I thought that IBM claimed that they were the majority partner in the Cell design - in which case why aren't they being sued instead of Sony? I would suspect that this is because the patent trolls figure that Sony'll be the easier mark. After all, if the going gets tough then they can always play the "evil foreign megacorp screwing a poor lil' mom an' pop an' apple pie US producer" card which they couldn't against IBM.
After the rootkit (and other incidents) I'm definitely no fan of Sony, but in this case I wish them good luck. Hope they win and then countersue for malicious litigation (and win that too).
The "No products" posting brings up a good point - maybe it's time that these "patent bank" companies were stopped. So unless you've made, making or have licensed a product using the technology then there's some easy/cheap route for the companies that are being picked on by the trolls. After all how can PPC be sustaining "monetary damage" unless they're prevented from selling a product based on the patent under discussion?
I'm getting really, really tired of the technique that these US-based companies use of holding onto a patent, waiting until an "infringing" product becomes mainstream/mega-profitable before striking. Heck, maybe there should be a new offence of "patent entrapment" to prevent this?
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Another evil troll
I thought that IBM claimed that they were the majority partner in the Cell design - in which case why aren't they being sued instead of Sony? I would suspect that this is because the patent trolls figure that Sony'll be the easier mark. After all, if the going gets tough then they can always play the "evil foreign megacorp screwing a poor lil' mom an' pop an' apple pie US producer" card which they couldn't against IBM.
After the rootkit (and other incidents) I'm definitely no fan of Sony, but in this case I wish them good luck. Hope they win and then countersue for malicious litigation (and win that too).
The "No products" posting brings up a good point - maybe it's time that these "patent bank" companies were stopped. So unless you've made, making or have licensed a product using the technology then there's some easy/cheap route for the companies that are being picked on by the trolls. After all how can PPC be sustaining "monetary damage" unless they're prevented from selling a product based on the patent under discussion?
I'm getting really, really tired of the technique that these US-based companies use of holding onto a patent, waiting until an "infringing" product becomes mainstream/mega-profitable before striking. Heck, maybe there should be a new offence of "patent entrapment" to prevent this?