For every innovation ...
... there's someone that want's to capitalize on it, and some government agency that enables said capitalization.
For example, take U.S. patent No. 7,000,180. While it was originally filed back in 2001 (well before AJAX became the "acronym du jour"), it was finally granted this Valentine's Day by the beloved U.S Patent Office ... and it could well screw up web technology innovation as we know it, as it's broad enough to (potentially) require any AJAX-like technology to pay a license fee back to the patent owner.
- Patent everything. Then, even if you have no success yourself, you can stifle everyone else's.
- Technology isn't about thinking outside the box. It's about who has the most legal paperwork on file.
