>You're making a claim equivalent to saying Microsoft holds patents on operating system technologies, other companies can't improve the same technology.
No, I'm stating the fact that other companies can't improve the same exact technology (as defined in the patent).
If Microsoft has patents on aspects X, Y, Z of filesystems, other companies can still make filesystems, even improved ones.
But they can't make a filesystem that also leverages X, Y, Z (or any combination of them) unless they license, and also can't make a filesystem with an improved version of X, Y, or Z lest they infringe on the X, Y, Z pattent.
So this isn't about other companies still being able to make improved eg. OSes in the general sense, but if they can build improved OSes that also leverage the same patented techniques where needed (and they can't).
> I'm stating the fact that other companies can't improve the same exact technology (as defined in the patent).
That's equivalent to saying Samsung can't improve the same exact technology used by AU Optronics. Rightfully so.
> So this isn't about other companies still being able to make improved eg. OSes in the general sense, but if they can build improved OSes that also leverage the same patented techniques where needed (and they can't)
I think I've explained my point clearly enough. I'll wait for you to give some factual evidence as to which patent you believe is giving rise to your statement of "they can't".
:-) I wouldn't describe myself as pro-patent. I would say I'm pro-fair play. If Alice spends years in front of a fume hood developing a new ITO coating or polymer that reduces cost and improves manufacturability of a product, then she deserves to be protected from corporate VP Big Bob getting his engineer to just reverse engineer Alice's work. If you agree that Alice's work deserves some protection for some period of time, then we both share the same concept of right/wrong. Whether patents are the best way, and how they can be made more effective and less vulnerable to turkeys and vultures, is a discussion we could have in good faith. But at the very least we would need to base the discussion on facts rather than what I see in some other posts (not alleging you have done this) where they're writing Kiplingesque just-so stories to explain display product pricing while not knowing the difference between ITO and AgNP.
Thanks for taking the time to argue with this person. I withheld--despite the downvote brigade--because I presume he has some other agenda for promoting this story.
Thanks for passive aggresively talking to a third party about me as "this person" and thanking them for the courage to discuss with me.
Thanks for having some persecution syndrome or conspiracy theory about "the downvote brigade" and about me having "some other agenda for promoting this story".
In actually, I don't give a duck about the E-ink industry, but I do dislike the effect patents have in general, and am talking out of general principles about that.
You might be happy with E-ink patents in particular or patens in general. You might also be an E-ink industry insider (wouldn't that make you the one that is more possible to have an "agenda" ot at least a vested interest?), and have far more information that me, a mere e-ink consumer, about the impact of patents there.
You could still respond (or not respond) on a thread about the impact on patents (on e-ink and in general) without being rude and second-guessing the other person.
No, I'm stating the fact that other companies can't improve the same exact technology (as defined in the patent).
If Microsoft has patents on aspects X, Y, Z of filesystems, other companies can still make filesystems, even improved ones.
But they can't make a filesystem that also leverages X, Y, Z (or any combination of them) unless they license, and also can't make a filesystem with an improved version of X, Y, or Z lest they infringe on the X, Y, Z pattent.
So this isn't about other companies still being able to make improved eg. OSes in the general sense, but if they can build improved OSes that also leverage the same patented techniques where needed (and they can't).