should we patent air too?. An article from News.com: America Online has quietly secured a patent that could shake up the competitive landscape for instant messaging software. Ouch. Granting such a patent - I can only imagine that the responsible official was asleep at the wheel. After all, there are almost certainly cases of "prior art" - that is, previously existing implementations. Moreover, such general patents are even dumber than patents themselves already are, since they can be applied to just about anything imaginable.
Well, eventually Billyboy, Elly or one of the Steves will probably patent the 0 and the 1 and then we'll have to pay licenses for every bit in the computer ...
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