Thursday, June 08, 2006

The tergiversation of patents, again

The strange form that the last Apple Computers’ lawsuits against Creative Labs were filled shows again how wrong the US patent system had gone and how abusive of it some companies had become. After being sued for the "willful" patent infringement of Creative Labs patent pertaining to its Zen music player, specifically dealing with the way its menuing system categorizes songs, in May, IN A US DISTRICT COURT IN WISCONSIN, Apple filed a suit against Creative labs claiming that Creative infringed upon four Apple patents. (Creative Labs is headquartered in Singapore and Apple Computers in California). Then, a week ago, Apple filed a suit against the same plaintiff, IN US DISTRICT COURT IN TEXARKANA, TEXAS, alleging infringement of further three patents.
This situation shoes how irrelevant the substance and objective of patents have become. It shows a clear intention to use patents as a tool to drain the competition of financial resources via litigation. Suing somebody twice, and at separate venues that may be costly to manage simultaneously, could be an effective demonstration that one has the time, the resources, the money, and the means to fight a two-front war, which would mean that not the one who is right or has the properly valid patent will win but the one who can stand longer. This is from the company that has accused other to use dirty tacticts…

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