Marco Schulze wrote:

Robert Dewar wrote:

Governmentally forced licensing of patents are exceptions and you better don't rely on them.

Absolutely, these are very rare cases

...

Differential pricing is tricky, any such scheme can easily run afoul of anti-trust laws. So the claim of "no reason" here is dubious.

Maybe differential pricing might end in an anti-trust-trial, but we know what that means: Nothing (see Microsoft).

Actually that's wrong, I recommend reading the judgment and Microsofts responses and consents before you make a blanket statement like this. Yes, many see the restrictions placed on Microsoft as minimal, but it is wrong to say nothing happened.

BTW we have our own experiences with that: One of our competitors (in Switzerland) is offending competition laws and it took 2 years until the Commission of Competition found a judgement. Now, our competitor will lodge an appeal and it will take at least one more year until a final decision. One of these cases can be endured by us, maybe even two or three, but with patents there were so many, that we could close down our company! And this is only one of many bad consquences of patents.

Absolutely, legal proceedings can be long and costly. One copyright trial I testified in resulted in the jury ruling unanimously in favor of the defendant, but the defendant went into bankruptcy the next day (leaving me and the lawyers with a lot of unpaid bills), and then the plaintiff appealed. Since the defendant could not afford to fight the appeal, the ruling of the jury was overturned essentially by default.

Any single patent case can have a result similar to this, win the battle and lose the war.

Best regards, Marco.