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Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 20:18:05 +0000 (GMT)
From: James Sutherland <jas88@cam.ac.uk>
To: "David D.W. Downey" <pgpkeys@hislinuxbox.com>
cc: Rik van Riel <riel@conectiva.com.br>, Alan Olsen <alan@clueserver.org>,
        Mark Haney <mhaney@info4cars.com>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: RE: Linux stifles innovation...
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On Fri, 16 Feb 2001, David D.W. Downey wrote:

> Would someone tell me where you get all this lovely information on
> patents held by M$? I can't find anything.

Sorry, it's *IBM* who are said to hold a patent on the tab key.

Legend has it Microsoft once found a patent of theirs which IBM appeared
to have infringed, and were very excited at the possibility of something
to hold over IBM, so their lawyers met IBM's lawyers. The MS lawyers
beamed "look at our patent you've infringed!" IBM's lawyers replied "look
at this pile of our patents YOU'VE infringed... let's start with this
one. A Tab key." MS suddenly realised they were outlawyered...

No idea how accurate it is, but just the thought of MS's lawyers getting a
nasty shock like that has a certain appeal :-)


James.

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