As you must know, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, empowers the United States Congress "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." So we're gonna have patents. And in America, we idolize the little guy and rugged individuality, or we'd kill first to invent.
The drum beat of disputes is irritating. Solution: stop treating them ALL as news. Only some are news. You know how no-one reports vanilla murders on the 11 o'clock news in Detroit. It's gotta be something really out of the ordinary. Same for engadget - go ahead, report only the most newsworthy patent verdicts (like Word getting shut down), but not every suit against Microsoft etc. They are all defending tens of suits every year (just like they are defending labor, product liability, financial controls, blah blah blah). Behind the scenes are piles more settlements. Legal noise for a big corporation - including patent noise for any big technology company - is not news.
"I'm a college student looking for a new laptop, but almost all of my media I receive digitally. I'm looking for a laptop, not a netbook, without an optical drive, and budget sensitive. The optical drive will just be a waste of space, when I can have thinner laptop. What's out there?"
The most commented posts on Engadget over the past 24 hours.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
@clowns
As you must know, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, empowers the United States Congress "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." So we're gonna have patents. And in America, we idolize the little guy and rugged individuality, or we'd kill first to invent.
The drum beat of disputes is irritating. Solution: stop treating them ALL as news. Only some are news. You know how no-one reports vanilla murders on the 11 o'clock news in Detroit. It's gotta be something really out of the ordinary. Same for engadget - go ahead, report only the most newsworthy patent verdicts (like Word getting shut down), but not every suit against Microsoft etc. They are all defending tens of suits every year (just like they are defending labor, product liability, financial controls, blah blah blah). Behind the scenes are piles more settlements. Legal noise for a big corporation - including patent noise for any big technology company - is not news.
Even on a slow news day, you can do better.