October 4, 2004
Greedy Kodak Kills Sun
Today, a federal jury awarded Eastman Kodak $1 billion against Sun Microsystems because Sun's Java product was found to infringe upon patents owned by Kodak. The $1 billion in damages and lost licensing revenue accounts for half of Sun's server and storage profits over the period of 1998 to mid-2001. Of course, Java is free and really has nothing to do with Sun's server and storage sales.
This is a great example of why I hate selfish greedy people and companies and the entire patent system. Basically, Kodak gets $1 billion dollars and effectively kills another company (along with all the opportunities for growth and technological advancement that could come from that company) because they want a monopoly on their idea and a bunch of money. An idea they don't even do anything productive with. They are sucking the blood out of our civiliztion to fatten themselves up.
For those who are willing to read up on the patents, here they are: 5,206,951; 5,421,012; and 5,226,161. Apparently communication and associated protocols between components is a new and invented idea. Never applied to people before, so obviously applying it to objects in a software architecture required amazing insight. Eiffel existed several years before Kodak's patents were filed and was based on ideas that have been around even longer.
Posted by josuah at October 4, 2004 8:11 PM UTC+00:00
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