Re: About Microsoft Patent

[Paul Prescod <paul@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tyler Baker wrote:
> 
> So the issue is, if you are a small ISV and you are thinking about releasing an
> XSL Processor with "styling", you have to think twice about going up against an
> entity with an unlimited legal budget to cream you with.  As everyone already
> knows, any past judgements against MS, whether it be Stac or anyone else were
> pyrhic victories.  In the end many of these companies died off after many years of
> time and many millions of dollars playing legal twister with Microsoft.

Why would Microsoft take on a small ISV. What is there for Microsoft to
gain? I mean by definition small companies do not compete with Microsoft.
By the time they appear on Microsoft's radar they are big companies.

Furthermore if they tried it, I suspect that the small ISV could go to
Netscape, Sun et. al. and ask for help defending themselves. Those
companies cannot allow a patent-affirming precedent to be set because some
little company couldn't defend itself.

At these big companies there are lawyers who walk around trolling for
patents. Their attitued is "lets try it and see." If they get lucky then
they just might instill some fear into small companies and they have
something extra to "cross-license" with big companies. But the tool of
fear only works if you let it.
-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

"Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did,
but she did it backwards and in high heels."
                                               --Faith Whittlesey


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