[ Thanks to An Anonymous Reader for
this link. ]
“Obtaining a robust patent portfolio is becoming a necessary
tool to create a preemptive weapon that keeps patent trolls at bay.
Let me clarify this statement with a specific example. Once a
company becomes successful (let us use Google as an example),
people mysteriously appear out of the woodwork claiming that that
company infringes on their patents. The most egregious example of
this type of behavior is Oracle’s lawsuit claiming that Google has
infringed on its Java patents with its Android operating system.
Now let us look at this case a little bit more closely. When Google
first announced Android, the CEO and co-founder of Sun
Microsystems, Mr. Scott McNealy, congratulated Google on a job well
done. Sun owned Java and employed Java’s creator, Mr. James
Gosling. Oracle bought Sun, thus gaining access to and ownership of
Java, and its associated patents. It now appears more and more that
Oracle bought Sun with the explicit intent of using Java to sue
Google over Android. This is the kind of profiteering that I
believe is doomed to failure: it is not only unethical, it makes
the “pirate” look excessively petty and greedy. This kind of
behavior can easily turn neutral potential clients away from a
company very rapidly. For example, I went from being a person that
knew little about Oracle and its products to one that will NEVER
use their products, after seeing their behavior. An extremely
telling point is that Oracle has deleted ALL of Scott McNealy’s
blog entries from its website. Does a company that engages in
ethical and honest behavior, and has nothing to hide, have to
delete innocuous blog postings?”