http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05257/571396.stm details the issue, but in summary.

$55m paid, plus 5% of market cap. and that doesn’t take into account lawyer fees, and the 6 years it took to go through the courts.

Patents might be evil, you may not like them, and you think they are a blight.

but you can’t/shouldn’t ignore them. as others can use them against you.

Leaving IT Security and moving back into the creative field has seen me understand the legal options avilable for me to project my work. The images I create are mine and in todays Internet, it’s ok for people to steal those images as well, its the Internet and thats what everyone else does, right?

Wrong, you are stealing my creative vision, my hard work and any potential income that can be made from that vision. Granted some aspects of the patent process can be avoided, but there is still a massive need for them.

OWASP is a great idea, hell I’ve been involved with it from the start when Mark initially sent out that email, but how many people use OWASP content and not tell us? How many people are still abusing the brand?

Some area’s where patents are evil:
Cancer/Aids prevention, cure and general medicine
Idea’s that benefit society

Some area’s where patents are required:
Technology, when you have spent X amount on developing a product and don’t want it stolen by some competitor

As for schools and 3rd world countries, having grown up in a “3rd” world African country and documented how 1st world countries rape their natural resources, patents didn’t do that, capitalism did!

Patents provide necessary protection for innovators, inventors and researchers to help prevent the theft of their hard work. Patent law is therefore a natural consequence of civilization an a necessity to a strong society.

The fact that many seemingly obvious solutions to common problems have been allowed to receive Patents which then are used in “evil” ways by businesses to extort money is indeed a serious problem, but that does not mean Patents are a flawed idea, but rather the current state of Patent law is flawed.

One need look no further than Eli Whitney to see the value of invention and innovation. The cotton gin transformed southern agriculture and the national economy. American cotton found ready markets in Europe and in the burgeoning textile mills of New England. A tremendous boon for the economy and a technological invention that contributed to the end of slavery. Hardly evil.