Patent Lawsuits Catch-Up
A nice summary of the 2006 e-comm lititation in the E-Commerce Times. Not surprisingly, they call 2006 the “Year of the Tech Patent Lawsuits”. An excerpt on one of my favourites:
For better or worse, patent attorneys can thank the NTP v. Research In Motion case for introducing the word ‘patent troll’ into the general lexicon and more fundamentally, highlighting how easy it is for an upstart to challenge an established company. In short, it made patent law sexy.
This and many other recent cases in with which an e-commerce patent has been challenged by a small company has led to a steady call for reform by the software industry, he said.
“At every opportunity, today’s software market-leaders have called for reductions in the power of patents, increases in the difficulty of obtaining patents, and an enforcement bias toward companies that practice the patent.
Some see the proposed reforms as improving ‘patent quality’ while others see them as a way to squeeze out upstart competitors,” he explained
Wow. I never thought I’d live to see the words “patent law” and “sexy” used in the same sentence, much less using the latter to describe the former. I’ve already ruminated about this topic previously so will keep this one short. Links to the articles below.
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