"Jim Stewart" wrote in message
.. .
Gatt wrote:
"Matt W. Barrow" wrote in message
...

Maybe you could verify something for me: I've heard for some time that,
though MS is quick to prosecute piracy and reverse engineering MS stuff,
they expend copious amounts of money reverse engineering competitors
products.

True or trash?

Well, my only experience to that end was with Netscape
Communicator/Internet Explorer, but, once you catch a thief you might as
well always assume they're thieves, especially when their other products
look so much like, say, Lotus 1-2-3 (Excel) or Word Perfect (Word.)
I would say that's very accurate.

I heard a wonderful story a few years ago.

Microsoft found some IBM technology that
appeared to infringe on a Microsoft patent.
The Microsoft lawyers called the IBM lawyers
and arranged a meeting. The Microsoft
lawyers handed the IBM lawyers the patent
in question and in return, the IBM lawyers
reached under the table, picked up a banker's
box filled with patents and gave it to the
Microsoft lawyers...

Sure it wasn't TI (Texas Instruments)? I vaguely remember the TI files tens
of thousands of patents each year on stuff that is nothing more than
notions, Sci-Fi fantasies, concepts and "smoke over the horizon" in hopes
that some where, somehow, some day, they can file a patent infringement case
after the real R&D has been done.