“A Google patent lawyer says that the patent system is broken, and he accuses Microsoft of abusing the system,” Timothy B. Lee reports for Ars Technica.
“Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday, Google’s Tim Porter pointed to Microsoft’s attacks on Linux as an example of its broader corporate strategy,” Lee reports. “‘When their products stop succeeding in the marketplace, when they get marginalized, as is happening now with Android, they use the large patent portfolio they’ve built up to get revenue from the success of other companies’ products,’ he said.”
Lee reports, “The Chronicle asked Porter the obvious question: Should software be patentable? Porter refused to give a straight answer, ‘There are certainly arguments’ that copyright protection is ‘more appropriate’ for the software industry, he said. But he would only say that ‘the current system is broken…'”
Read more in the full article here.
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