It simply means the democratic republic of America (statehood for Mexico! and throw in one of them cute little islands while you're at it, ok?) say somebody who's been deemed to have proven to an established and credible examination regime the value of their invention has the right to challenge others on the basis of infringement and theft of said intellectual property.

The laws of this country allow for a little guy to challenge an incorrectly credited origin of "the big idea".

The preferences of "others" established in the businesses addressed by the invention disciplines is for the big idea to belong to everybody... everybody big enough to dominate the market.

There's a problem here in such an example of VCSY v MSFT. VCSY has been forced to keep a low profile in presenting their intellectual properties since 2001. The nagging question is... why has Microsoft been keeping a similar low profile from the similar time period... often missing astonishing coincidental alignment by only a few days.

We know what makes a little guy have to keep a low profile and it makes sense. We don't know what makes a large guy keep a low profile and what the big guy says is doesn't make sense. Not at all.

What does that mean to you?

We always heard that the oil barrons a hundred years ago (things never change do they?) and manufacturing typhoons were 'greedy' because they wanted to swallow up all the small producers.

How else does a guy get his fair share of the big idea other than to say Nope. Not going to be absorbed into a scabbed wallmart of the mom and pops pieces.

Yes. We are the little guy.

What should be done with the little guy who's demonstrated he can do more than the giant? What should you do with somebody smarter and more dextrous... just smaller?

Break them down? Is that what it's about? Wait them out while you make everyone fear you're going to kick their furry ass? Starve their children because they can't afford to do what you're doing out in the open because they know you're just waiting for you to jump out there and then they can field their copies out in the open in order to compete?

There is a defensible technological position Microsoft has been maintaining pressure to keep these technologies from coming to the fore in order to stretch out the implementation and adoption (make you spend more and more money in the adoption lawyers office than making the technology work in your business) so a "competing"  company would go belly up and they could appropriate their "similar technology". Doesn't sound unusual for them? Doesn't that make a ding on your brass ringer?

Can you defend Microsoft's (and other's) positions to not produce productive and sold tools since 2001 given the ease with which XML may be cobbled into a useful implementation? The Longhorn Revisited outfit put the original LongHorn concepts together in seven months. SEVEN MONTHS. Microsoft's been working for seven years and they're not even close. "A couple more years. Honest." is all you will get now when all they ever did was talk abotu it back in the "good old days".

What are you people, fools? Are you "challenged"? Do you think maybe this LongHorn Revisited thing is a fluke? Nope. Not a fluke. A result of the thecnology Microsoft once used then stopped for a time.

What should happen? Should these guys who've got LongHorn working before Microsoft deserve a shot at the brass ring or does the "idea" belong to Microsoft. Have at it arguing that one because you'll quickly get to the position of the dog most successful in chasing his tail; he often ends up past the raisons and into the nuts.

Walmart got visibly screwed by Microsoft in the most recent CNBC view of Walmart's CIO and their "system". They were supposed to be able to do all this interconnection and interoperation of systems by this latest upgrade, weren't they? Really look at the CNBC report, Mister Technology USA, and tell me what Walmart has with Microsoft behind the Linux architecture?

State of the art my puppy's breath. I saw people getting feeds of RFID chains (no wait that's not right. they have cameras reading the bar codes. I didn't hear anything about RFID in that bit.) Eeeek 666! it's a freaking cult with antlers. Bullwinkle's version of Rocky. The one thing I can't figure out is how Bullwinkle got the hat on his head over those antlers. Did the horns grow through the holes in the hat because you can't stretch a hat over those antlers? HA only in america.

There's a battle between Creflo's law of wise decision making and Oprah's law of attraction. One a systemic construct from the old testament empowerment (or at least enabled) of man, the other a Sumerian borne system of 'we are the worldism gone mega spirit'.

THERE! I'm a freaking religion and culture editor. But if I don't do my own searching for the truth, I am never going to amount to anything more than the guy (or lady, ma'am) that's standing there in the entrance way saying howdy. This guy has got over on the system to a small degree. He does what any idiot can do on his own front lawn and moved it into the mainstream of life's funnels for pay. The only thing is, it's not original enough and Walmart is paying him by the hour while his job is a prime piece of real estate in the promotion of their Business Plan (re: xxx - confidential).

Well, the legal system is often the only funnel a little guy can find. And if his concerns and indications point out something that stinks like a gray whale washed up on pebble beach, what should we do? How about dumping a billion stickups on highway one?

No, not Pescadero, you nitwit, the real pebble beach in Mountaray. The government gave some fool the right to park his fat carcass on a prize piece of real estate and actually charge big bucks for people to play a game where a guy hits this ball with a stick and tries to knock it in a hole before the other guy's. Hell. I CAN DO THAT! Geez lewis a clark can poke a pebble in a gopher burrow and all of a sudden you got this really sweet place to build a house and this b-rabbit wanna be gets to make people pay to do ONLY THIS ONE TING ON THAT PROPERTY? Where does it say that? Property laws? Oh. Ok. Never mind. Didn't know you guys were allowed to carry those. What's the battery life on something like that per use? Like what, a football team?

5 people killed in New Orleans and all because one guy had something that belong to the other guy and there was some force (so how's the competition between you and Lefty Lagure? on a scale of zero to ten, I would give it a 9mm.) applied intended to protect the treasure. In some businesses they basically depend upon the laws being weakly applied in their particular area of operation. 

Who's crazy this year? It all depends on how far "within the law" people are forced to go that portends and pretends how far outside the bounds they would go. THAT is what makes mom and pop swallow their pride and their mortgages and seconds and thirds into a bloated sense of 'empowerment' as an 'associate'.

