Cloudy waters
First and foremost, this will only affect TomTom in the US. The only other country in the world that supports software patents is Australia.
Software patents will ultimately destroy Microsoft, or indeed any other company that pursues them. It will also cripple the software market for that country, as no-one will in fact be able to innovate new ideas, as they will infringe on some patent or other.
Also, Microsoft fanbois and shills, in their utter ignorance, equate "Software Patents" and "Intellectual Property" as the same thing. IT IS NOT .
Microsoft muddied up these waters by using the terms "software patents" and IP interchangeably in statements. When they were talking about patents, they dropped in IP, when they were talking about IP, they dropped in patents. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
All software is protected by copyright, yes, even open source. This is the protection for intellectual property, it needs nothing more.
An example:
I can buy a patent for putting a question mark at the end of a question.
I cannot buy a patent for inventing the question mark.
If I invent the question mark I can claim copyright on it.
Even if I invent the question mark, and people recognise I invented it, I cannot claim patent on using it, if someone got there and bought the patent before me.
Like I said, muddying all this up only causes confusoin, and also will tie up ALL, (not just open source), software development in the future in the US, and, in effect, the US will be left behind when the rest of the world marches on, with their own FREE and unencumbered software.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
