[ Thanks to Bernard Swiss
for this link. ]
“The Encyclopaedia Britannica has not exactly been
having a good decade. In the minds of much of the public (though,
certainly not all), the usefulness of Britannica has long been
surpassed by Wikipedia. A couple years ago, we gave Britannica’s
president a chance to explain his views on where Britannica is
going, but it still seems like an uphill battle. Among the more
ridiculous things that Britannica has tried to do is to also turn
itself into a bit of a patent troll. Back in 2007, it sued a bunch
of GPS companies for patent infringement. Scratching your head over
why Britannica holds patents on GPS technology? The answer is even
more convoluted than you can imagine.“Through a series of events, Britannica ended up in possession
of a rather infamous patent (5,241,671), originally granted to
Compton’s back in 1993. That patent was initially used to claim
control over… well… pretty much all multimedia”I used the title as given by the story submitter because I
like it better 🙂 –ed.