Re: News - Commercial Version of Hercules - Turbo Hercules

On Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Mike Schwab wrote:
> How about, when they license z/OS to a customer, they add a 5%
> surcharge for the IBM patents used by the emulator to be paid to the
> patent holders?

That assumes that the alleged patents are (a) valid patents and (b)
used by the emulator. Neither of which has been established at this
point in time.

Having analyzed a handful of the patents involved, there are serious
doubts about their validity and/or applicability to Hercules. It is
reasonable to assume that the remaining patents will be similar.

IBM boasts the world's largest patent portfolio, but if you actually
read some of them they seem be going for quantity rather than quality.
It's pretty clear that many of the patents have never been properly
examined by the patent office, and would be rapidly demolished if they
ever came to court.

I suspect the primary reason that IBM bought out PSI is that IBM did
not dare risk seeing any of their patents ruled invalid by a court.

--
Regards,
Roger Bowler
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/rbowler
Hercules "I can't believe it's not a mainframe!"