Microsoft May Become Major Opponent of Patents?

Posted by Zonk on Friday October 7, 2005 @05:10AM from the birds-gotta-fly-fish-gotta-swim dept.

UltimaGuy wrote to mention a story positing that Microsoft may one day be a major opponent of over-reaching patents. From the article: "Speaking at the LinuxWorld conference in London on Wednesday, Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, said that although Microsoft is seen as being very pro-patent at the moment, if every other software maker enforced its patents in the same way then Microsoft would find it very difficult and expensive to do business. 'I think in ten years you will see Microsoft become a major opponent of patents and we will see very large software vendors turn around their position on patents,' Shuttleworth said."

3 of 184 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

In Ten Years.... by Evil+W1zard · 2005-10-07 05:17 · Score: 0, Redundant

You will probably have to register your patents through Microsoft!

--
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
It's all about the money by ZachPruckowski · 2005-10-07 05:23 · Score: 0, Redundant

This should suprise noone. Most companies are about money rather than principles. They'll claim to be big on patents as a principle until it isn't profitable to them. Then watch how quickly they backpedal.
Re:Not Soviet Russia by sik0fewl · 2005-10-07 06:04 · Score: 0, Redundant

In Soviet Russia software patents you!

--
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler