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MS vs AT&T Case Stirs Software Patent Debate

Posted by samzenpus on from the can-you-or-can't-you dept.

Stormwave0 writes "A Microsoft appeal against a decision for AT&T and their speech recognition patent has reached the Supreme Court. AT&T has argued that they did not license software using the patent for sales overseas. Microsoft, in the original case, argued "that it wasn't really liable for infringing on AT&T's licensing rights because it only supplied the golden disk to the replicator one time, and that disk did not really contain software in a usable form anyway." With that argument rejected, the case has moved in an unexpected direction. The court is now debating whether or not software is actually patentable."

7 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. oblig: Natalie Portman by Jarn_Firebrand · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Will Natalie Portman be a witness: naked, petrified, and covered in hot grits?

    (Posted AC for obvious reasons...)

    --
    Grammar Nazi
    1. Re:oblig: Natalie Portman by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      did a real good job being an AC, didn't you...

    2. Re:oblig: Natalie Portman by Aladrin · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      joke --------> ... Ah, nevermind. You probably wouldn't get that, either.

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
  2. Re:One lawyer for sure out of job, more might foll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Congratulations on first post, but your grammar is atrocious. Several of your sentences don't actually make sentences. And it's 'lose', not 'loose'.

    This from someone who uses "majorly"? Give me a break.

  3. Your signature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    (Offtopic, mod down if you like)

    Your .sig is "The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool."

    I was always under the impression that the original quote was "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. (George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903)).

    The GBS version rings truer as well, IMHO.

    1. Re:Your signature by Yvanhoe · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Correct but it doesn't fit the 150 character limits Slashdot imposes, I had to make it shorter. I prefer GBS version though...

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
  4. Re:One lawyer for sure out of job, more might foll by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Congratulations on first post, but your grammar is atrocious. Several of your sentences don't actually make sentences. And it's 'lose', not 'loose'.

    In the hopes of trying to be helpful and follow up on this comment, I would like to add that it's "just won't stop" not "just want stop". Sadly, I've seen a lot worse than this. At first I thought it was just our American educational system failing to do its job, but I see truly horrible examples of grammar regularly on various forums from people in Canada, the UK, Australia (right now they seem particularly bad to me) and New Zealand, so it's not just us.