On Wed, 2004-09-08 at 10:04, wayne wrote:
In fairness, I'll point out that they have effectively
volunteered to pay for any patent defense that is necessary, and
perhaps can not be blamed too much for a zealous approach to
preventing litigation expense.
No, MS has only volunteered to pay for any patent defense filed
against them. Patent enforcement can be selective. If Patent Trolls
Inc decides to start out small to strengthen their case, they could
start by suing sourceforge or me. Nothing in the SenderID license says that
MS would come to sourceforge's or my aid.
IANAL (but I was a Legal Studies major in college).
However, I suspect that if anybody challenged Microsoft's patent
anywhere, by suing anybody, they would be concerned as it could create
precedent which invalidates their patent. Invalid patent then leaves the
Exchange group open to a lawsuit from Patent Trolls Inc.
-Max
--
Maxwell Kanat-Alexander
2nd Level Tech Support Engineer, USA
Kerio Technologies, Inc.