[Fsfe-uk] On software patents

[Imran Ghory]

"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most
of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry
would be at a complete standstill today.  I feel certain that some large
company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object
orientation, algorithm, application extension or other crucial
technique.  If we assumet his company has no need of any of our patents
then the have a 17-year right to take as much of our profits as they
want.  The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and
patenting as much as we can."

Quoted from the Challenges and Strategy memo written by Bill Gates
dated May 16, 1991.

Imran
-- 
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran