Who cares? It sounds big and scary and really bad... especially to us start-up types but I'd bet that there is nothing that hasn't been patented or could be deemed to be covered by a patent that's been put out on the web.
Seriously, start looking through the patents filed on Google (I started with one of these Paul Allen ones, then moved on to others filed by others but which were cited) and came to the conclusion that this is all ridiculous.
While I wholeheartedly agree with protecting IP, to me that is more of a copyright issue (not ripping off code) rather than ideas.
Ultimately what it means for us is: Go forth and code. Create whatever you want and ignore the patents out there. If you are successful, and a patent troll sues you, you can come to an agreement (license or otherwise). Really, no worries here.
Comments
Who cares? It sounds big and scary and really bad... especially to us start-up types but I'd bet that there is nothing that hasn't been patented or could be deemed to be covered by a patent that's been put out on the web.
Seriously, start looking through the patents filed on Google (I started with one of these Paul Allen ones, then moved on to others filed by others but which were cited) and came to the conclusion that this is all ridiculous.
Here we see that Apple could possibly sue anyone for invoking the "mouseover" or "hover" events: http://www.google.com/patents?id=mPYiAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...
While I wholeheartedly agree with protecting IP, to me that is more of a copyright issue (not ripping off code) rather than ideas.
Ultimately what it means for us is: Go forth and code. Create whatever you want and ignore the patents out there. If you are successful, and a patent troll sues you, you can come to an agreement (license or otherwise). Really, no worries here.