Hi all,

There is an interesting article in today's NY Times entitled "A Payday for Patents 'R' Us" by Ian Austen and Lisa Guernsey.

This article summarizes NTP's successful patent dispute against Research in Motion, makers of the BlackBerry. NTP is another patent-only company run by lawyers.

The last line of the article, a quote from the president of NTP, Donald Stout (esq.) is particularly telling:

Those who criticize, they think that unless you make products, you

aren't entitled

to having rights," he said. "That's just not so."

As many of you know, registration is required for reading the NY Times. See today's Technology Section at nytimes.com or follow this link which will probably work for less than two days <sigh>:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/technology/02patent.html? ex=1115697600&en=9566e9ad593d440f&ei=5070

Also, I had emailed this mailing list a shortlist of interesting academic patent articles last week. Did list members see that email? I do not see it in the archive.

Joe --- Joseph R. Kiniry Dept. of Computer Science, University College Dublin http://secure.ucd.ie/