Microsoft: The New James Watt
 

I don’t think it will be so easy for Microsoft to stifle competition the way
James Watt did. For one thing, Boulton & Watt had no other business but
their steam-engine monopoly, whereas Microsoft has a whole lot of existing
businesses, with existing customers, who will be antagonized by this
litigious image. Past experience shows that being seen as lawsuit-happy is
PR poison.

And for those who believe that patents, particularly software patents,
contribute anything to the economy:

... the aggregate annual patent profits for software in the US were $100
million for the years 1996-9; the aggregate litigation costs for the
same period were $3,880 million.

In short, the lawyers are making obscene profits out of all this, while the
inventors are getting peanuts.

<http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Is-Microsoft-running-out-of-steam-1102654.html>