UK Developers Quit US App Store Over Patent Fears 192
iamflimflam1 writes "The Guardian is running a story on how app developers in the UK are withdrawing from the U.S. app store over patent fears. 'The growth of patent lawsuits over apps raises serious issues for all the emerging smartphone platforms, because none of the principal companies involved — Apple, Google or Microsoft — can guarantee to protect developers from them. Even when the mobile OS developer has signed a patent licence — as Apple has with at least one company currently pursuing patent lawsuits — it is not clear that it has any legal standing to defend developers.' This follows a blog post from the iconfactory about the death of independent developers. Have the big corporations really won? What is the future for small teams and one-man-band developers?"
This tweet (FTFA) shows how screwed up it is. (Score:2, Informative)
the problem with extortion (Score:4, Insightful)
is that it never ends. it's 1/2% now, it will soon become 1%, then 2%, then 5%... and so on.
Re:This tweet (FTFA) shows how screwed up it is. (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree, give me half a penny for every dollar you make. For insurance of course. It would be a shame if something happened to all that nice stuff you have.
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I see you changed it, but now it looks like it includes a different idea I own... as well as another idea a friend of mine owns....this ain't your lucky day. BWAHAHAHAH!
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The patent system doesn't involve itself with seeing if you used someone else's idea, just with who came up with it first. The distinction is important: You can very well come up with something on your own, develop it into a product and then find out you have to pay someone else to be allowed to sell your own invention. Did you know that certain types of progress bars are patented? This bullshit needs to stop.
Re:This tweet (FTFA) shows how screwed up it is. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This tweet (FTFA) shows how screwed up it is. (Score:5, Insightful)
how about MSFT's $15 per android device fee? is that good?
Also in software patents don't cover implementations but concept. therefore there is no way around and still meet spec.
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>In the USA you can patent a white webpage with a box and two buttons in the middle (Google did).
Do you have a link that talks about a patent for the Google home page?
I know they have a patent on PageRank, but that's a different matter.
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Multiply it by a couple hundred lawyers waving threats of patent litigation and you'll start to see the problem.
It has to get worse before it gets better (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It has to get worse before it gets better (Score:4, Insightful)
I would have given this +1 Insightful however don't have mod points.
It really needs to get really bad before people start realizing how patents are hurting economy and innovation, to a point where there vote on such matters count.
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How long after is it almost back together?
Yeah, nothing changes in the United States of Corporate America
Re:It has to get worse before it gets better (Score:4, Informative)
>It really needs to get really bad before people start realizing how patents are hurting economy and innovation, to a point where there vote on such matters count.
This statement is a little too general. Patents aren't necessarily the problem, what is more problematic is that they're being abused.
Patents were supposed to protect small businesses and startups with a new idea. Now they're being used for extortion (a la Microsoft forcing Samsung, HTC, etc. to pay for a WP7 license on every phone they sell) and manipulation (see here [dailytech.com]). And it's much easier for large corporations to acquire them becuase they can pay for the application fees or patent auctions.
What's obviously clear here is that patents aren't serving their original intention. What the US needs is legislation to stop patent abuse, particularly by large corporations. But there are too many lawyers in America, so it will never happen.
Re:It has to get worse before it gets better (Score:5, Insightful)
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I can accept the possibility that there could be a reasonable patent system. We don't have one. The legal aspects that you point out do make things considerably worse, but the patent system itself is horribly broken...broken to the point that I doubt that any repair is possible. It was broken at least as early as the invention of the telephone, when three separate and independent inventors appeared and *one* was granted a patent. Evidence appears to indicate that it was broken considerably before that,
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In the case of the telephone - of course one gets the patent. The one filing the earliest, in a sane system that doesn't open the can of worms of "first to invent".
Alas, this may not have happened in the case of the telephone. There is evidence that Elisha Gray both invented first and filed first. However, the examiner for Gray's application was an alcoholic who owed money to Bell's lawyer. Misery and controversy ensued, and Bell got the patent (not necessarily without skulduggery). Read this [wikipedia.org] for a discussion of the evidence both ways.
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Wrong. They were supposed to protect those with new inventions.
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
An idea is little more than a wish. Put in the sweat and make something that works, and that's worthy of reward.
