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Simple fictions and usefulness | 428 comments | Create New Account

Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.

Simple fictions and usefulness

Authored by: stegu on Tuesday, June 18 2013 @ 04:41 AM EDT

That is a very good analogy. It can be extended to show the stupidity of patent
workarounds (needlessly driving on the wrong side of the road or using an
off-road vehicle to drive close to the road but not on it to artificially avoid
infringement), and it tells our side of the story very clearly. It also lends
itself to cheap but effective references to toll roads (and bridge trolls), and
it paints a picture of patents creating an arbitrary toll on roads that were
supposed to be open:

"Sure, you can drive here, it's a public road. You just can't do it in the
good and obvious manner. You need to use some kind of convoluted and
non-intuitive way of getting from here to over there, or you need to pay us a
tribute. And, by the way, we patented quite a few of those non-intuitive ways of
driving as well, so please read these 10,000 patents and make sure you work
around them all before proceeding. Or, you could just pay us a toll and be out
of here. Your choice."

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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