Talk:IT Innovation System

--Jack Richins 21:59, 20 Oct 2004 (PDT) I think some of the time periods granted for patents and copyrights are quite excessive for IT's current timelines. One possible exception is RSA's patent on public key cryptography. They had the idea apparently so far ahead of the market that they had trouble finding interest in it. Perhaps that's a good example of the type of thing that should be patented - something really innovative, to the point where at first you have trouble knowing what to do with it.

Another idea might be looking at how corporations are collecting patents. Microsoft recently began going after patents in a big way after years of ignoring them precisely so they can cut deals with SUN, IBM, and others. This could have a chilling effect on innovations from smaller companies or small open source projects. Even if IBM is willing and legally able to shield Linux with it's patent portfolio, will it do so for every small project? Is the EFF or some other such organization doing something to compete with corporations patent portofolio's?