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Another Android Device Maker Signs Patent Agreement With Microsoft
doperative writes with this quote from El Reg:
"Microsoft has nailed a second Android device maker to a patent licensing agreement. The Redmond software giant announced on Monday that General Dynamics Itronix has signed a patent agreement that will provide 'broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio.' In other words, General Dynamics Itronix has agreed to licensing certain, unnamed Microsoft patents for use with Android-powered portables."
What difference does this have from a robber baron waiting atop a bridge and asking tolls from passers ? no difference.
baron may have a right to that bridge someone else has built, or, it may not even have the right to it, but it may be claiming it. the deal is, as long as you have less standing and resources than baron in the socio-economic ladder, you cant do anything about it, but pay. Only another baron equal or greater than his socioeconomic status can challenge him.
ultimate end of capitalism, is feudalism. even if you have brief political freedom until it happens, it eventually happens - just like how it happened from roman republic to roman empire. mechanics are the same, end result is the same, just the names are different.
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The fact that the entire mobile developer world is now doing Android IS the reason Microsoft has been reduced to this humiliating desperation.
Does any other sector suffer as many patent lawsuits with supposed patent infringement as the software industry? I mean, I don't hear much about various
manufacturer suing each other over mechanical design patents, for example.
Dosn't the fact that there are so many cases like this indicate that the whole idea of software patents is very very broken? It's all but impossible to do a meaningful search for a patent that will help you solve a software problem, that could save you development time. Instead it is much more the ambush model - you go about your business developing something, oblivious to some obscurely written overly broad software patent that your software is supposedly infringing - then get ambushed by the patent holder.
The patent has done absolutely nothing to shorten your development time or lower your costs to bring the product to market. Quite the opposite infact - if you want to write software that does not infringe on any other patent out there, the amount of research for existing software patents that your code might infringe on, would probably take more time than it does to actually write your software, even though you are writing it with no knowledge of the patents in question .
We live in a democracy, and us developers are pretty much totally against software patents, as far as I can see. So why can't we fix this?
It is likely Microsoft is more frightened of Google's patent portfolio. That's the only way to thrive in the software world, you must arm yourself with thousands and thousands of vague, broad and obvious patents and then waylay all the smaller, more vigorous and innovative companies that are trying to compete with you. If you can use the courts and your patent portfolio to stifle them you can continue to make money without having to adapt to new markets.
You didn't pay MS anything, HTC did. And HTC paid Nokia, the US government (depending on the quality of their accountants), Chinese manufacturers, chip suppliers, Google (huh, I suppose it's ok to pay Google for the rights to use their properties, but not MS?), their employees, etc.
So why can't we fix this?
Corruption and lobbyism.
In Europe "we" the developers and citizens have been protesting against software patents for a long time. Again and again the issue has been delayed at best. Lobby organisations won't stop until they get their precious extortion patents. We as citizens cannot keep up with 24/7 paid and well-funded professionals that constantly influence politicians with illegitimate and often illegal means.
Software patents are merely a symptom of a broken democracy.