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Fallout From Japanese Patent On Help Icon

MeridianOnTheLake writes "The Tokyo District Court has ordered the destruction of Ichitaro, a software product that is the only serious competitor in Japan to Microsoft Word, and has been on sale since 1985. The ruling is based on the claim of a competitor, Matsushita, that the use of a help icon to invoke a help function infinges on one of their patents. "We are a global enterprise and we are just following international practice to enforce our IP rights," Kitadeya (Matsushita) said." Here's more on the story, as covered by Bloomberg and The Japan Times.

1 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Obvious Question by orcrist · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Nah, people admitting they're mistaken are usually modded redundant or offtopic so you don't see those posts ;-)

    -chris

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    San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence