[Patents] Intershop attacked

[phm@a2e.de phm@a2e.de]

> > ........ from software patents owned by Open Markets, a US company
> > that specializes in hoarding patents ......
 
> Hartmut, you don't win arguments by making up accusations.  To date,
> Open Market has less than a dozen US patents.

The guys from TechSearch who are attacking you don't have much more
either. Still I'd say that their company specialises on hoarding patetns.
"Hoarding" was not meant as an accusation but as a description of what the
company focusses on.

Looking closer at OpenMarket, it does seem that they don't fit into that
category though.  Their money has actually come from web applications
rather than from patents.  Yet they were among the first to acquire
e-commerce patents and well publicized for that.

It appears that we are having here an example of a formerly booming market
that is suddenly shrinking a bit.  Both OpenMarket and Intershop didn't
have very good business results recently.  That is the situation in which
you start looking at your patent portfolio and thinking about how to push
competitors out, I guess.

The patents they are asserting look quite crappy.  I'd guess that during
litigation the claims might have to be narrowed.  But that will cost
Intershop a lot of time and money.

-phm