Mutually Assured Patent Destruction
from the wonderful dept
We've been talking about the process by which patents are being used in the same way that governments stockpile nuclear weapons -- just to point them at each other to make threats. If one company waves a patent saber, the other can then wave their own patent portfolio back. Occasionally, though, nuclear patent war breaks out with both sides suing each other. It's happened recently between Symbol and Intermec in the RFID and WiFi space, and now it appears to be happening in the DVR space. Last year, TiVo sued EchoStar over DVR-related patents, and while it took some time, EchoStar has now turned around and sued TiVo over other DVR-related patents. The only people doing well out of such lawsuits are the lawyers.
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I'll mention that there's been a number of patent lawsuits in this "EDA" space.
This site is a user's group for the products of one of the larger companies in EDA.
-cmh
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