Perhaps this is not all bad, providing M$ uses the patent solely as the 2nd
purpose. ;)

Alan Dayley wrote:
> It's not a hoax.  However, it is probably one of the many, many patents
> that are applied for, most of which that are granted, whose only purpose
> is to lock the market on that idea.  In this case, the optimist in me
> hopes that no one, schools or otherwise, are dumb enough to accept such
> a deal.  And, I don't expect that MS expects to ever actually implement
> such a system.  But, if the market is ever accepting of this sort of
> thing, they are now the monopoly holder and so the market is squashed.
> 
> IMO, patents mostly have two purposes:
> - The original purpose is to foster innovation by granting the inventor
> a temporary monopoly to financially benefit from his idea.
> - The secondary side effect purpose of restricting markets and
> competition by holding patents but never actually implementing them in a
> product.  I lump patent holding companies in this group.
> 
> Most unfortunately the latter, side effect use is by far the most
> prevalent today.
> 
> Alan
> 
> jdawgaz@cox.net wrote:
>> this IS a hoax, right?
> 
> 
>> ---- "der.hans" <PLUGd@LuftHans.com> wrote: 
>>> moin moin,
>>>
>>> http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37568
>>>
>>> Ugh!
> 

-- 
-Eric 'shubes'
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