Re: Sharing the Family PC is Patent-Pending

[Alun]

"Barry Pearson" <news@childsupportanalysis.co.uk> wrote in
news:Lx8nc.306$Nc3.192@newsfe3-win.server.ntli.net: 

> AES/newspost wrote:
> [snip]
>> 1)  I suppose it's always possible that MS is patenting this not
>> because they genuinely believe it merits patenting, and not with any
>> intentions of enforcing the patent, but simply as a protective
>> measure against someone else patenting something similar and coming
>> after them.  I believe Jeff Bezos has indicated that he follows more
>> or less the same tactic with amazon.com business patents. 
> [snip]
> 
> What used to happen, and perhaps still does, is that companies would
> use patents as bargaining chips. "We have these patents, and they will
> screw you up for years. You have those, and they will screw us up for
> years. Let's come to a mutual agreement not to fight about this. Then
> we can both screw up all the others for years".
> 
> Does this still happen?
> 

Yes, it's called cross-licencing