James Gleick Quotes

Software patents are dangerous to software developers because they impose monopolies on software ideas.

I think software patents are a bad idea. Many patents are given for trivial inventions.

The software patent problem is not limited to Mono. Software patents affect everyone writing software today.

Patents are being used to wage war in the digital world, and as a result, patents have become a toll gate on the road of innovation.

Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.

It almost goes without saying that when you are a startup, one of the first things you do is you start setting aside money to defend yourself from patent lawsuits, because any successful company, even moderately successful, is going to get hit by a patent lawsuit from someone who's just trying to look for a payout.

In a recent decision of the Supreme Court, not made, however, by the full court, and concurred in by only four justices, it was held that the seller of a patented mimeograph could bind the purchaser to use only his ink in the machine, though the ink was not patented.

The patent system was established, I believe, to protect the lone inventor. In this it has not succeeded. … The patent system protects the institutions which favor invention.

An e-bike is like headphones, you can say you have patents, but people will still copy.

Every piece of software written today is likely going to infringe on someone else's patent.

At Linkabit, we put little effort and energy into patenting things.

The reforms proposed by the Patent Reform Act of 2007 are precisely the type of congressional action needed. The Act will remove obstacles to growth and restore balance to the patent system.

We continue to look at accretive and synergistic acquisitions both in the domestic as well as international markets. Our emphasis, thus, will be on strategic acquisitions, and we will not be doing it just for the sake of making our name bigger.

Big companies often use their leverage to take stakes in would-be suppliers, especially in the technology business.

With the rise of software patents, engineers coding new stuff - whether within a large software company or as kids writing smartphone apps - are exposed to a claim that somewhere a prior patent is being infringed.

I've fought court battles over my inventions before.

Entrepreneurs do not try and create new types of smartphone technologies now because they know it's pointless: They're going to get sued almost immediately.

In an industry with highly sequential innovation, it may be better for society to scrap patents altogether than try to tighten them.

I think you would find almost anyone who stands up for their patent rights has been called a patent troll.

Making money from enforcing patents is no more wrong than investing in preferred stock.

I've never filed a patent lawsuit. I hope never to file a patent lawsuit. That may be unrealistic, but it would be great if I could avoid doing it... Lawsuits are a ridiculous way to do business.

Big companies such as Google and Facebook buy startups at ridiculously high prices - not for their products, but for their people.

I would have had my patent long, long ago, and it would have run out long, long ago. I would have made, maybe, $100.000, much less that the patent has brought me now.

Software patents, in particular, are very ripe for abuse. The whole system encourages big corporations getting thousands and thousands of patents. Individuals almost never get them.

If people don't get paid for their inventions, that's not a good thing. In the case of many patents, there are people who aren't in a position to take them to the next level. If you don't enforce your rights, no one is going to enforce them for you.