OLPC sued for patent infringement in Nigeria

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi,

The peril of patents on software...

http://lwn.net/Articles/260053/

"A company called Lagos Analysis Corporation has sent out a press 
release announcing a patent infringement lawsuit against the One Laptop 
Per Child project. "The patent infringement lawsuit was filed on 
November 22nd, 2007 as a result of OLPC's willful infringement of 
LANCOR's Nigeria Registered Design Patent #RD8489 and illegal reverse 
engineering of its keyboard driver source codes for use in the XO 
Laptops." The patent text is hard to find, but it seems to relate to the 
design of keyboards which facilitate the typing of text in multiple 
languages."

Rahul

[Gain Paolo Mureddu]

Rahul Sundaram escribió:
> Hi,
>
> The peril of patents on software...
>
> http://lwn.net/Articles/260053/
>
> "A company called Lagos Analysis Corporation has sent out a press 
> release announcing a patent infringement lawsuit against the One 
> Laptop Per Child project. "The patent infringement lawsuit was filed 
> on November 22nd, 2007 as a result of OLPC's willful infringement of 
> LANCOR's Nigeria Registered Design Patent #RD8489 and illegal reverse 
> engineering of its keyboard driver source codes for use in the XO 
> Laptops." The patent text is hard to find, but it seems to relate to 
> the design of keyboards which facilitate the typing of text in 
> multiple languages."
>
> Rahul

There's one thing I don't get about this... The patent holder had plenty 
of time to warn about this, especially with the immense coverage and 
media OLPC has had in the last couple of years, why wait until now? I 
mean, the patent holder works in the computer field, and (unless they've 
been living under a rock in Nigeria) he must have known of the OLPC and 
the XO for LONG time. Why not say anything before?

[Jesse Keating]

On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:23:23 -0600
Gian Paolo Mureddu  wrote:
> There's one thing I don't get about this... The patent holder had
> plenty of time to warn about this, especially with the immense
> coverage and media OLPC has had in the last couple of years, why wait
> until now? I mean, the patent holder works in the computer field, and
> (unless they've been living under a rock in Nigeria) he must have
> known of the OLPC and the XO for LONG time. Why not say anything
> before?

Because before it would have been a lot easier for OLPC to make a
change.  But now things are so far along, that OLPC may find it a lot
harder to change and will need to either prove their case in court or
come to a settlement.  That's the typical strategy, wait until it's the
most painful time possible to launch your attack.