From srctran@world.std.com  Wed Dec 27 21:31:46 2000
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 16:31:46 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory Aharonian srctran@world.std.com
Subject: [Patents] patent pools enforcing per-copy-licensing mode
 of software development

>American venture capitalists' romance with software ended this year.
>Perhaps they realized that patents don't work for this purpose.

Wrong on both accounts.  While venture capital spending is slowing down,
it is still quite healthy.  If anything, someone with a new software
idea s
idea with serious profit potential should be able to raise plenty of
money.  The romance is still there, if not a bit more guarded.

With regards to the crash in the ecommerce world that is putting a bit
of a chill on things, it had little to do with patent problems.  For
example, disasters in Europe like boo.com and the L&H voice guys in
Belgium had nothing to do with patents, but rather bad marketing and
management.  Same for many of the ecommerce companies crashing in the
United States - lack of profits, not patent threats, is causing most
of the problems.

And for Open Source companies that have sold out by issuing stock and
going public (often screwing those that helped them become successful)
it is not because of software patents that their stock valuations
have plummeted, but again bad marketing, bad management, etc.

In fact, now that the easy money is not longer out there, I suspect there
will be more interest in the open source world to more fully protect
their intellectual properties, i.e., software. 

Greg Aharonian




