[Discussioni] Newsscan

[Francesco Potorti`]

STREAMING PATENT HAS NET RADIO SITES STEAMED
A company that says it owns patents on the process of transmitting 
compressed audio or video online is flexing its muscle, demanding fees from 
a host of Internet multimedia companies. Acacia Media Technologies says its 
patents may even cover pay-per-view movies on cable TV and in hotel rooms. 
And while Acacia's move has outraged Internet entrepreneurs, many of them 
are reluctantly forking over the fees. "We did research on the claims and 
found that they were pretty clear -- somewhat broad, but specific enough to 
cover us," says Zack Zalon, general manager of the Radio Free Virgin Web 
site. "We realized that they were tight enough that a license would be 
substantially less expensive in the long run than litigation." Meanwhile, 
the trend toward companies exercising ownership over what generally are 
viewed as overly broad patents has drawn the ire of many experts, but 
analysts admit it's a strategy that's likely to increase in popularity. 
"With the economy the way it is, you see a lot more people trying to 
leverage their intellectual property. It's one of the few ways left that 
people can actually make money," says Rich Belgard, an independent patent 
consultant. (CNet News.com 6 Feb 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-983552.html?tag=lh

MICROSOFT SAYS ITS BUSINESS MODEL IS THREATENED BY OPEN-SOURCE
In its quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission 
(SEC), Microsoft writes: "The popularization of the open-source movement 
continues to pose a significant challenge to the company's business 
model... The company's revenues would be unfavorably impacted if customers 
reduce their purchases of new software products or upgrades to existing 
products because new product offerings are not perceived as adding 
significant new functionality or other value to prospective purchasers." 
Not surprisingly, Microsoft also asserted its belief that "the commercial 
software development model offers superior consumer value compared to the 
open source model" because of its "powerful incentives to develop 
innovative software that is useful, reliable, and compatible with other 
software and hardware." (InfoWorld 5 Feb 2003)
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/02/05/HNmsthreat_1.html