The US patent office just issued a patent on rich media! What’s next? Breathing? What a farce!
I can’t understand how this sort of thing can help anyone except a lowly bottom feeder like Mr. Balthaser.
Patenting rich media will have such a huge and repressive effect on innovation in the US it makes you wonder what idiot was asleep at the wheel when he rubber stamped this one through. Think about it. With this patent, you effectively increase the cost of building any sort of rich media website in the States due to licensing fees. That will limit the willingness of companies to go ahead with innovative designs and sites, and the net result of that will be that there will be less sites using rich media, and less design firms offering the service. In turn, US companies may opt to go out-of-country to get their sites built and hosted. So now you’re hurting your economy.
You know, it’s times like this that make me wonder if capitalism isn’t in some way faulty.
*sigh*
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