Re: TomTom to contest Microsoft patent lawsuit ..

[amicus_curious]

"Vincent" <vincent.fritters@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:gofhco$miv$2@news.albasani.net...
> On Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:20:57 -0500, amicus_curious wrote:
>
> > My own feeling is that the Open Invention Network and the FSF, too, are
> > a bunch of pud knockers without much money in the bank and not much of a
> > chance to horn in on this issue.  They could try to sue Microsoft for
> > some sort of infringement somewhere, but they could have done that at
> > any time they thought they had a case, just as many others have done.
> > Some have won and others have lost.  It is expensive to lose, however,
> > and you need some real money to get to sit at the table.
>
> Very few companies on this planet have the resources to fight a company
> like Microsoft.
> If TomTom has indeed violated patents they should be required to
> compensate the company whose patents they have violated.
> The problem is, determining this is a very expensive proposition for both
> sides.
Well Microsoft has already made that determination to their own satisfaction 
at their own cost and now thinks that they can show a jury how and where 
Tom-Tom is in violation.  Tom-Tom has to show that it is not the case or 
that the patent is not valid due to any of a variety of reasons, prior art 
being the most popular.  A big problem for Tom-Tom is that, if they lose, 
they have to pay for the Microsoft effort required to uncover the 
infringement along with the rest of the legal expenses.  Given the 
uncertainty of a jury decision (remember OJ?) it is a tough decision to 
make.

> > If Microsoft's three patents vis-a-vis Linux that are being asserted
> > against Tom-Tom were found to be invalid, Microsoft could not collect
> > any license fees in the future for their use, obviously, and that would
> > cost them whatever revenue stream is derived from that sort of license.
> > I really doubt that it is very much money, though, compared to the
> > oceans of bucks that Microsoft runs through each year.
>
> Conspiracy theorists are wondering if there is more involved, like the
> first attack at Linux albeit by proxy.
Conspiracy theorists will always wonder about everything.  Do you work for a 
large company?  Think about how your company works internally.  It is not a 
monolith with a single minded focus.  None of these companies are.  They are 
vast collections of individuals and groups all trying for some local 
optimization of their business.  The MS patent department is no different 
than any other patent department.  They justify their existence by fussing 
about with patents.  Fish gotta swim and lawyers have to litigate or else 
threaten to do so.

> > You have to remember, too, that these cases are decided by people who
> > have next to no technical understanding of anything.  If you think the
> > patent examiners are bad, consider that the jury is likely to see the
> > examiner as an absolute expert.  What chance does logic have here?
>
> That is the biggest problem and in fact is also a fatal flaw in the
> patent system itself.
But it is embedded in the US Constitution and in over 200 years of laws and 
litigation.  It is not going away and trial by jury is even more deeply 
embedded.  And the US is not alone in having this condition.

> I'll bet TomTom is kicking themselves for not using ext2 instead of FAT.
> It probably would have been cheaper to develop some kind of interface
> software that would allow Windows to talk to ext2 transparently so the
> user could just view the device as a mass storage unit like it is using
> FAT.
> Maybe some oss code exists for this function already, I do not know.

I doubt that the file system is Tom-Tom's biggest issue.  There are hundreds 
of companies licensing FAT now and I doubt that the fees are very high. 
Tom-Tom's problem is with the navigation patents and their relationship to 
automotive use and highway travel.  If other GPS companies like Garmin have 
seen the light, there is a good chance that Tom-Tom is in a poor position.