Management Toolkit

Story: Europe's IT industry gets wake-up call

Posted by: Olav Petri (Thursday 10 March 2005, 5:11 PM)

sw patents will prevent that independence if they are allowed in Europe.

Putting aside the questionable nature of the procedural violations the EC carried out this week, the CIID would allow all US sw patents to be valid in Europe. U.S. portfolio companies have been patenting everything under the sun and moon including well established practices and even old Internet RFCs (requests for comment). Given the fact that it costs in the ballpark of four million USD to defeat an invalid patent most businesses *using computers* -- yes, using computers, not just developers -- will find it cheaper to just pay off the portfolio companies, at least in the short run. It may cost only 50 000 per year per license to pay patent fees, but as of a few years ago any company with a web presence is violating more than two dozen patents.