re:Let them know what you think of them
I sent the following to all the contacts I could find for Lancors clients:
[email addresses excised by Reg moderator.]
cc Info@lancorltd.com
date 4 Jan 2008 19:53
subject Patent Troll Blocks Distribution of Free Laptops to Poor Nigerian Children
Are you happy to do business with this creeps?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/03/lancor_demands_20_mil/
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I got this responce:
Dear Tim,
We thank you for your mail.
We are a little miffed at your message, but then we guess in your neck of the woods, wherever that may be, it is OK to steal your neighbor’s property as long as you are donating the stolen property to “Poor Nigerian Children”
Yours,
LANCOR
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To which I responded with a view of the comments from here:
to LANCOR <Info@lancorltd.com>
[Email addresses excised.]
date 4 Jan 2008 20:47
subject Re: Patent Troll Blocks Distribution of Free Laptops to Poor Nigerian Children
Do you really have a case, I think not...
The differences were more evident than the similarities once you got beyond the fact that they are both keyboards. It also had the text of the suit, and basically, it looked to *all* the commenters like they were:
a) claiming similarities in the most general of terms that *even so* were tenuous
b) claiming infringement of features which LANCOR did not invent.
Not everyone thinks that charity means stealing is okay; if you could get a free laptop, why would you buy one? But even then, once the OLPC scheme has raised the computer literacy of LANCOR's target market, that market will be a boom one for them. An enlightened (or even canny, presuming they really do want to make money out of regionalised keyboards) corp would grant OLPC a free licence and make a big song and dance about it for free publicity.
OLPC is not the only PC sold in Nigeria. What keymaps other PCs use and why for example Windows 2003 is not slapped with the same lawsuit?
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