Microsoft may become 'major opponent of patents'

Hey Hey,

The link this was posted on /. earlier and I thought it was quite an interesting read. Does anyone have an opinions/thoughts on the subject?

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,3...9226541,00.htm

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Speaking at the LinuxWorld conference in London on Wednesday, Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, said that although Microsoft is seen as being very pro-patent at the moment, if every other software maker enforced its patents in the same way then Microsoft would find it very difficult and expensive to do business.

"I think in ten years you will see Microsoft become a major opponent of patents and we will see very large software vendors turn around their position on patents," Shuttleworth said.

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With all the patent infringement going on by Microsoft (Evident by the next quote) now, there's a lot of truth in what Mark says.

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Microsoft is typically faced with an average of 35 to 40 patent lawsuits at any given time and has said it would welcome the reform of patent law as it hopes to pare down the $100m it spends annually defending itself against such suits.

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Quote:

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This week the US Patent Office rejected two Microsoft patents over the FAT file format. There has been concern that if the FAT patents are upheld, Microsoft may claim that Linux infringes on Microsoft technology and could then seek royalties.

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This one brought a smile to my face when I read it.

Anyways... Give it a read, it's an interesting article.

Peace,
HT