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Sun Microsystems inc.

Revision as of 11:14, 21 February 2010 by Ciaran (talk | contribs) (External links: * [http://blogs.sun.com/Gregp/entry/are_software_patents_useful Are Software Patents Useful?], by Sun blogger Greg Papadopoulos, May 2007)

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 will be kept to document the great work that Sun did in campaigns against software patents.

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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