On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 05:53:42PM +0200, Thomas Hood wrote: > At one extreme it would be unreasonable to expect L to give up her legal > right, e.g., to sue A for damages caused by A's automobile running into > L's house. > > At the other extreme it would be reasonable to expect L to give up her > legal right to sue A for damages caused by L's use of program P. (I > assume here that offering programs on an as-is basis is reasonable.) > > I don't see how L's right to sue A for patent infringement can possibly > resemble the second case more than the first, so I am inclined to regard > the demand that L give up such rights as unreasonable ... until someone > can give me some suitable reasoning, of course.
Suing for software patent infringement does not resemble either of these cases at all; it more closely resembles "the legal right to swamp competing companies with frivelous lawsuits". I don't believe that enforcing software patents is a legitimate "legal right" that needs to be protected. (I do believe that potential abuses need to be explored carefully, of course.) -- Glenn Maynard
