If you're a *long-time* reader, you might have noticed that I don't like how ridiculous patents from Amazon.com or British Telecom can abuse the official organizations in charge of validating these patents.
You can read my previous story on the subject at "Company claims patent on 'millions' of e-commerce sites."
Today's story is different. It indicates that the system can work. Let's read Seth Shulman's words.
In April, after four years of bitter and expensive patent litigation, the computer chip maker Intel agreed to pay Huntsville, AL-based Intergraph a whopping $300 million. It is one of the largest patent settlements in history. Don’t feel bad if you missed the news, though. The press pretty much missed it, too.
To be sure, I am frequently critical of deficiencies in this system, noting, for instance, that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office often grants unnecessarily broad or obvious patents. But even when I make these critiques, I am very mindful of the fact that, however flawed, our existing system often does do its job by protecting patent holders against those powerful players who might try to get around or steal away or somehow wrongfully employ their intellectual property. And that’s really what this case is about.
The case centered on Intergraph’s claim that, to develop its Pentium processor chips (the first of these workhorses appeared in 1993), Intel illegally appropriated technology covered by five Intergraph patents. The lawsuit saw many twists and turns, including Intel’s argument that Intergraph’s patents were invalid and that, in any case, they were covered by a cross-licensing agreement Intel had made with a third party.
Interestingly enough, Intel negotiated a settlement with Intergraph but said it never infringed Intergraph's patents.
But let’s face it: even giants like Intel don’t part with nearly a third of a billion dollars unless they have to.
Here is Seth's conclusion.
Intergraph and the rest of us should take some comfort in the fact that the biggest players with the most money don’t always win.
Source: Seth Shulman, MIT Technology Review,July/August 2002
5:54:49 PM
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