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Garbage. "Something that works" could be a 1/24 scale prototype.
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Patents were supposed to protect small businesses and startups with a new idea. Now they're being used for extortion (a la ...
I think you're believing the propaganda. Patents are, and always have been, about concentrating power into fewer hands. That's one reason that they are expensive to get, use, and defend against. Copyrights did not originally have that purpose, though they have come to. Copyrights should not be allowed on any material "protected" by a DRM system unless that material is filed in a
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I agree, the only way the patent suit business will ever die is if it gets so bad that only the huge developers can afford to produce products anymore. What is much more likely, though, is that people will stop selling products in the US market and that the US market will stagnate and slowly die. The Americans are extremely bad at implementing any legal reforms due to the immense amount of lobbying going on there. Frankly, given the state of the US economy, one would think that the Americans would see the n
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The Americans are extremely bad at implementing any legal reforms due to the immense amount of lobbying going on there.
No, it's due to the ability of lawyers to work odd hours and practice tear-down speeches as part of their jobs. As such, they have plenty of free time to devote to "public service." e.g. getting involved in legislatures.
It is a bad idea of the highest degree to allow lawyers to even have a say in the lawmaking process. After all, they have a vested interest not in the quality of laws but the quantity....
Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony that the US market is supposedly most free in the world yet patents are screwing it up.
Surely more jobs and growth are being stifled by them than saved by them?
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That is what no one seems to be noticing. This will not kill the mobile market or the app developers of the world. Just hurt folks in the USA. These are the sorts of things that export our wealth and our capital. The more of these patent lawsuits are filed over trivial software the more companies will want to stay out of or get out of our market.
Free? as in speech? (Score:2)
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Free speech exists. You can say whatever you like without the government coming after you. Unless you are admitting to a crime or someone causing one with words. An example of the latter would be "Give me all your money" during a mugging.
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I think that you are quite naive, and probably live in suburbia. In a largely rural state.
Although, when the actual problem is racism, I don't suppose that you could actually say that the person was injured because of "free speech violations". But not being properly subservient to an authority is frequently the only crime that one need commit to be either injured or prosecuted. And sometimes not even that. (One of the more common moving violations in the area where I live is called "Driving while black
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You are wrong on all counts. The police will charge you with something else if they don't like what you are saying. A fun one is resisting arrest after you fall when they push you as they arrest you for no reason at all.
Still this is abuse by one person, not official government action. Travel outside the USA and see real lack of freedom of speech. When you can be charged and arrested and shown to be guilty of only saying something.
Re:Free? as in speech? (Score:4, Insightful)
Markets dominated by a few big players are by definition not free.
Maybe you mean "unregulated markets"; that's something very different.
Re:Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony that the US market is supposedly most free in the world yet patents are screwing it up.
In America, freedom means 'freedom from government intervention.' What the translates to is slavery to private interests.
If I were given the choice, I'd much rather be subject to government control rather than private interests, seeing as I would have at least some voice against the government...
Surely more jobs and growth are being stifled by them than saved by them?
Both of these statements are true. Small businesses are muscled out and replaced with a cubicle in a large corporate tower. But a corporation can never do wrong in America, even if they spill oil all over the Gulf of Mexico, so people run to them anyways.
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Hey, that was a British multinational, not an American one!
On a related note, Cuba is planning to do some deep water drilling using a Chinese built rig. What could possibly go wrong?
Re:Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
BP is at least as American as it is British - the current BP was formed by the merger of two large corporations, one British the other American.
Also, nice racism there. Because no one but America can make something that won't fail and cause massive pollution... oh wait.
Re:Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
Except patents are a government creation. The corporate world rests upon government intervention upon their behalf.
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Re:Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
And we're mostly paying for wars to keep corporations happy. Meanwhile welfare makes up a small amount of money spent. But hey, don't let reality get in the way of a good right wing rant. Are you an astroturfer?
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Patents are screwing up the US market because there are actually many independent software companies making money, and both big companies and patent trolls are trying to cash in.
In Europe and Asia, the market is screwed up in other ways so that patents don't even have to come into play.
Prohibition of the brain (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to make it in IT these days, you should become a lawyer, not a software developer.
