Re: [ffii] Re: [Patents] Finnish organisations against CEC/BSA Directive Proposal

[Bernard Lang <Bernard.Lang@inria.fr>]

Hi,

One is called Getris Image.  It is in Grenoble (France)
Was sued in the USA by a British patent company .

The whole story is soon to be published in a French insdustry monthly

There are not many, for most litigation is settled out of court, with
no visible traces.

Most companies will yield some business advantage without going to court,
because they know they cannot afford it.
  It is possible that being attacked by a patent company, rather than
a competitor, there was no possible arrangement for Getris.

  One of the problems of patents is that litigation is so expensive
that it is handled outside the courts, which in itself is an
indication of the lawless character of the thing.

   This led one person to suggest that any cease and desist document
should go through an official body (or a copy be sent to an official
body) for the document to have any legal validity whatsoever.
   The idea is to have at least some statistics on patents fights and
out of court litigation.

   This would apply to all types of patents, not just software.

Bernard

On Tue, May 28, 2002 at 09:55:07AM +0100, Richard Poynder wrote:
> On Tue, May 28, 2002 at 09:00:34AM +0200, PILCH Hartmut wrote:
> >>
> >>Thus MySQL & Co are still underestimating the wreckless nature of the 
> >> patent movement in Europe.
> 
> >>you do make one mistake, Harmut :
> 
> 
> 
> >>This patent movement is reckless but unfortunately not wreckless.
> There are already examples of companies killed by patent litigation,
> based on patents that have since then been 
> >>cancelled for lack of innovation (by another company with more money
> to fight)
> 
> 
> 
> I'd certainly be interested to hear details of some of these companies,
> and the patents that were subsequently cancelled. Can you point me to a
> couple?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> Richard Poynder    
> Freelance Journalist
> Phone: + 44 (0)191-386-0072
> Mobile: 0793-202-4032
> E-mail: richard.poynder@journalist.co.uk
> E-mail: rich_p@dial.pipex.com
> E-mail: Richard.Poynder@dsl.pipex.com
> Web: www.richardpoynder.com
> 

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