That seems like a really vague term to copyright. That's like saying I made a van that is really small, so I'm going to call it a Minivan and trademark it.
@Thao: well, it does work that way. Except when you sit on your butt while others start usign it. Then it becomes generic and you lose the right to use it. Which is why occassionally a big company will have to sue for some little guy and everyone thinks they're picking on the little guy -- but really they haev no hoice or when a lartge competitor uses the name the judge will say they didn't guard the name.
4,000 patents probably translates to about 4,000,000 hours of legal counsel. As usual, the only people who benefit from this ingenuity are the lawyers...
I assume this is the nuclear missile philosophy thrown into the patent world. We need thousands of them because they have thousands of them, and if any of us ever use them, we're all fucked.
@Monty: Actually, IBM is slightly different. They get a lot of patents so they can earn a lot in licensing revenues. I believe it was also the first company to earn $1 Billion in IP licensing revenues. So IBM looks at patents sort of like blue chip stocks.
That being said, I am sure they also are known to get into litigation over their core business.
@Mpls_Mikey: They had a little known case against SCO that says they may be more than willing to litigate to protect their property. That said, I understand what you are saying. They certainly are a number of steps above the businesses that do nothing but buy patents.
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02/19/09
That's like saying I made a van that is really small, so I'm going to call it a Minivan and trademark it.
Doesn't work that way.
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or M.A.L.
01/14/09
That being said, I am sure they also are known to get into litigation over their core business.
01/14/09