Patent infringement lawsuit against OLPC in Nigeria

[nick knouf]

On Nov 27, 2007, at 4:49 PM, Richard Dobson wrote:
> José Antonio wrote:
>> There is no "intelectual property".
>>
>> Patents and copyright are just monopoly granted by state. Period.
>>
>> As any monopoly, this kind of monopoly cause damages to society.
>>
>> Why Exxon and At&T can't do monopoly, and Micorsoft and Warner can?

I definitely agree with you; unfortunately there are lawyers that can  
make one's life very difficult because of these existing laws...

> In any case, I can't see what their case is. Their product (as clearly
> presented on their web site) uses two pairs of shift keys, left and
> right sides of the keyboard, to access multiple extra characters.  
> The XO
> does not do this, as far as I can see.

 From my reading of the press release, it seems as if they are  
claiming infringement in drivers that come with the XO; that the XO  
contains code that interfaces with their proprietary keyboard  
design.  I don't know enough about the product to know if their extra  
shift keys are simply coded as extra modifier keys, which would seem  
to make their claim of "intellectual property" quite shaky indeed.   
Even so, any case, if it were to go to trial, would likely be  
draining in terms of financial resources for OLPC, not to mention the  
potential for bad press.

nick