As a software developer and owner of IPR you might think I would not be happy if my code and ideas were stolen and used for profit. You’d be right.

But what if someone writes their own code that improves my original idea? Why should I have any claim over that?

Progress depends on people taking what has gone before and improve it. Any subject you care to think of is merely an improvement on a previous idea, if it wasn’t we would still be living in caves and eating berries.

If you stop people from copying ideas then you will eliminate creativity and innovation entirely. Technology will freeze and nothing new will be created.

I agree there has to be protection but it’s a two way street. There are organisations that exist only to protect patents and their only goal is to sue once they recognise a potential for profit. If they succeed then progress is temporarily halted.

I tend to be apolitical about software, operating systems and hardware. Whatever’s best for the job. But I have never been a fan of Apple, I find them annoying, they appear to swap style for functionality and I know I will get lambasted for that remark. But I do admire the company, they have achieved so much against so many odds. They have a committed user base that expands with each gadget they release.

And each time they release something new a queue forms outside their lawyers doors full of those gold hunters looking for their slice of the Apple pie. This one is going just a bit too far don’t you think?

It’s ridiculous that someone can patent code that has been in use in O/S ever since the gui was invented. Ironically the very code they claim to own could not possibly have existed without Apple creating the gui in the first place! I hope these idiots are firmly rebuked by the court (if it ever get’s there).

But therein lies the rub. The facts are of little relevance. The mood of the judge and whose story he prefers at the time will prevail. His decision may go against Apple, not because Klausner Technologies has a case but because of some legal technicality.

Klausner are professional thieves IMHO prepared to feed off other peoples work, like digital slave owners they wait for someone who is naive enough and poor enough to be beaten into submission with the might of their dollar.

Let’s hope they don’t succeed against Apple for it would be a blow to the heart of creativity and innovation. The idea that you can patent an idea rather than a design is just plain crazy.