Nigerian Company Sues OLPC 277
d0ida writes on the continuing troubles at the OLPC Association. Adding to the recent difficulties — the BBC has picked up the litany — a US-based, Nigerian-owned company has now filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against OLPC. Lagos Analysis Corp. claims that OLPC "made unauthorized use of LANCOR's multilingual keyboard technology invention in XO laptops." The suit was filed in Lagos.
I guess the OLPC folks .... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is good news (Score:3, Insightful)
OLPC team -- don't get discouraged. As they say, if you're receiving flak, you must be over the target.
Better yet, just don't send them (Score:5, Insightful)
As pointed out in a later post, the OLPC project in Nigeria is basically charity.
If they continue having problems like this, simply don't send any to them. Let LANCOR explain to the Nigerian government and people how their greed and abuse of patent law is screwing up the education of Nigeria's children and putting them at a serious disadvantage to the country's neighbors.
Re:This is good news (Score:4, Insightful)
They might actually have a point. It's not like they've sat on this for years - the public release of OLPC laptops is so recent that it's entirely conceivable that it's taken this long to examine them, document any violations, and file suit. And who knows what behind-the-scene negotiations, which may have delayed filing, have taken place between them and OLPC?
Is it just that the OLPC, being "free" and "open" and using Linux and all, are considered by
Sorry, not picking on you specifically - you're just the first in thread to mention the words "patent troll".
Could be legit (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess the old proverb is still true... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is good news (Score:3, Insightful)
Or are people suggesting that all patent owners are patent trolls? (A position with which I would largely agree, BTW.)
Not all patent owners are patent trolls. Only those that use their patents to sue people and get in the way of progress and innovation.
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:what this is (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not like
It's not like
It's not like...
It's not like
But it *is* like CTRL and ALT, except that they're just for generating characters rather than calling arbitrary functions.
(Btw, anyone who refers to a new interface for accessing more characters from the same keys as "technology" is an idiot.)
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is good news (Score:5, Insightful)
They might in principle, but in practice, they don't. The OLPC keyboard differs from theirs, and there are decades of prior art in using multiple shift keys to reach multiple languages on one keyboard. Their keyboard is basically the "US International Keyboard" for Windows with the keys rearranged.
Re:This is good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:3, Insightful)
CC.
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:4, Insightful)
Patents were invented to protect break through designs which took a lot of time and money from being copied. Two people having the same idea isn't copying.
The Television was developed by three different people, if Baird had patented it we may have been using mechanical TV for decades.
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:4, Insightful)
Even as you unthinkingly type your post, you would willingly deny people who can not afford to do the same the opportunity of sharing knowledge, beliefs and understanding from around the world. By the way, the laptop can also be used in the first and second world. It is not a third world computer, it is a computer targeted as an educational tool for children from around the world and the more sold the cheaper it becomes.
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, most third world kids don't speak the main language of the net, and won't have much use for what's currently on it. Actually, that's probably a good thing...
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:2, Insightful)
While suing a charity is not a very nice thing to do and generally isn't good PR, this doesn't actually seem to be a patent troll. LANCOR do actually make real things and OLPC did buy some of those things and some features from those things appeared in OLPC's things. Seems to me to be exactly the kind of case that patent law was invented for.
Whether the claim has merit or not is up to the court but it clearly isn't spurious. And implying Microsoft have something to do with it is just plain slander.
Re:Please tell me you put your foot in your mouth. (Score:3, Insightful)
I have actually had a couple of these "profession teachers" try to tell me that you shouldn't even show kids actual letters until they are 3. Instead they are pushing this crap that has become popular amongst "educators" called Zoophonics [zoophonics.com]. They seem to think pqbd are easier for a kid to learn than PQBD. And apparently punching, kicking, and animal fighting are good ideas for education.
It comes down to the fact that our public schools are in shambles, and no matter how bad the other parts are, teachers have to take take a very large part of the responsibility for that. So, question them.
Re:Better yet, just don't send them (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole point of being a student is to not have much use for the status quo, and to have a desire to expand upon it.
Henry Ford (I think) said that if you'd asked American consumers in the 1900's what they'd wanted, they'd have answered, "A faster horse." For whatever faults they had, he and his contemporaries were dissatisfied with the status quo then.
Perhaps with the OLPC product, we can have a new generation of people from a previously un-heard-from part of the world, asking questions like, "Do we really need this? What if we try...?" The Nigerian government would be well-advised to consider this.