If you own a big tech firm, aren’t Microsoft, and weren’t named in the patent lawsuit filed this week by Paul Allen’s Interval Licensing, well… you’re probably looking deep into your soul today and asking where it all went wrong.
If you aren’t a defendant – a category that includes AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google and Yahoo! – why not? After all, the technology in dispute is, according to Interval, “fundamental to the ways that leading e-commerce and search companies operate today.” Dammit, you say to yourself. Maybe you aren’t one of those leading e-commerce and search companies.
Wait: most of your work is with open-source software. Like Java! Maybe that’s why you aren’t being sued by anyone.
Ah, well. Maybe it’s for the best. Not everyone can be on the A-list or in land of corporate jets, gargantuan mergers and stratospheric lawsuits. Hell, if it weren’t for those of us on the B-list (or, in my case, somewhere way down in the YYs), there wouldn’t be an A-list.
So chin up. With a little more work, a few game-changing innovations and – yes – a bit of luck, someday you, too, could be on the receiving end of a lawsuit big enough to alter global currency markets. Good luck with that!