Forbes patent article

["Nick Fleming" <Nick@bigfatpanda.fsnet.co.uk>]

I came across this article at forbes.com, via a
"slashdot" (www.slashdot.org)  posting:
The date at the top seems wrong, but it is available
via the main forbes search engine
(so it seems to be genuine this time :-)

http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html

For me, the best bit of the article demonstrates
just how large companies use the patent
system at the expense of everyone else :

"The chief blue suit orchestrated the presentation of the seven patents IBM
claimed were infringed, the most prominent of which was IBM's notorious "fat
lines" patent: To turn a thin line on a computer screen into a broad line,
you go up and down an equal distance from the ends of the thin line and then
connect the four points. You probably learned this technique for turning a
line into a rectangle in seventh-grade geometry, and, doubtless, you believe
it was devised by Euclid or some such 3,000-year-old thinker. Not according
to the examiners of the USPTO, who awarded IBM a patent on the process.

After IBM's presentation, our turn came. As the Big Blue crew looked on
(without a flicker of emotion), my colleagues--all of whom had both
engineering and law degrees--took to the whiteboard with markers,
methodically illustrating, dissecting, and demolishing IBM's claims. We used
phrases like: "You must be kidding," and "You ought to be ashamed." But the
IBM team showed no emotion, save outright indifference. Confidently, we
proclaimed our conclusion: Only one of the seven IBM patents would be deemed
valid by a court, and no rational court would find that Sun's technology
infringed even that one.

An awkward silence ensued. The blue suits did not even confer among
themselves. They just sat there, stonelike. Finally, the chief suit
responded. "OK," he said, "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But
we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM
headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you
want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?"

After a modest bit of negotiation, Sun cut IBM a check, and the blue suits
went to the next company on their hit list. "

Regards,

Nick Fleming.