June 23, 2008 9:07 AM PDT
Patent troll Acacia takes one in the kisser
While much of the industry lives in fear of a patent troll rearing its ugly head, Cognex has decided to take on trolls like Lemelson and Acacia, and has been spanking them on a regular basis.
As PJ at Groklaw notes, it's far too early to throw up our hands in despair at the dreaded patent trolls:
Imagine if [Cognex] had, instead, thrown up his hands, assumed there was no hope, said the patent system was a joke, the system totally corrupt, etc. and just paid for a license he knew, and as he later proved, he didn't need? Nobody needs it now. It's history. Thank you, Cognex. Cynics give up too easily, methinks.
Amen. What a great day it would be if everyone who believed themselves unfairly sued for patent infringement fought back. Imagine what would happen if companies like Microsoft were forced to back up their words about patent infringement, and then lost in court.
Eventually, the courts would clear out the riffraff. What a great day that would be.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
