> Date: Fri, 06 Dec 1996 22:08:54 +0000
> From: Michael McMaster <Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk>
>
> IBM may have made much money from their patents .... according to normal
> accounting at least. But maybe they made the bulk of their money from
> making their stuff freely available.
>
> What am I meaning by this?
>
> The great value of IBM, at least until fairly recently, was the huge
> number of application programmes that were available. These were
> available because IBM not only shared its information early but also
> helped people who wanted to use their approach and helped to create a
> whole system of available work that they didn't produce directly.
On the other hand, Sony did not make as much money with its Beta video
format because it didn't share the technology as much as the "owners" of
the VHS technology did. There are some other examples of this type of
situations. This discussion continues to bring out the question of how
much more we (the human race) could have developed if the patent system
(and all of its derivatives) had not been invented!
Thanks,
-- Ivan,
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