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**Chris** · 11-08-2004, 09:29

This is sadly an all-too-common practice these days - they call it 'exploiting intellectual assets'. A company running out of new ideas tries to claim that something everybody is doing today was actually its own invention, and hadn't you all better pay up quick. BT tried it on a year or so back, trying to claim it invented whole chunks of the internet, and failed. And at the moment, someone is trying to claim they own great chunks of the code that makes up Linux and is sending round bullying letters to large corporate users of it, demanding a licence fee.

I doubt they will get anywhere. See it in the context of a country which has one lawyer for every 340 people - they have to earn a living somehow, and there clearly aren't enough criminals to go round!

11-08-2004, 09:29	#2
Chris Trollsplatter Cable Forum Team Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: North of Watford Services: Humane elimination of all common Internet pests Posts: 38,607	Re: downloading data is patented! ? This is sadly an all-too-common practice these days - they call it 'exploiting intellectual assets'. A company running out of new ideas tries to claim that something everybody is doing today was actually its own invention, and hadn't you all better pay up quick. BT tried it on a year or so back, trying to claim it invented whole chunks of the internet, and failed. And at the moment, someone is trying to claim they own great chunks of the code that makes up Linux and is sending round bullying letters to large corporate users of it, demanding a licence fee. I doubt they will get anywhere. See it in the context of a country which has one lawyer for every 340 people - they have to earn a living somehow, and there clearly aren't enough criminals to go round!