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How Steve Jobs Patent-Trolled Bill Gates
theodp writes "Apple, which is currently waging IP war on Android vendors, is no stranger to patent trolling. Citing the Steve Jobs bio, Forbes' Eric Jackson recalls how Steve Jobs used patents to get Bill Gates to make a 1997 investment in Apple. Recalled Jobs: 'Microsoft was walking over Apple's patents. I said [to Gates], "If we kept up our lawsuits, a few years from now we could win a billion-dollar patent suit. You know it, and I know it. But Apple's not going to survive that long if we're at war. I know that. So let's figure out how to settle this right away. All I need is a commitment that Microsoft will keep developing for the Mac and an investment by Microsoft in Apple so it has a stake in our success.' Next thing you know, BillG was lording over Jobs at Macworld Boston, as the pair announced the $150 million investment that breathed new life into then-struggling Apple. So, does Gates deserve any credit for helping create the world's most valuable company?"
Patent troll nothing. Microsoft was caught red handed with code lifted *DIRECTLY* from the Quicktime codecs. This was not trolling with a concept or buying patents to then leverage against someone else, this was outright plagiarism.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Andrew Carnegie?
John D. Rockefeller?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
You're trying to define innovate to mean the same thing as invent. That's not what it means. It means "Make changes in something established, esp. by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.". It's hard to argue that Apple doesn't do this. They find markets where there's room for improvement in the products and then release a product which is better is some way.
Cow Cube
I wish someone would steal from me like that.
You are very misinformed in using the word "stole". Apple clearly paid Xerox for everything it got from the tours there (except maybe for the engineers that it hired away):
http://obamapacman.com/2010/03/myth-copyright-theft-apple-stole-gui-from-xerox-parc-alto/
A choice quote (for those too lazy to click over):
Apple obtained permission ahead of the Xerox PARC visit. In addition, Apple provided compensation in exchange for the various Xerox PARC ideas such as the GUI.
Like the parent poster said, do some basic research. This took me 30 seconds to find:
http://www.badseed.info/GMO-genetically-modified-crop-news/35309_bill-gates-ties-up-with-monsanto.html
Go listen to "When Patents Attack" by This American Life. They not only talk about the origin of the term "Patent Troll" but also talk to the guy that coined it up and he explains it's an allegory to the bridge trolls in fantasy, that will pop up as soon as you try to cross a bridge and just demand money.
An interesting side story to this is that Apple engineers went crazy implementing overlapping windows because they were shown such a feature at Xerox. Xerox engineers were shocked since they never actually implemented the feature and thought it to be impossible to do.
At the end of the day the only thing Apple got out of Xerox were ideas, nothing else. Implementation details were almost all home grown and some of those details were shared with Microsoft. Those were the details Apple sued Microsoft over.
Current value of those shares if held to the present day would be 8,000,000 x $500 = $4 Billion and still climbing (of course that would have required nerves of steel). Even Doctor Evil would be impressed. (N.B. Apple stock has split three times).
By the way anyone who accuses Apple (or any other company that actually creates and sells products based on their patents) a patent troll indicates gross ignorance on the part of the accuser. The only definition I've heard of that term is a company that has no products of its own so that cross licensing is never an option for negotiation. Patent trolls are "purely abstract" companies that game the patent system to change it from an attempt to encourage innovation to one that kills innovation (cf. Intellectual Ventures and its vile ilk).