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Red Hat Seeks Limits on Software Patents
eldavojohn writes "RedHat went to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals asking for limits on software patents yesterday. They have not uploaded their full brief yet online, but promise to post it soon. Here's a tidbit: 'Given the litigation risk, some open source companies, including Red Hat, acquire patents for the sole purpose of asserting them defensively in the event they are faced with a future lawsuit. Red Hat also provides open source intellectual property protections through our Open Source Assurance Program that protects our customers and encourages them to deploy with confidence. Our strategy is a prudent one and mitigates the risk of patent lawsuits, but it would be unnecessary if the system itself were fixed.'"
I remember hearing once that companies like IBM often build a stockpile of patents, not so much to litigate, but so nobody else can tell them what to do with patents they don't have. Even if you're infringing on somebody else's patents, if you have enough patents of your own, you can probably find one that they're infringing on, and you've essentially come to a stalemate, so everybody's happy. Only works for the big players, though. The little guys get screwed.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
"I call bullshit. Name one category of software that would not have been developed without patents and name a few specific products."
PNG, Ogg Vorbis etc.