Current Event I

I am curious if the early pioneers of computers would've succeeded had they lived in today's intellectual property environment. VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, was never patented[3] while MS-DOS 1.0 was based on a CP/M user manual[3]. Today VisiCalc would've been patented and the owners of CP/M would've sued regardless of whether Microsoft was in the wrong or not. Patents and copyright suits are being used as tools of corporate warfare instead of recourses for wrongdoing[1]. Even more nefarious are patent trolls - companies that file patents for someone else's ideas and then use those patents to sue large companies. A rather disturbing example is a suit against NCsoft fi led by Worlds.com over a patent on Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games[2]. A cursory reading of this patent reveals that it covers every MMO ever made and that it was filed after the first MMOs were released[4]. One can only image the dampening eff ect this corporate terrorism is having on innovation.

References

• [1] Leslie Katz. Apple Seeks Ban on U.S. Nokia Imports. link.


• [2] Virtual Worlds News. Worlds.com Fi les Suit Against NCsoft for Patent Infringement. link.


• [3] PBS. Triumph of the Nerds. link.


• [4] Dave Leahy et al. System and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space. link.