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Poor developers, putting effort, time and money in creating something original and functional, only to get sued by some bigcorp lawyer shmuck ...
Not a "bigcorp lawyer shmuck". We are talking about Lodsys here which is a one man company. Which is in more trouble than these poor UK developers because they are themselves now being sued by server "bigcorp lawyers".
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As someone mentioned above, this isn't about cloning concepts. This is about being unable to do trivial things like bring up a dialog box saying "Would you like to pay more for more content" on a mobile phone, because someone decided that's so incredibly inventive that it needs to be protected.
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Re:Prohibition of the brain (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it turns out that if you add the limiting clause "on a mobile computing device", everything old becomes new again.
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Nice of you to come back after you'd read the article (or even the summary).
Working out whether a patent applies to you doesn't necessarily need a lawyer - it needs someone with a logical brain who can go through the patent and see if all the statements apply. I would say the kind of mind that writes code for a living is exactly the kind of person who could deduce whether they have a patent issue on their hands. Regardless, even if you didn't want to take the time to read through the patent, it's prudent wh
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All fair enough points, and I've been guilty just as often of posting while indignant :)
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2. Can't comment on that, since I don't know the patent.
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What legal fees? As far as I've seen, Lodsys wants money and not an insane amount of it. So you pay it and get on with life.
If you want to go to court with them for no economically practical reason, well that's your ideological problem so pay for it.
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Top tip: Avoid being robbed by simply giving your money away.
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You mean places like Wealwaysfindforthelitigant, TX?
US nowadays (Score:5, Insightful)
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The problem in the US is cultural. Everyone equates "prosperity", "progress" and "value" with "making more money". Therefore, it's not surprising that finance has become the central concern in business and indeed everyday life - enter the billions of MBA's to try to squeze every last penny out of every effort, the hordes of lawyers to defend those pennies, and the corrupt politicians to facilitate it all at the highest level.
It used to be that the central concern in business was how much value your propos
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The problem in the US is cultural. Everyone equates "prosperity", "progress" and "value" with "making more money". Therefore, it's not surprising that finance has become the central concern in business and indeed everyday life - enter the billions of MBA's to try to squeze every last penny out of every effort, the hordes of lawyers to defend those pennies, and the corrupt politicians to facilitate it all at the highest level.
It used to be that the central concern in business was how much value your proposition brought, and that the expectation was that more value would equate to higher financial benefit. Although money was certainly part of the thinking, it was by no means the central point in the proposition.
That's the fundamental change the american mind must undergo: it's not about how much you have, but how much *value* you provide (or, rather, how big your "(potential?) contribution to society" is). In essence, that's the true measure of how "great" (or not) a person or company is.
BTW: I heard not too long ago that in underdeveloped nations, the single largest slice of college graduates were from law school (a significantly larger slice than the 2nd place profession) - and that that fact could be taken as an indicator to determine a nation's development status. Would be interesting to see where that is in the US...
Cheers.
+5 Insightful.
Just a shame this Anonymous rant was invisible to those browsing the lazy way.
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Contact your Senator or Representative (Score:2)
I hope everyone responded to the USPTO's call for comments [slashdot.org] or contacted your Senator and US Representative about patent reform. Because that's the only way the US patent system is going to get fixed.
Your congresscritter really does want to hear from you. It's your job to contact them, and ask them to reform software patents. Seriously, call their office, write them a letter (handwritten carries the most impact, but typed will do), or visit them in their office. Have some examples handy, like this one. I've
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The thing is, we're already a 3rd rank nation. We just haven't felt the sharp edge yet. The only way the US is a major power these days is via the military. Certainly not financially. Certainly not in manufacturing. And we're currently killing off research and development.
I hope we fix things before we become a 4th rank nation. Or 5th. But I suspect that Russia may recover before we do.
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So they find one developer... (Score:2)
If he was making decent money, the percentage of what Lodsys wanted was nothing compared to wha
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> US & UK have multiple agreements in place to protect IP between them.
However, software patents are not allowed in the UK (or Europe). Doesn't actually stop a few being issued, but I would presume a patent that's invalid in the UK would not be applied on behalf of the US.
Well, I hope, anyway.
