I honestly don't even know what to say when these things come up nowadays. It just seems like the bullshit won't end. I can't think of any options that even exist to fix this broken patent system.
I know, one person doesn't make a difference furthermore i'm not a "very important super mega top ninja hipster talented programmer" and every county has it's own problems. The thing is, i really don't like the idea that, my company can go to bankruptcy because law doesn't protect me and i have to live with fear and try to stay out of some patent troll's radar.
Patent trolling is a problem in U.S. since a long time but nobody want's to fix it. Politicians seems doesn't care, big corporations simply pay fees and reflect them to their customers or like in this case, companies let patent trolls screw their suppliers / business partners.
Entrepreneurs & companies spending billions[0] for nothing, current patent system ironically hinders innovation, which is clearly bad for the economy and the country, everybody complains but nothing changes. I'm really having a hard time understanding why is this happening [1]
[0] : http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/study-...
[1] : Just to clarify, i'm not saying country a is better than country b. I'm just really trying to understand.
It's possible the SOPA protests and the furore over the treatment of Aaron Swartz will make a difference and the US can turn a corner on these issues after all. We can hope so.
I've worked at two companies now where there were graphical methods of displaying data that previously existed on paper, but we could not implement them in software because they were patented in the USA. One was in celular radio network planning and something to do with interference calculation, the other was in displaying a 'ladder' of bids and offers in financial trading systems. You could use these methods to display data on printed paper, or in a PDF on a screen for example, but if you generate the results in software and you're breaking the law in the US. Insane. But it's not practical to have one version for inside the US and another for the rest of the world.
Signing the petition costs nothing, and there's a chance that it could have a real and lasting impact on the patent system.
Donating to Austin Meyer's legal defence fund is much cheaper—both financially and emotionally—than having to defend against a patent troll yourself at some stage in the future.
No, that only treats the symptoms. It would be much better to cure the disease -- the broken patent system.
With limited resources, we're better off investing in a wholesale overhaul of the patent system, compared to fighting one patent troll after another. The reason? After we've spent millions fighting patent trolls, we will face a new generation of trolls who have learned valuable lessons from the methods we used in the past.
Not trolling or snarking; I genuinely don't know what the situation would be in that kind of case. Company employee in a the US making the software just as before, but technically working for company in a country that doesn't recognise software patents, and that company is the company selling the software to people in the US.