Kodak prompts ITC to consider iPhone ban

The apologist parade begins...

It's not about Apple fans. Does everything involving Apple have to be "for" and "against" Apple while ignoring any underlying issue?

For example, Kodak sued Sun over some software patents - which the majority of software developers regard as illegitimate instruments of monopoly, not tools to "promote innovation" or whatever rhetoric patent advocates use to cover up the unjustness of the patent system - and they seem to think that everyone has to stop by their toll booth on the way to selling anything to do with imaging. Indeed, the patents in this case (or maybe one related to it, given the continuous trail of litigation and "negotiation") touched on stuff like image previewing, which would suggest that Kodak just love their software patents. Apart from the mediocrity of their products, that's one reason why they'll never see any of my money if I can help it.

So, no: it's about a corporation treating my profession with contempt. Likewise, Nokia won't see any of my money, either, and Apple can join the blacklist if they think threatening people with patents is a good way to lock down a market for themselves. That's the IT angle.

"Do what we want or we'll sue" isn't negotiation

You aren't "getting to an agreement" if all you do is say "we have this patent, give us a million billion dollars or we'll have the government shut you down".

Re: Right then

"I challenge anyone here who dismisses the patent as obvious to do it better and release the code."

A patent is never actually "code", so you aren't comparing like with like. How about the patent applicants releasing "the code"? What? That would actually mean developing a product. You can, of course, claim that some patent holders have actually developed products - things which are already protected by increasingly restrictive copyright laws and regulations - which would then raise the difficult question of why they seek to exclude every competitor from offering a solution in that particular area.

Just to debunk your "special businesses and their IP" rhetoric: people risk infringing patents *all* the time because the evolution of commonly known techniques typically leads to new techniques that tin-pot monopolists decide are worthy of patents. Just bother to take a look at how much work goes into avoiding patent-encumbered techniques in open source projects, even avoiding patents held by supposedly "nice to open source" companies like IBM, to see that nothing super-special goes on inside the average patent-happy corporation.

"Good on Kodak. Companies have to defend their IP or they lose it."

Anyone who can see past the term "IP" knows exactly why its usage is an intellectually feeble substitute for an understanding of the rationale for, and effects of, the complete range of market-regulating instruments, of which patents are merely the least beneficial (in terms of the rationale for their introduction) and most unjust.

@"They give software monetary value..."

I would have thought the (often pretty high) price-tag on software gave it it's monetary value.

It is ridiculous that companies can "own" an "idea" (which is basically what IP patents are). It is just a monopoly waiting to happen. The system should encourage competition, not make it so that competing with the original implementer of an "idea" can get you sued.

Your "company" should succeed or fail based on the quality of it's products; how well you manage to implement the ideas. It shouldn't be able to produce a product, patent the basic ideas behind it, and thus prevent anybody else from making a competing product (at the risk of getting sued and possibly banned from selling it).

Re: @The apologist parade begins

Nice vague usage of various terms like "monetary value" (is selling actual products and services not offering, erm, revenue?), "R&D" (please elucidate on all that algorithm research and development and how it doesn't spring from existing knowledge), and "copy" (you know the difference between copyright and patents, right?).

The "puppy dogs and rainbows" are in the minds of people who think it's fair to punt an idea, typically, or maybe weld the lid shut on some region of mathematics or business, wait for other people to actually deliver stuff, and then tell them, "Oh we're so sorry you didn't know about our patent (amongst the zillion we deposit at the Patent Office every year), but we thought of this first! No, we didn't actually ship anything real, but we own this field now."

Instruments like copyright are fair instruments: you cannot commit copyright infringement by doing something independently of others; you actually have to be passing someone else's actual work off as your own, more or less. In contrast, patents punish anyone who does independent original work which just happens to resemble something someone sent to the patent landfill.

But thanks for the lecture on how the only way to attach "monetary value" to software is to monopolise entire fields of endeavour. It's interesting how the people most desperate to demonstrate their "hard world of business" credentials need the lecture in economics and capitalism the most.