Just to show the ludicrous patent situation as reported by The Register.

Starting with an attack of 132 patents, Oracle had to cut that to 21 to make to “judgable”. Choosing those that we can assume are the ones they would suspect were most likely to win in court, of these 17 have already been rejected with prior art etc., leaving 4, that are still up for debate in court!

What would happen if they attacked a “small” provider like HTC or similar? They’d cut a deal before even having cut it down to 21 not to mention to 4 – this has happened so many times!!

This is *NOT* promoting innovation, rather the opposite only benefiting the solicitors, and the end users suffer.

I can kind of understand patents if they constitute real investments in innovation, but sorry, more often than not this isn’t the case in US. They are so easy to obtain, and then the legal battles have to sort out the mess, in a situation where the company with most cash usually persists and win, if not the legal battle, then the settlement battle…

Oh, and don’t get me started on software patents!!!