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Latest revision as of 07:17, 11 February 2011

Sun Microsystems inc. (Sun) was a hardware and software company that has fought against software patents. It was bought out by Oracle in 2010. This page will be kept to document the great work that Sun did in campaigns against software patents.

Sun signed a 10-year non-agression deal with Microsoft in 2004. (see Patent non-aggression pacts)

Paying Kodak for nothing

Sun paid $92 million to Kodak for protection against patents that Kodak claimed were being infringed by Sun's Java software.[1][2] Kodak originally asked for $1 billion.[3]

Paying IBM for nothing

In the 1980s, when IBM accused Sun of violating seven patents, Sun examined the patents and argued that IBM didn't have a case. The reply of IBM's lawyers was "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?" And Sun paid out.[4] This is another example of why invalid patents remain unchallenged.

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References