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(Yes, I am a patent engineer in training to become European patent attorney. Obviously this is not legal advice
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Didn't they try to sneak them through on page 765 of the bill that legally defined how bent cucumbers could be?
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You can already 'register' your software claims, all in the hope this'll one day stop the competition and you get rich quick.
Scary but luckily our legislature is too fragmented to outright bought by Big Industry.
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A pen is a machine designed for writing. The correct patent defense is, "we aren't distributing a machine, we distribute only software which as such is unpatentable".
This all is well and good, but eventually, someone somewhere is going to ship that code on a device - for some of them there isn't any other practical way (e.g. mobile OSes - hence why HTC is sued over Android).
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App stores don't distribute machines. As long as the user obtained their machine somewhere else, bought my software through the app store and loaded/executed it on their machine, that's beyond my control.
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For app stores, yes, you're right. I was speaking more broadly about software patents in general.
Another misleading headline (Score:2)
US is gonna die (Score:2, Insightful)
can't wait to see it default on its trillions.
fat ass american dipshits will get a rude shock.
software patents are just one small symptom of your sick and twisted society
Re:US is gonna die (Score:4, Funny)
Oh pipe down, and take your anti-psychotic medication.
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Us developers: Move to Europe? (Score:3)
We escaped the Software Patent madness by a hair in the EU, but we escaped. Do it before August 2nd tho, or at least change your dollars to euros before that, or you will have to live under a bridge ;-)
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Check the immigration requirements. Having a skill isn't enough, you've got to be young enough. And, generally, have some legal connection to the country to which you want to emigrate. (Relatives are good, but there are often other possibilities.) Speaking the language is usually another requirement.
I think that you must usually make the commitment before you are 30. (It's been over a decade since I checked, but I doubt that it's gotten easier.)
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Can I rent a drawer in a filing cabinet for my corporation there?
government creates monopolies (Score:4, Insightful)
I am always amazed at people who believe that government is there to help them, well, maybe some feel that because they are getting government checks, or are hoping to get them one day.
But just look at the way government destroys free market and creates monopolies. You'd think that government wouldn't want monopolies for some reason (well, they say so) but in reality monopolies is governments' bread and butter. Government may be non-profit, but it's highly profitable to politicians, and others, who are near the trough. Monopolies have money to give to politicians and what would the competitive market participants give them and why?
This is in everything, not just software. Look at the pharmaceutical industry: FDA costs are probably higher than any other costs of releasing a new drug into the market. I hear it takes 600 million dollars for one single drug to pass all of the steps, FDA requires from manufacturers, which means that there cannot be an independent small firm, bringing an independent drug into the market. This maybe the biggest cost out of all other costs - to pass through government regulations. So anybody creating a drug needs to get a sponsor - a large pharma company to do what the FDA requires.
Now, if FDA only required to prove that the drug was safe for consumption, that's one thing. But they require the proof of efficacy - which means years of expensive studies, something that the market could have found much quicker and without this added cost, and something that actually causes real deaths, as people are not getting the drugs on time and the drugs are really expensive. Here is an interesting discussion on this matter, [youtube.com] which explains how government is working on making your food ever more expensive and reducing your choices in the market, helping out the large monopolies and destroying the competition.
The patents are a huge problem, they are not there to help you. As with everything that governments do, the effect of their actions and regulations is the opposite one. So if they are talking about fighting monopolies, in reality they create them, and if they are talking about increasing the innovation in the market, in reality they are actively preventing and destroying it.
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You are wrong on all counts.
FDA is a monopoly, which destroys competition in the market, drives prices up, destroys choice, destroys businesses, helps monopolies and is generally bad for the public specifically because it holds drugs off the market even once they are proven to be safe, while putting some drugs on the market that are known to be deadly, all because of the money involved.
But hey, maybe you like somebody telling you what you can and cannot eat or use as drugs even if it's known to be safe, jus
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Given the existence of the placebo effect, in what way do you suppose that the market -- consisting of individuals who operate on limited information -- will be able to tell the difference in efficacy between a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and acupuncture?
- ha ha, the way it was always done, by doctors sharing information among each other, learning what works and what doesn't - the only real way things are found to be useful or not.
