Re: TomTom to contest Microsoft patent lawsuit ..

[Vincent]

On Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:20:57 -0500, amicus_curious wrote:

>
> My own feeling is that the Open Invention Network and the FSF, too, are
> a bunch of pud knockers without much money in the bank and not much of a
> chance to horn in on this issue.  They could try to sue Microsoft for
> some sort of infringement somewhere, but they could have done that at
> any time they thought they had a case, just as many others have done. 
> Some have won and others have lost.  It is expensive to lose, however,
> and you need some real money to get to sit at the table.

Very few companies on this planet have the resources to fight a company 
like Microsoft.
If TomTom has indeed violated patents they should be required to 
compensate the company whose patents they have violated.
The problem is, determining this is a very expensive proposition for both 
sides.

> If Microsoft's three patents vis-a-vis Linux that are being asserted
> against Tom-Tom were found to be invalid, Microsoft could not collect
> any license fees in the future for their use, obviously, and that would
> cost them whatever revenue stream is derived from that sort of license. 
> I really doubt that it is very much money, though, compared to the
> oceans of bucks that Microsoft runs through each year.

Conspiracy theorists are wondering if there is more involved, like the 
first attack at Linux albeit by proxy.

> You have to remember, too, that these cases are decided by people who
> have next to no technical understanding of anything.  If you think the
> patent examiners are bad, consider that the jury is likely to see the
> examiner as an absolute expert.  What chance does logic have here?

That is the biggest problem and in fact is also a fatal flaw in the 
patent system itself.

I'll bet TomTom is kicking themselves for not using ext2 instead of FAT.
It probably would have been cheaper to develop some kind of interface 
software that would allow Windows to talk to ext2 transparently so the 
user could just view the device as a mass storage unit like it is using 
FAT.
Maybe some oss code exists for this function already, I do not know.