🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <11002@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
>  I just can't buy that. If there were no protection a small company
>would come out with an innovative product, and a large company would
>quickly copy the functionality and bury the small company by heavy
>advertising, and by selling cheap (no research cost for the interface).

Fine.  Next time you go to write a program, *any program*, go have a patent
search done to make sure you're not infringing on anybody's patents.

Since patent searches run several thousand dollars a shot, and any
significant program will have several to several potential infringements,
that could blow more capital than employees' salaries.

Copyrights are beneficial to small companies because you only need to pay
lawyers' fees if you sue or are sued (or settle out of court); with patents,
you need to have an additional job done first to make sure nobody has
"invented" something such as using XOR to draw a cursor.

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "let's face it, finding yourself dead is one 
seanf@sco.COM    |   of life's more difficult moments."
uunet!sco!seanf  |   -- Mark Leeper, reviewing _Ghost_
(408) 458-1422   | Any opinions expressed are my own, not my employers'.