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by ZeroGravitas 16 days ago
> In the 1980s, when IBM accused Sun of violating seven patents, Sun examined the patents and argued that IBM didn't have a case. The reply of IBM's lawyers was "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?" And Sun paid out.[4]
1 comments
lofaszvanitt 15 days ago
Big corpo shenanigans, from the 80s. Any recent quotes?
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shmerl 15 days ago
It's pretty much the modus operandi of any patent troll or in more general case - of any racketeer. Nothing new about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz0_r4PDyCs&t=1m30s

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lofaszvanitt 14 days ago
That doesn't warrant a general ban on patents, just because some out of touch living in a fantasy reality kids have an erection saying this.
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shmerl 14 days ago
Ban on software patent is more than warranted, only trolls themselves don't like such idea obviously.

But what also needed is persecution these patent trolls for racket like any mob racketeers. There were attempts of persecuting them this way in the past, but they should be renewed.

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