My undergrad marketing class required a project, and so I designed a concept based around a combination of Napster/AOL that didn't require dial-in access through that software. I called it iOnline. (I'm not joking, at all).

If I dug it up from this likely corrupted CD backup from my old computer, could I sue the pants off Apple for using 'i' as a prefix to everything, and demand huge royalties from iTunes?

Ugh.

When I was in college, I took some memory chips and made an external 'memory stick' that I could plug into the serial port.
Wish I would have known about patents back then.

Wasn't there some reform recently to patent law? Seems strange that it took so long for so many major companies that actually make things to get the law changed to get rid of these nonproductive trolls.

I'm sure Larry Ellison is coming up with 50 different ways on how to wreck that company. They think they're going to file a cheap patent infringement against Oracle and win?

Give me a break ;)

The trick now is to patent everything and make nothing. That way there are no products to sue over, or cross-license patents.

skinink: I'm sure Larry Ellison is coming up with 50 different ways on how to wreck that company. They think they're going to file a cheap patent infringement against Oracle and win?

The goal isn't to win. The goal is to throw up so much smoke and fury an $8-10million settlement is cheaper than the lawyers and press damage control.

Hmm. so Arthur C. Clarke publishes "Imperial Earth" in 1976, and this Klausner guy patents a cut down version of the Clarke PDA in 1977.

Marcus Aurelius: Too bad we can't go back to the good old days when you actually had to produce a product to get a damned patent.

Done in two.

Marcus Aurelius: Too bad we can't go back to the good old days when you actually had to produce a product to get a damned patent.


When were these "good old days"? Other than the requirement in the early 1800 of "models" being supplied with a patent application, there has never been a requirement that you manufacture a product to get a patent!

sdd2000: Marcus Aurelius: Too bad we can't go back to the good old days when you actually had to produce a product to get a damned patent.


When were these "good old days"? Other than the requirement in the early 1800 of "models" being supplied with a patent application, there has never been a requirement that you manufacture a product to get a patent!

Exactly. My friends' dad has his patent licensed out to firms specifically so it's never produced. I've never even been told what it is specifically, but I guess it's a manufacturing process/device that would put a pretty significant industry completely out of business.