[CrackMonkey] [owen@ditherati.com: D I T H E R A T I for 26 April 2000]

[Don Marti]

On Wed, Apr 26, 2000 at 05:44:12PM -0700, Seth David Schoen wrote:

> I'm sure David Friedman would say that there's an equilibrium
> somewhere.  If a large company did what you propose, it would probably
> shift the equilibrium so that patent holders would be reluctant to go
> after _that company_ for patent infringement.  That doesn't
> necessarily mean that they would be reluctant to go after _anyone_ for
> patent infringement, though.

But then everyone else would say "hey, they're safe, all they had to do
was FACE MARK STARR LIKE A MAN." They'd follow foo.com's example, either
individually or as an industry consortium.

And as more companies resisted patents, the incentive to get them would
plunge, leaving the freaks free to frolic.

-- 
Don Marti                  Information wants to be $6.95. 
dmarti at zgp.org            
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/         
whois DM683      Au feu les GIF!  http://burnallgifs.org/