[blaincate]

famous fat line patent !

https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html

>>> The chief blue suit orchestrated the presentation of the seven patents IBM claimed were infringed, the most prominent of which was IBM's notorious "fat lines" patent: To turn a thin line on a computer screen into a broad line, you go up and down an equal distance from the ends of the thin line and then connect the four points. You probably learned this technique for turning a line into a rectangle in seventh-grade geometry, and, doubtless, you believe it was devised by Euclid or some such 3,000-year-old thinker. Not according to the examiners of the USPTO, who awarded IBM a patent on the process.

Read the whole story and you will see how IBM makes money !

[ALurchyBeast]

Here is the 'fat lines' patent you mentioned: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6930686. It's more about efficiency of drawing a line than connecting four dots.

[unlinked_dll]

What the patent says it's about and what your lawyers say it's about are two different things

[ska]

That's not true. If a patent doesn't say what it's about in a fairly prescribed way, it is easily defeated.

[aluminussoma]

Also worth reading again is former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz's anecdotes on Apple, Microsoft and Kodak trying to shake down Sun using patents: https://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-arti...