Electronic News Leitartikel klagt ueber Patent-Tyrannei

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

Aharonian zitiert folgenden Leitartikel von Ed Sperling, Chefredakteur von
"Electronic News", den man im Netz nicht findet.

	http://www.e-insite.com/electronicnews/

Immerhin zeigt der Artikel, dass Patente im Elektronikbereich nicht
wesentlich angenehmer sind als die im Softwarebereich.

Der Versuch von Horns et al, den OSS-Bereich fuer einen Sonderfrieden
herauszuschneiden, weil von dort der meiste Widerstand kommt, beruhte auf
dem weit verbreiteten Missverstaendnis, das Patentsystem funktioniere in
anderen Bereichen, in denen man weniger laute Klagen hoert, ziemlich gut.

Da jede Rechenregel nicht nur in Disketten weichkodiert sondern auch in
Schaltungen hartkodiert werden kann (der Unterschied liegt nur in der
Kopierbarkeit des Objektes, die Materialisierung geht in jedem Falle
automatisch ohne erfinderische Taetigkeit von statten), glaubt Horns, die
Interessen der Hartkodierer fuer seine Sache mobilisieren zu koennen.  Nur
scheinen auch die inzwischen aufzumucksen.

------------

Ed Sperling, Editor-in-Chief -- 5/13/2002

Electronic News

If you think patent lawyers are annoying, get used to them. They're about
to become a permanent and increasingly visible fixture in the electronics
industry.

As chip designs become ever more complex - and there's no doubt they are,
given the skyrocketing increase in transistors and the soaring price of
masks to make the chips-the amount of intellectual property employed even
before the silicon is produced will increase dramatically. That means more
and more patents will be filed, and many more of them will have to be
defended.

Patents originally were created to protect the ideas of independent
inventors, but the whole system has become subverted over the years.
Large corporations now file hundreds of patents each year, as often to
keep their competitors at bay as to protect their own strategic position
in a market. And when they are feeling pressure from upstarts, they simply
call out their legal dogs and raise the price of doing business well
beyond the means of a small company. Or they steal an idea and drag out
the court time until the competitor folds.

The EDA market is still reeling from the lawsuits that have been filed back
and forth over patent infringement, and there's no indication there's going
to be any letup in the legal action anytime soon. Mention lawsuits to anyone
in that market and you'll almost always get a scowl followed by an earful
of vituperative commentary.

Nor is the electronics marketplace particularly unique. The biotech market
is a viper's nest of patents and litigation. And remember Netscape?  The
startup gained ground so quickly that it sent a chill down Microsoft's
collective spine. As it turned out, Microsoft had been so nose-down on
productivity applications that it totally missed the significance of the
Internet, then tried to make up lost ground with strong-arm tactics on PC
makers. Netscape claimed patent infringement and unfair trade practices,
but the company was far too small to last.

To some extent, companies have no choice but to defend their patents. This
is all because of a truly bizarre area of law called estoppel, which owes
its heritage to English land usage in the Middle Ages. Translated into 21st
century patent law, if a company realizes a competitor is encroaching on
its patents and doesn't act quickly, then it can't sue in the future-no
matter how much those patents are worth. That alone forces companies to
proactively safeguard their investment in intellectual property and to
keep a stable of lawyers ready to ride roughshod over anyone who messes
with it.

The lawyers aren't complaining. Many of the companies looking to protect
IP have deep pockets, and some of the companies they'll be challenging in
court have equally deep pockets. For the lawyers, that means there's
plenty of money to be made no matter which side they're on.

And because patent suits are as complex as the technology or intellectual
property that's involved, they can drag on for years. At worst, patent
attorneys are assured of a healthy round of billable hours. At best,
they can win fixed percentages of very large sums of money.

Issuing patents may have been a great idea at one point, but it's the patent
attorneys who will reap the biggest benefits in coming years. And given
the level of IP being developed by electronics companies these days, this
industry will end up contributing very large sums to the patent attorney
retirement fund.


-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII e.V. und Eurolinux-Allianz            +49-89-12789608
Innovation vs Patentinflation                       http://swpat.ffii.org/
115000 Stimmen 400 Firmen gegen Logikpatente    http://www.noepatents.org/


-- 
To unsubscribe, e-mail: debate-unsubscribe@lists.fitug.de
For additional commands, e-mail: debate-help@lists.fitug.de