Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinordi
Sure there needs to be some protection of IP but this is ridiculous. Should we all be paying licensing fees for brake pedals, steering wheels, rear view mirrors to henry ford or whomever could have patented them?
The allegory is actually spot on. Mobile computing is another wave of incredible innovation much like the personal vehicle was a hundred years ago.
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Lots of those things were patented in the early days of automobiles and car makers had to either license the technology or come up with an alternative. In fact, for a while the entire gas powered automobile was covered under the Selden patent. The owners of the patent demanded royalties from all the car makers and pretty much everyone except Henry Ford paid them to avoid litigation. Ford fought it and eventually came out on top after a protracted legal battle, but to pretend that these kinds of things don't happen in any competitive emerging technology is silly.
The reason car makers don't have to pay a bunch of licensing fees now is because all of the patents covering the basic stuff have long expired.