Slashdot Mirror
Patent Suit Leads To 500,000 Annoyed Software Users
ciaran_o_riordan writes "A rare glimpse at the human harm of a software patent lawsuit: company receives 500,000 calls complaining about video quality after a video call system was forced to change to avoid a patent. That's a lot of people having a bad day. We don't usually hear these details because the court documents get ordered sealed and the lawyers only say what the companys' communication strategists allow. However, for VirnetX v. Apple, Jeff Lease decided to go the hearings, take notes, and give them to a journalist. While most coverage is focussing on the fines involved, doubling or halving Apple's fine would have a much smaller impact on your day than the removal of a feature from some software you like. Instead of letting the software patents debate be reduced to calls for sympathy for big companies getting fined, what other evidence is out there, like this story, for harm caused directly to software users?"
Hence why I won't use anything made by the three biggest offenders, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung. Why Slashdot slobs the knob of them, I have no idea.
Stealing other people's work is all Apple know how to do. Not one of their big "innovations", from the iPod to the iPhone and iPad are anything but knock offs of other people's work right down to stolen styling.