Help Function Patent In Japan Means All Copies Of Word Processor Get Destroyed
from the um... dept
The latest in a long, long line of absolutely wacky intellectual property rulings comes from Japan. Slashdot is pointing out that a Tokyo court has ruled that a popular word processing program infringes on a patent held by electronics giant Matsushita. The specific patent has to do with how the "help function" is displayed within the program -- which seems strange enough, especially considering that the company has had their product on the market since 1987, and the patent only was granted in 1998. Still, it gets stranger. Not only did they lose the case, but the court is ruling that the company, Justsystem, must destroy all existing copies of the program. Yes. Because the help function of a word process and graphics program violates a patent, the entire program must be destroyed. Yeah, that certainly seems like a way to encourage innovation.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
The Antiwork Ethic
Japanese tax law has more generous child tax credits -- there are no age limits on "dependents", and any government money they receive, such as through fellowships, are not counted as "income". Thus, there are families whose adult children do not work because the family's overall income is higher that way.
I work and have a fellowship at a US university, but under Japanese law, I "have no income", so my family gets huge tax savings, like $10,000.
Here's a tribute to the hard-working students of East Asia.
http://img220.exs.cx/img220/134/3801fp.jpg
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Rupert Holmes anyone..
http://holmes-rupert.lyrics-songs.com/lyrics/18335/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]