Why Software Patents Are a Joke — Literally

eburnette writes "A former Sun/Oracle employee explains how developers created patents in an unofficial contest to see who could get the goofiest patent through the system. James Gosling said, '... we got sued, and lost. The penalty was huge. Nearly put us out of business. We survived, but to help protect us from future suits we went on a patenting binge. Even though we had a basic distaste for patents, the game is what it is, and patents are essential in modern corporations, if only as a defensive measure. There was even an unofficial competition to see who could get the goofiest patent through the system. My entry wasn't nearly the goofiest.' Now Oracle is using patents from the same folks as the basis for its lawsuit against Google."

Comments

Re:Yep

[DNS-and-BIND]

Big government is good! Private companies are evil and only want to destroy, not create. We should all wait for government to tell us what to do, otherwise we might do the wrong thing. Ignorance is strength, dissent is racism, freedom is slavery, the clocks are striking thirteen.