It works for Walmart because it's a community applied. But, when does a corporation become a community? I submit the answer to that question will be very evident within the bounds of the activities predicted by VCSY technology (SiteFlash, XML/Web collection, Emily pending) for empowerment of the little guy as opposed to protection of the treasure amassed by non-monopoly and great competition. When patent laws protected old man Hughes' patents for drill bits, that wealth became a source of innovation that went a long way toward saving America's butt through innovation through oil production during World War I and through technology during World War II.

If we had used the Microsoft pardagim as our model we would have waited until the Japanese were in San Francisco and then hold a feng shui conference to see if we would undermine the 'encroachment'. If Microsoft were out in the world of real competioin, their 2 out of 7 'ain't bad' ratio for successful 'competition' score is a bit dismal.

Twenty billion dollars in R&D over a three year period and still nothing to show for it after two years passing? Been there, junior. watched it all unfold right here on the new improved spoofolator. So don't give me any of your lip, wisenheimer or we'll take a tree branch and woop you into submission. 'Yes mister pinkenshear.'

I do appreciate the calls for patent reform as a remedy for silly litigation as it does place a crippling scab on the business and social environment. The Pilgrims annexed all lawyers to an island in the early days of this countries anglo existence. Apparently somebody loaned them a few boats.

I definitely agree there's a problem in American IP. How does a little company like VCSY cow something as big as Microsoft and there not be something "wrong" with the American patent system? But let's consider the entire range of issues beyond what Mister Carnegie and Mister Rockefellor ... er... I mean, whoever is the latest to fill the pantheon chair of biggest and wealthiest boards etcetera etcetera etcetera.

And now here are the Linux people chiming in and say "Yeahhh... quit picking on our brother, big guy... uhhh... I mean, little guy. You had your chance when the open job positions went out. Thanks for your contribution."

Isn't it funny a common practice on software development teams is for management to say 'Don't think about the origin of ideas you have. We'll take care of the patent research and IP research. You guys just innovate your little hearts out.'? All companies say they do that to learn and innovate. Some demonstrate they intend to do quick end runs around those who have been working on similar ideas for years. Some press the advantage of size and dominance to press the originator into a compromised position... closer to the ground with no headroom.

Isn't it funny every engineering company (that I know of at least) owns all the ideas you discover while on their time. Why doesn't the little guy own the ideas he discovered in his time? He does? How? Through the patent system? You mean the one the larger players want to get rid of? No? Is that what we're saying Mister Microsoft? MISTER Linux?

Is this what's called "being bufalloed"? All the bulls step out shoulder to shoulder with the pointy things on their heads pointed out toward the wolf. The pointy hooves of each beast must stand the ground beyond the herd's collective head and the out-turned horns. Each fiercely independent beast must press up to the next animal's belly rib to rib to form a cage to keep out the wolves advance. Each soft underbelly is fended by the hooves in front and the large main of hair. Call it an obfuscation perimeter making the wolf bend lower to the ground... a vulnerable place for a wolf.

Dividing is what conquering is about. You go for the strongest and make the flanks face inward. That's a cool wolf tactic. Confront the leader and the other independent members of the herd turn inward to face the threat. Even though there is dire competition between male buffaloes, the enemy of one's enemy is one's friend.

But, when they each turn in to meet a specific aimed threat, the concave arch of distributed resistance turns convex and it's easy to eat out the supporting ends, collapsing the herd into stampede. Beyond that is where the bull$#!@ is and after that, nice tender baby buffalo and mama-fat storerooms for the winter.

... and so it goes and so it goes and where the egghoes no-one knows.

I saw a kid fall off a bike yesterday. Heroic little guy. He'll be getting a healing scab over that knee (trying to push out the embedded rocks he didn't have a microsoft ... I mean mikerscope to see where the rocks were, but they were there allright) to enable a protective layer of goo and ugy crap to cover what good stuff was going on underneath. It's only natural. I'm sure, being a little man and all, he'll do what his Mom says. But he really wants to rip that scab off and see what's under there. Ooooh and goooo and no more itch for a while.

When they put a wall frame up and it's not yet stable, you put a "scab" on it to keep it from sagging to the side. You stick a two by four across a partially constructed wall. That's a scab.

Like when you bring in workers who are willing to get insulted (or shot... like Louie says. It's your choice.) for crossing a plant entrance being picketed by "the union", the stalwart bastion of 'we's all in it together'.

A scab. Some want it to stay there. Some want to rip it off. I say go with the more learned proposition to 'leave it there; it's protecting the wound from fresh injury' than the kid's desire to pull it off irresponsibly.

Let's see, it says here that Microsoft makes thirty something million dollars each day they can hold on to their treasure. That's all they have to do is hold on to their treasure and they will be happy. And how do they hold on to their treasure? Day by day. If they can delay an unpleasant outcome for one day they save thirty something million dollars.

That sounds like a whole lot when you have nothing. I can't even imagine that. But it's real and it belongs to the guys who had the idea first and they were protected by... ignorance on IBM's part and arrogance on CP/M's part. I remember that. I worked in the computer electronics industry then. What were you doing then? Wetting your tricycle? Do it in the bushes like a real man, dammit and learn something from an old codger, junior.

I petition the common man to vote and tell me if a guy who thought something up and is the originator of the idea and did the work to flesh it out and registered for codified recognition and establishment and was forced to not talk about his stuff because somebody was pushing him around... and all...

Mister Microsoft, uhhh, what guy? THAT guy. The guy that's pushing the you around? I don't see nobody but a seven year old kid with a peashooter. It's a blowpipe? Dude, look. Come sit with Mother Mary from the Conjoined Dominational Heaten and Brethren Church of the Epockelyptic and she'll get you some bread and water. Bless you brether. Tell our sister (yours and "mine" metaforickly) Jimmie Jones says hello. Here's my number. Don't let me down. Hooray for the little guy, right?