[Coco] Re: JPEG

[Roger Taylor]

At 02:12 PM 5/8/2004 -0700, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>         Another thought is that if you invent something and make it clear
>that you will be looking for royalties, people will look for cheaper
>alternatives. Thus your invention may not become popular. Why not wait
>till it becomes popular then pounce?
>
>         The courts should not permit this. It is entrapment.

Sometimes it is.  But with JPEG, there is no way someone cloned this 
formula by mistake.  I doubt anybody scans the patents each day to see 
what's listed and who owns them.  I'm also sure there's an anti-patent 
group or groups out there who think that nobody has a right to patent their 
ideas.  Those folks are probably the same types who are firm believers in 
the open source/free software movement that is aimed to keep others from 
making a living writing software.  And, both of those types of people would 
probably rather take somebody else's work than to create their own.

It seems like large groups have the edge over a single person no matter 
what the case.  But let the single person steal from the group and his arms 
get cut off.

Anyway, something tells me that the overgrown "JPEG" group will squirm out 
of this one somehow.


----------
Roger Taylor