always be buggy in some form or another. While we hadn't heard much on the issue lately, it appears that it's back up for debate in Europe, where the European Commission wants to make developers liable for buggy code.

What's really odd here is the reasoning being given, as one of the commissioners backing the plan claims: "more accountability for software makers, and for companies providing digital services, would lead to greater consumer choice." Really? Increasing liability would increase consumer choice? Somehow I doubt it.

While I can understand the argument that buggy software is bad, and it sucks when people buy something that is less than promised, it's difficult to see what a law can do to fix it. This really does seem like a case where the market is better suited to fix the problem. If you build a buggy product, that is just an opening for someone else to build a better product.

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Stardock CEO: Focus On Your Customers; Don't Worry About Pirates

from the exactly dept

Given our earlier posts about Stardock's new game, Demigod, and how the company was dealing with the fact that there were plenty of unauthorized copies, this shouldn't be a surprise at all: The company's CEO has taken to his forums to make it clear that, while no one likes unauthorized copies, his job is not to worry about "pirates," but to focus on pleasing his customers. And on that front, the game has been a huge success. In his post, he points out that even if the game had been a failure, he wouldn't be blaming it on pirates, but on the company's own mistakes -- but, of course, the game hasn't been a failure. It's been selling like crazy.

This isn't new or surprising. It's what Stardock has always said. And it's the same sort of attitude that others who have found success with content these days have had, as well. It's never pleasant to find someone is copying content/software/whatever you've made, but you can't worry about them. It's a waste of time and effort. People will always make unauthorized copies, and any effort to stop them will only hurt those who actually want to give you money. So focus on providing real value for those who want to buy, and stop worrying so much about everyone else.

The reality that most PC game publishers ignore is that there are people who buy games and people who don't buy games. The focus of a business is to increase its sales. My job, as CEO of Stardock, is not to fight worldwide piracy no matter how much it aggravates me personally. My job is to maximize the sales of my product and service and I do that by focusing on the people who pay my salary -- our customers.

You can waste an awful lot of energy and resources "fighting pirates" and losing, or you can focus on actually serving your customers and making money. Which seems more intelligent?

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Software Business Model: Adopt A Line Of Code

from the for-just-the-price-of-a-cup-of-coffee... dept

A few different people have sent in this story about how the developers behind Miro, an open source video watching software, are experimenting with a different sort of business model to support the development of the software: adopt a line of code. It's a cute little gimmick, but it is a creative way to get some attention and give people an additional benefit for supporting the project. They even offer a little widget that you can use to show off the line of code you adopted. I'm not sure how well this will work longterm, since it's more about the gimmick than providing some sort of scarce value, but it's still worth noting.

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28 More Companies Sued Over Grouped Toolbars Patent

from the patent-hawk-greed dept

You may recall last summer that we wrote about Gary Odom (as known as Patent Hawk) who has been known to stop by our site here to throw around an insult or two (nice guy!). It seems that Odom, who had previously worked with Microsoft, doing prior art research for its patents, had decided to turn around and sue Microsoft for having software toolbars that take different toolbar items and group the items together (stunning innovation, there). It later turned out that he may have violated his contracts in suing Microsoft.

That case is still ongoing, but why stop with just suing one company? Especially when that company is big and has lots of lawyers. Why not sue 28 other companies over the same patent. Amusingly, when Joe Mullin from IP Law & Business called Odom to comment, Odom refused, saying: "You're a hack job, man." Always a pleasant guy, that Odom. However, Odom had no problem discussing at length the lawsuit on his own blog -- amusingly referring to himself in the third person, and (this is great) offering his own "expert" opinion on the validity of his own patents and lawsuit. Very credible.

While it seems quite likely that the patent in question (Tool group manipulations) is invalid following the Bilski decision, Odom brushes aside those concerns saying anyone suggesting that "[doesn't] know what they are talking about" and then offers his own interpretation of the Bilski ruling, which doesn't seem to mesh with what the ruling actually said, or how the courts and the USPTO have been interpreting the ruling. Still, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's right, and that the patent is still valid. So what does he want?

Well, from his post, it appears he wants these companies to shut up and hand over 25% of their profits, based on a rule of thumb from half a century ago. Think about this back here in reality for a second. He's asking for 25% of all profits on nearly 30 different software products, because those software products happen to have toolbar menus where the buttons are in editable groups. This is an obvious minor feature on a minor feature of a minor feature. And he thinks it's fair and equitable to get 25% of all profits. Update: In the comments, Odom clarifies, saying that he does't want 25% of the profits (though, his original post is woefully unclear on this subject), ut 25% of the value of the feature. Considering the additional value to these products of having groupable toolbars seems minimal, I'm guessing about $5 towards Odom should about cover it. Odom, in the way only he can, also leaves another insult for us. Nice guy!

People like to point out these days that pretty much any high tech product in some way or another violates tens to hundreds of patents, thanks to the happy rapidity with which the USPTO approves any old obvious idea. Imagine if each one got to demand 25% of all profits as a license? It doesn't take a math major to recognize how the assertion makes no sense.

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