What I was trying to get at is that there is a big difference between patenting something because you expect to license it (where the other company comes to you happily becuase they want your technology) and having obvious patents that some other engineer will recreates without ever knowing your patent exists (see obvious patent). The second is a "defensive" patent, the first is not IMHO.
And BTW, the first is how patents SHOULD be used where as the second is how patents are abused.
Except that IBM has actually invented some really cool shit. They are one of the few companies that still do pretty raw research (last i looked) and they tend to develop and license those technologies. Taking research and licensing it is quite different from patenting something obvious and suing someone who independently developed something that uses said obvious idea.
what if this guy had been a spammer? a phisher? or basically someone who had committed computer crimes from abroad?
frankly, I don't care if this guy was in the US or in AU, I don't want him to be going to jail for his "crimes", but the "US is a bully" topic seems a bit overplayed. What if there was a hacker in california sending spam and internet scams into mexico by the terabytes, would you not agree that mexico could/should come to the US and say "we want this guy"?
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ah yes... but just becuase it's illegal doesn't mean you should stop doing it, it just means you should make sure you don't get caught.
(However if it's immoral, that's a reason for you to stop doing it.)
What I was trying to get at is that there is a big difference between patenting something because you expect to license it (where the other company comes to you happily becuase they want your technology) and having obvious patents that some other engineer will recreates without ever knowing your patent exists (see obvious patent). The second is a "defensive" patent, the first is not IMHO.
And BTW, the first is how patents SHOULD be used where as the second is how patents are abused.
Except that IBM has actually invented some really cool shit. They are one of the few companies that still do pretty raw research (last i looked) and they tend to develop and license those technologies. Taking research and licensing it is quite different from patenting something obvious and suing someone who independently developed something that uses said obvious idea.
what if this guy had been a spammer? a phisher? or basically someone who had committed computer crimes from abroad?
frankly, I don't care if this guy was in the US or in AU, I don't want him to be going to jail for his "crimes", but the "US is a bully" topic seems a bit overplayed. What if there was a hacker in california sending spam and internet scams into mexico by the terabytes, would you not agree that mexico could/should come to the US and say "we want this guy"?
don