"they have absolutely no money to pay AOL like I know they're gonna charge..."
You know how much AOL has planned to charge only a few days after the patent was granted? You must be very well informed, indeed.
But now that I've had my fun I promise I'll address your point in a serious manner. You illustrate exactly my point with regards to overreaction. When people overreact, they start to ignore basic facts surrounding the case.
I agree with the statement that this is a bad patent. I agree it gives AOL the legal precedence to try to exert the patent upon other people or companies to collect royalties. I disagree that they'd actually be foolish enough to try to do so. Public opinion of AOL is important to their membership count. Their membership is not doing so well these days. If they were to attack other companies for royalties, I think public opinion would swing against them even more, putting them in an even less untenable situation.
As I mentioned before, when people panic they tend to forget basic facts surrounding a case. In this situation it's pretty clear that there are multiple instances of "prior art" in existance, ranging from IRC to Zephyr to plain old UNIX "talk." So what if AOL decides to sue an IM company for royalties? Any defense to such a lawsuit would surely bring this up. With evidence like that produced the patent would quickly lose any teeth it might have had and would either be directly overturned or made into something that not even the most smug legal counsel would attempt to collect on.
As to the remark about companies or individuals lacking money with which to defend themselves should AOL actually risk such a lawsuit: If you feel so strongly about this matter (and the numerous other potential patent time bombs that could "destroy" the usability of the Internet the way you seem to feel this will "destroy" IM usability) I suggest you hedge your bet and make a donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation at www.eff.org. They'd most certainly get involved with such a matter were it to occur, and with their help I'm sure the case would be quickly overturned. The EFF has been involved in a number of cases and this one seems right up their alley were it to go to a trial.
However, until it comes to that I think it's safe to say the sky is in fact not falling.
If I may do a bit of stumping for something I believe in here.... if bad patents like this and frivolous copyright lawsuits really bother people as much as they like to claim it does then I find myself wondering why more people aren't making their opinions known to the government and more donations aren't being made to groups like the EFF. The solution to these problems are votes, donations and involvement. Hollywood and big companies win because they have lobbyists working in their favor. Doesn't it make sense to be a lobbyist working in your own favor?
"they have absolutely no money to pay AOL like I know they're gonna charge..."
You know how much AOL has planned to charge only a few days after the patent was granted? You must be very well informed, indeed.
But now that I've had my fun I promise I'll address your point in a serious manner. You illustrate exactly my point with regards to overreaction. When people overreact, they start to ignore basic facts surrounding the case.
I agree with the statement that this is a bad patent. I agree it gives AOL the legal precedence to try to exert the patent upon other people or companies to collect royalties. I disagree that they'd actually be foolish enough to try to do so. Public opinion of AOL is important to their membership count. Their membership is not doing so well these days. If they were to attack other companies for royalties, I think public opinion would swing against them even more, putting them in an even less untenable situation.
As I mentioned before, when people panic they tend to forget basic facts surrounding a case. In this situation it's pretty clear that there are multiple instances of "prior art" in existance, ranging from IRC to Zephyr to plain old UNIX "talk." So what if AOL decides to sue an IM company for royalties? Any defense to such a lawsuit would surely bring this up. With evidence like that produced the patent would quickly lose any teeth it might have had and would either be directly overturned or made into something that not even the most smug legal counsel would attempt to collect on.
As to the remark about companies or individuals lacking money with which to defend themselves should AOL actually risk such a lawsuit: If you feel so strongly about this matter (and the numerous other potential patent time bombs that could "destroy" the usability of the Internet the way you seem to feel this will "destroy" IM usability) I suggest you hedge your bet and make a donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation at www.eff.org. They'd most certainly get involved with such a matter were it to occur, and with their help I'm sure the case would be quickly overturned. The EFF has been involved in a number of cases and this one seems right up their alley were it to go to a trial.
However, until it comes to that I think it's safe to say the sky is in fact not falling.
If I may do a bit of stumping for something I believe in here.... if bad patents like this and frivolous copyright lawsuits really bother people as much as they like to claim it does then I find myself wondering why more people aren't making their opinions known to the government and more donations aren't being made to groups like the EFF. The solution to these problems are votes, donations and involvement. Hollywood and big companies win because they have lobbyists working in their favor. Doesn't it make sense to be a lobbyist working in your own favor?
-Feren
"We use them for divine retribution."