Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: roseway on January 04, 2009, 07:18:04 AM
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US patent application number 20080319910, published on Christmas Day 2008, details Microsoft's vision of a situation where a "standard model" of PC is given away or heavily subsidized by someone in the supply chain. The end user then pays to use the computer, with charges based on both the length of usage time and the performance levels utilized, along with a "one-time charge".
http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-256995.html
Another wonderful attempt by MS to lock in their customers for ever. If this one were to succeed I think it might even make US legislators realise that their patent system is terminally flawed. There was a time when patents were about original ideas. ???
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:no:
arent patents supposed to be a kind of copyright for new inventions?
Thats hardly an invention is it? :-X
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>> Thats hardly an invention is it?
Not exactly no :) It's just rental, and I think that's been done before.
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I thought I heard something some time ago with a similar proposal for using MS software.
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This is an old article but in a similiar vein, altruistic or a good beta testing market?
http://tinyurl.com/722yco
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The thing about that is if you pay like 20pound a month for the service then after say 12months you'd have wasted enough money to buy your own PC
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It seems that the patent application was rejected, (http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10011770o-2000331761b,00.htm) even though they tried to sneak it in on Christmas day. :clap2:
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The US Patent & Trademark Office said no.
../snip..
The office also pointed out that all the claims included in the patent application described stuff that was already patented.
Someone saw sense then :)