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One Rule For The Rich?

Posted by michael on from the patents-for-fun-and-profit dept.

mccaffer writes: "Here's a story about how the patent laws fail to protect the small guy. It's pretty obvious the legal system exists only to protect the interests of the powerful." Hmmm. I haven't heard anything about this, but Charles Arthur, the journalist, is usually reliable... Anyone else know anything about this story?

2 of 5 comments (clear)

  1. Money Talks by Detritus · · Score: 2

    One of my relatives is an inventor who has patents. He told me that big companies routinely rip off patented inventions. If you don't have several million dollars in spare cash for lawyers, they can get away with it.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  2. Re:No grits for you! by tagishsimon · · Score: 2
    Good grief. What a pissy AC; and incapable of stringing a comprehensible sentence together. Thank Taco that the /. team designed a moderation system which routes around morons.

    But hey, being nevertheless stung by the lack of acquired Karma, I thought I'd submit the following gemettes of data, since apparantly my previous more generic argument failed to sway the AC

    As the story relates, a complaint has been made in the UK Parliament about the dilatory nature of US justice, which appears to be acting in the interests of US big business and against that of a UK pipsqueak company. The original complaint can be found by searching for "Allvoice" at the URL http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/ cgi-bin/empower?DB=ukparl (which URL, for some strange reason, is not accepted by /. as a valid link. Probably they're merely the soft face of US Hegemony, eh?). There's about a couple of pages of the Member of Parliament providing chapter & verse on the slings and arrows that have outraged the patent holders.

    It all relates to teeny tiny Allvoice, who when they're not inventing the future are happy to dash out, screwdriver in hand, to fettle your fallen-down PC. Not a business renowned for making fortunes, so unsuprising they're feeling the pinch taking on US big business

    Allvoices patents, which are the McGuffins in this episode, are available for inspection here but you'll have to use the bottom of the three search boxes on the left side to search for "Allvoice", since I cannot be bothered to list the six patents individually. You can get to a PDF of the full patent in each case.

    None of which has anything to say about the price of bread, for which I refer you to my previous post.