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Microsoft Loses Appeal in Guatemalan Patent Claim
Spy der Mann writes "A year ago, Guatemalan inventor Carlos Armando Amado sued Microsoft for stealing an Office idea he had tried to sell them in '92. They were found to be infringing on his patent and had to pay him $9 million in damages, but they refused and appealed the decision. Today, just a year after they appealed, the Court confirmed the verdict: Microsoft loses. If that wasn't enough, the amount was raised to $65 million for continuing infringement."
Look, in my opinion, this is a case where a patent worked the way it was supposed to work. Sure, I have trouble with the RIM situation where a company and thousands of users were basically held hostage by what was obviously a patent troll, but in this case the actual inventor of the technology was stepped on by a larger company.
If we didn't have the patent system, every game company would release their own version of Halo. Or every drug company would release their own version of Viagra. If companies couldn't profit from their own invention and expect their invention to be protected by law, we wouldn't have any kind of innovation at all.
It's not a perfect system. Not by a long shot. But seriously, "all patents are bad" is a little overkill.