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Frankly Speaking: Patent pain

03.04.2006
This is the way the real world works: A vendor creates a product that happens to use someone else's patented invention without permission. We buy the product. The patent holder sues the vendor. A jury decides that the product infringes the patent. A judge threatens an injunction to stop sales of the product. Then the vendor writes a big check to the patent holder for a license, changes the product so it doesn't infringe the patent or stops selling the product.

The first choice costs us money. (Customers are where vendors get the money for that big check, remember? They pay, so we pay.) The second and third choices cost us pain, effort, time and money.

And you know which one we always like better.

Case in point: On April 11, its next "patch Tuesday," Microsoft will ship out a patch that will break Internet Explorer. Not completely, of course; the only thing that will change is how IE handles "dynamic content" such as Flash animations and QuickTime video. Right now, that content can run automatically on a Web page. After the patch is applied, a "tool tip" dialog box will pop up first.

At least that's what will happen with Web sites that haven't been tweaked to handle the patch. Microsoft has been publishing work-arounds since last December, and Adobe and Apple have developed fixes of their own. Web sites and Web-based applications that have been adjusted will work the same as always. Only sites that haven't changed will break -- and then only a little bit.

Or so we hope.