chilling: Microsoft's attack on Barnes and Noble (i.e. Android)

[Thomas Milne]

On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 3:00 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> This is story is a couple of weeks old, but I'm just getting around to
> reading it now.
>
> I found it very interesting and infuriating:
>  <http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2011111122291296>
>
> Microsoft is threatening B&N via very stupid / trivial patents.  Threats
> include trying to block Nook imports into the US.

Man, if you get down to it, aren't ALL patents stupid on some level?
I've been reading a lot about invention lately, and I've watched
several BBC series on the history of science, math, and so on. It
seems to me that everything is based on someone's prior work, and not
in some trivial way. Babbage's computer is based on Jacquard's Loom
and so on, down through history. Invention is a communal effort, the
myth of the lone inventor is just that. Patents only seem to represent
who got to a lawyer first.

-- 
Thomas Milne
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