The whole patent field has really gone around the bend. That any of the eight patents named in the Microsoft v. TomTom lawsuit were ever granted is legal insanity. Patents on: installing a computer in a car, installing wireless network support in a car, detecting when devices are plugged in to a computer, giving automated driving directions, panning a virtual map from a viewpoint, using flash memory, using both short and long file names. If you are counting that brings us to seven, the last one is a copy of the file name patent; that's right, it's just the same patent with a different number. None of these things are inventions in any real sense.
This is the sort of thing that has driven the economy into the second great depression. If the legal system continues to extort money in this manner then civilization may collapse.
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