Microsoft forced to pay half billion after infringing patents

[bhoggett]

While I dislike Microsoft a great deal, I cannot help but cringe when software patent cases are upheld.  Copyrights I have no problem with, but patents suck big time.

[bhoggett]

@olegil

What else can we expect from a society so corrupt that it approved the patenting of human genes?

[bhoggett]

@Kees

Not at all. I may be jumping the gun regarding the legal status of the whole issue (or else my memory is playing tricks on me) but the issue of patenting human genes or snippets of DNA sequencing by those companies/universities whose research departments discover them is deadly serious.

It's like Christopher Columbus patenting America, or Newton patenting gravity...

(not to mention the moralilty of holding people's health to ransom in the process)

[bhoggett]

@Roj

Yes, copyrights are now frequently abused, or rather the concept is.

What I meant when I said I have no problem with copyright is that I have no problem with proprietary software and the author's right to protect his work.

Your comparison of a word processor to an everyday tool has a lot to do with patenting and little to do with copyrights. A commercial word processor is akin to a specialised everyday tool. Yes, you put it to fairly basic use, but it is in fact a specialised tool. As with every other tool, it is your choice which model to choose, including free ones. No problems with copyrights, but if word processing was to be patented...