TheStandard: Patent Problems

"Every method of doing business in cyberspace by definition is instantiated in technology - code. Thus, every method becomes subject to a patent...."

"But for a growing number of people, "Amazon.com" has a second meaning. When it filed suit against Barnes & Noble to defend its patent over the "one-click" technology, it stood for a different trend in cyberspace. This is the trend to patent cyberspace - the explosion of patents claiming rights to technologies, and hence to ways of doing business, on the Net."

"One of this growing number is Richard Stallman. Winner of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," founder of the Free Software Movement, author of GNU - which made Linux possible - Stallman is not quite as rich as Bezos. Nor is he as young. But among founders of the Net, he has earned a certain respect as a man who speaks from principle."

Complete Story

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• E-Commerce Times: Amazon Boycott Rhetoric Reaches Absurd Heights(Dec 30, 1999)
• ChainStorage.com: Free Software Advocate Boycotts Amazon.com(Dec 28, 1999)
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• UPDATED: Richard Stallman -- Boycott Amazon!(Dec 22, 1999)