Patent suit by M$ against Android user Barnes & Noble

[swfiua at gmail.com]

Groklaw has a good piece on this story:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2011032316585825

The idea is that if some overseas company is infringing MS's copyrights they
want to be able to sue any US company that buys products from that company
(presumabaly 'cos they can't go after the overseas company).

Bizarrely, the legislation explicitly excludes open source licenses -- so
people can infringe the GPL with impunity and not worry about the
legislation.

Actually, it is possible they could be sued under this act, as the
definition of open source license seems to be that the code can be copied
and distributed for free -- which isn't really the case with GPL -- it isn't
completely free, you have to obey the terms of the license -- ok that might
not cost money, but it isn't a free lunch.

Very sinister legislation though.

John

2011/3/25 James <james2432 at gmail.com>

> Looks like M$ is at it again....
>
> http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/03/25/1212258/MS-Wants-Laws-To-Block-Products-Made-By-Software-Pirates
> this time with a little bit more "w...t....f...."
>
> On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 5:23 PM, Ralph Janke <txwikinger at ubuntu.com>wrote:
>
>>  Well.. for lawsuits of this kind you need a lot of funds before you start
>> and a long breath.
>>
>> Furthermore, patent applications are pretty costly too. Only a business
>> model for people that
>> have already enough capital to begin with.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 03/24/2011 05:20 PM, Tek Ang wrote:
>>
>>  Perhaps, we should think about filing patent for breathing method,
>> colours, sunlight. Just imagine the amount of lawsuits we could do ;)
>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>> ubuntu-ca at lists.ubuntu.com
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-ca
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> 外に遊びに行こう！
>
>
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>
>
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