Z:gnu-www-ja-danger-of-software-patents--2f7557-IBM says, =26ldquo;Oh, how nice,/en

IBM says, &ldquo;Oh, how nice, you have a patent. Well, we have this patent, and this patent, and this patent, and this patent, and this patent, all of which cover other ideas implemented in your product, and if you think you can fight us on all those, we'll pull out some more. So let's sign a cross-license agreement, and that way nobody will get hurt.&rdquo; Now since we've assumed that our genius understands business, he's going to realize that he has no choice. He's going to sign the cross-license agreement, as just about everybody does when IBM demands it. And then this means that IBM will get &ldquo;access&rdquo; to his patent, meaning IBM would be free to compete with him just as if there were no patents, which means that the supposed benefit that they claim he would get by having this patent is not real. He won't get this benefit.