For any of you who are wondering this would apply to any industry not just computer software if they were able to get enough invalid patents through the USPTO.
Plus I did some fun calculations in the middle you have to read. It shows the horror of our market.
Who said anything to the world markets. It is not anti trust when the US government is the real power keeping you out. We are talking about markets. It would be an effective trade barrier without congressional support. Huh, I wonder if this is George Bush's next protectionist manuever for US corps.
You see if the US patents effectively closed off the US market, Microsoft has done nothing wrong. The US has done nothing wrong. This again would require the help of almost every major software corp in US.
Further who said anything about the world kow-towing to the US orgs. There is no kow-tow. You see you could not punish the corps, they are only doing what they are supposed to get patents. Nor could you rationally punish the American government for enforcing patent rights of US corps(or at least invalidating them in the courts of law).
Actually more than likely there would never be a court battle. You see the foreign corps would have to pay so much on patent lawyers
to figure out which patents would need to be challenged and to cite references and such that there would be a huge headache.
Again, Microsoft has done nothing wrong. What are foreign nations going to do fine Microsoft of following(yes I know it is exploiting) the law. What about every other software corp that is doing the same thing.
Do you really think the EU would cut off all American Companies from selling their products in EU countries.
Say goodbye to Windows(no loss there) but you would also say goodbye to UNIX, MAC, many of the Linux Software Corps, Interplay, Blizzard(even though it is a subsidiary of a Italian Corp), Dell(they have software), Gateway, every boutique software firm in the states, infograms, GPG, pandemic, Westwood(EA), every producer of applications(have I listed enough), IBM, Intel, AMD, Sun, Id.
You see the EU could not let any of these corps sell to the EU countries because punish just Microsoft and the other companies keep doing it. Plus you have problems with proving intent. I mean there are serious barriers to just hitting a corp with huge fines for something it did not really do. It did screw you over thats true but it didn't violate a law or even establish a trust.
There is no trust in a free market. It is still a free market. The problem is that the free market is hitting you over the head with patents. You see all those corps I mentioned above would still be selling everything they wanted whereever they do now. There is only a trust when a corp(Microsoft) destroys the free market part of the economy. There isn't one when there is an oligarchy doing it. (anyone ever heard of gasoline)
The price for gasoline is a perfect example. All the corps get together and set a market price. They have the ability to raise and lower this price at will because everyone else selling gas will do the same thing as them. If they want to raise costs to $3.00 a gallon on a whim they do it. (they did it here after the refineries were getting back on their feet. The truth is the gas companies can do as they want. Regardless of the stock market, the feds or whatever(especially since Bush would never do anything to hurt big business), the corps decide how much they want to screw us over. That is a trust, a monopoly. But it is done in the form of a oligopoly so it won't get slapped around by governments.
BTW for anyone about to say that Hurricanes caused a need for a $.75 rise in gas prices consider this.
2-3 years ago the price for gas in the US was about 1.15---1.35.(maybe a little longer ago but not much) It is now 2.50---3.00 right. Some would say huh that's not too bad thats only slightly more than double of thier gross income in 2-3 years. Well thats not the whole story.
- mean subtract
--- means a range
Then
$1.35(consumer price) - $.50---$.60(tax) = $.75---$.85(gross)
$.75--$.85(gross) - $.3---$.4(production) = $.35---$.55(profit)
Now
$3.00(consumer price) - $.60---$.70(tax) = $2.30---$2.40(gross)
$2.30---$2.40(gross) - $.35---$.45(production) = $1.85---$2.05(profit)
What is the result. A 270%---320% gross income increase.
BUT
HERES THE SCARY PART: A 336%---585% increase in net income(PURE PROFIT)
And no one has done anything about that trust.
I don't know the actual production cost but I have what I think is a low estimate for it so if it actually cost more to produce this gets worse. I have minorly adjusted production costs(probably too much) to compensate for the increase in worker pay and delivery increases).
if production is say $0.60 it is horrid the profit they are making check it out.
$1.35 -$.6 - $.6 = $.15 per gallon profit.
$3.00 - $.7 - $.7 = $1.60 per gallon
OVER TEN times the profit.
Any questions.
Anyhow back to software do you really think foreign companies would really stop selling to US regardless of the loss in profits they would experience.
The truth is within about 5 years the scheme would self destruct because our own congress is not quite this stupid. But imagine the damage that could be done by this happening for 5 years.
There are some reasonable ways to keep this from happening but you know what. All those would do is patch it. There would be no way to truly stop the problem.
Rememeber you cannot slap around the US government unless it is discriminating against the other countries corps. It is not. Your corps can do this too if they want.
