7 ms·
Thanks for making the world a worse place, Twitter, by giving in to the patent bullies, and setting an example for others. It's sort of "understandable" for sma
by devx 13y ago
Thanks for making the world a worse place, Twitter, by giving in to the patent bullies, and setting an example for others. It's sort of "understandable" for small start-ups who would be ruined by the trial alone, but for companies that have billions of dollars in their coffers to do this is just plain pathetic and cowardly. Instead of fighting the problem, they become part of it and accomplices to it.
This also completely devalues the credibility of their IPA [1] patent thing. If Twitter gave in, why would everyone else who might've been interested in the whole IPA thing not do the same, too?
[1] - https://blog.twitter.com/2012/introducing-innovators-patent-agreement https://blog.twitter.com/2012/introducing-innovators-patent-...
- diegomcfly 13y agoYou would not believe the silly obscure things that IBM patents. It is a disgusting game they play.
- IBM 13y agoPost some of them.
- diegomcfly 13y agoI prefer to stay out of the legal cross-hairs of Big Blue ... thanks.
- snorkel 13y agoActually Twitter didn't just pay IBM, but bought the 900 patents from IBM outright, which hopefully Twitter will not then use offensively as IBM did, so this could be a good thing, and perhaps another way to deal with patent trolls: buy their arsenal leaving them with fewer extortion tools.
- mcintyre1994 13y agoTwitter have a public agreement to use patents only defensively, so hopefully these won't be used offensively now. https://github.com/twitter/innovators-patent-agreement https://github.com/twitter/innovators-patent-agreement
- pyre 13y agoGood thing 'public agreements' aren't binding.
- mcintyre1994 13y agoI'm not a lawyer, but the documents look legally binding. They say to have a lawyer if you want to implement it. It forms part of their employee agreements and their patent filings.
- danielweber 13y agoHow much should be spent in a territorial dispute between a $30 billion company and a $200 billion company?