Practical Technology

For years, decades, the big companies didn’t tend to wage patent wars on each other. The reason is simple. Major patent holders don’t tend to target other major patent holders because of MAD (mutually assured destruction). Or, in other words, if you sue me, I sue you, and we can both burn potentially hundreds of [...]

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You may think that the last thing on earth that could happen to your company would be that your business might be sued because it used a particular software program. You’d be wrong. In the aftermath of the Bilski Supreme Court decision, the Supreme Court did nothing to stop software or business method patents. As [...]

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n the computer technology business, we tend to see patents as being bad for developers and business. What we don’t realize that the problems we have with Microsoft’s bogus patent claims against Linux and Oracle’s patent-based attack against Google are nothing compared to the evils that IP patents bring to the pharmacy business. Take, for [...]

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When Oracle sued Google over its use, or as Oracle would have it, Google’s misuse of Java intellectual property in Android, the first questions were why and what did Oracle hope to gain? My only pet theory is straightforward and simple: Oracle wants to skim big-bucks from Android. But, even if a miracle happens and [...]

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can think of all kinds of reasons why Oracle is suing Google over its use of its Java IP (intellectual property) in Android. Making money from its Java patents strikes me and most experts as the most likely reason. But, I’ve also heard suggested, time after time, that the real reason is that Larry Ellison, [...]

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