Implying that, yes, although it's not actually true :-)
> By the way, are you as appalled as I that people think
"cross-licensing
> patents" means the same as "sharing technology and code?"
No, life is too short to be appalled by what people think, at least
about stuff as trivial as this. I usually save my (Appalledness?
Appallation? Someone help me noun this verb) for more serious things,
like thinking it's okay to terrorize immigrants from country X for some
random historical reason (with respect to, the immigrants in question
usually are more the victim than the culprit).
I have a close friend who I often agree with but who is not a Microsoft
employee and who has not been told to not comment of software patents.
He mentioned to me that software patents are sort of like nuclear
weapons: they don't do anyone any good, and the big guys would love to
get rid of them, but instead the big guys hold onto enough of them to
protect themselves (retaliation-wise) against random strikes from
third-world entities that have managed to cobble together one or two
weapons and have not much to lose.
> Joe, filing any patents I should know about?
I'm glad you chose to phrase your question that way. No, I am not filing
any patents you should know about. :-)
There are, however, four pretty Lucite blocks sitting on my monitor, and
I'm planning on collecting more in the series. :-)
- Joe
Joseph S. Barrera III <joebar@microsoft.com>
<http://research.microsoft.com/~joebar/>
Phone, Office: (415) 778-8227; Cellular: (415) 601-3719; Home: (415)
588-4801
The opinions expressed in this message are my own personal views and do
not reflect the official views of Microsoft Corporation.