Especially given that so-called "alternative medicines" such as Zicam can effectively compete against science-based medicine even with FDA regulations in place? Do you propose we go back to the patent medicine era?
- I am against all patents altogether. There should be no gov't creating artificial barriers to entry against individuals and for monopolies and there should be no special treatment provided to monopolies, like in case with this [nejm.org], falsifying the results to help out some friends in giant pharma. However FDA routinely denies peopl
Come to Russia, comrade! (Score:2)
Afraid of patent lawsuits comrade? Come to Russia! In our new not-so-soviet country there are no stinking software patents. There also are a lot fewer lawyers. Income tax is only 13%. Being a self-employed app developer you will not have to worry about the unemployment, and as a hopeless nerd you will not have to worry about the weather (or, you could move to a southern region like Krasnodar). Come soon, there's plenty of vodka to go around!
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Another unfortunate thing about Russia is that the men die young, leaving a lot of single women around. There are 875 men to 1000 women. Due to the economy there isn't much to be excited about. The future looks bad. Really bad. And the present is not so great either. So a lot of men take to drinking, and I don't mean socially. These are guys who get really wasted, every friggin day. That's one reason they die young. The ones that are still alive often treat women like dirt. Consequently, if you're a decent
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According to some drinking buddy the protection money is a trickle compared to the Russian taxes. According to my mom because of the protection money everything is 30% more expensive. We are not Russians though.
The Co-Op (Score:2)
The small independent developer is disadvantaged.
Well, duh.
Small businesses in the same fix have for several generations now formed cooperatives.
The benefits include branding and promotion.
Licensing and legal support. Technical support. Financing, and so on.
The co-op sets standards.
The co-op is market-oriented and the product it offers must be competitive. You won't get a buy if you try to sell them a rotten cabbage no matter how "green" your garden grows.
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Re:Why are app stores their only option? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats as silly as it gets. If you were right, it would be immoral to build a house for shelter, just because someone else already had the idea to build a house. It would be illegal to make a cheese&bacon-sandwich just because someone else already made one. It's completely ok to build the umpteenth clone of Crush the Castle or Galaga, even if someone else already made one. You just shouldn't claim to be a creative game designer. And so I will my enjoy cheese&bacon-sandwich and continue to live in my house, well aware to be not the first one to ever do so.
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Patents are valid for twenty or twenty-five years, depending on where you live. And I don't see a problem with copying someone else's idea per se. That's called learning from others, and it's one of the most important aspects of culture. Every child starts learning by copying their parents. Every apes and even dogs and birds do. Copying others is a natural thing to do.
The waters get muddy when people start to get in each others way by copying ideas, when the profits (real or ideational ones) from using an i
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We are talking about that right?
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It depends on the mechanism for converting a free trial version into a full version. That is what the patent is on.
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Clone or not has nothing to do with it. These patents are on things like converting free game users to paying folks. In app payments stuff like that.
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4. Get sued for patent violation and lose everything?
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Patents do have some international power unfortunately.
Patents are strictly territorial. As long as you don't do business in the US, no US patent needs to concern you.
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Don't forget to add in the European laws to that. Even if the UK decided to recognise US patents, developers could still get rulings overturned in European courts.
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I wonder if Gary McKinnon has heard of it?
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Patents do have some international power unfortunately. Welcome to the future where you can't violate any country's laws.
I'll respect your patents when you adopt Sharia.
riiiiiighhhhtttt (Score:3)
The patent trolls are holding all the cards right now. Hint - people holding all the cards isn't going to ask for a new hand. You think they're going to stop because you demanded so? I like to get some of that whatever the hell you've been smoking.
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That makes no difference to the big corporations. They want the small developers out of their territory. They could care less about getting your 401K. As long as they can drive your little corporation into the ground with legal fees, they are fine with that.
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Unless 'your' legal system doesn't recognize software patents.
Some countries are beginning to realize the benefits of less punitive IP laws and regulations. Like they did with tax and banking regulations, they are looking forward to businesses seeking them out as havens for unfettered innovation. So UK developers quit the US app store. And go where? Someplace where the government will tell the US legal system to go f*ck itself. They'll take a small slice of the profits and end up rich like Hong Kong or Swi
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