Korean Job Discussion Forums

Demophobe · Joined: 17 May 2004

Look, it's all about the court's interpretation of the patent and how far it reaches. As I said before, I am not trying to bash Korea here, but they have been giving MS a hard time over a number of issues, and one wouldn't honestly expect the ruling to go in favor of MS, would they? It's paramount to a rhetorical question; there is no way the Korean court would let this slide.

So, as far as the law is concerned in Korea, all is well and everything is on the right side. However, I feel that this is an example of how messed up the whole patent system is.

John Doe has an idea? Great! Get a patent on it, but don't lock up the whole system so nobody else can do the same thing a different way if they desire. This Korean guy should be allowed a patent on his algorithm or code, but not the entire idea. What if MS's algorithm is better? What if it's faster or senses the change quicker; what then has been done? The better product has been deemed illegal and the inferior product wins. Is there no room for 2 methods in the software world? Is it just a form of protectionism? No! Not in Korea! Rolling Eyes

I am a believer in thought. If someone re-invents something in a completely different manner with only the end result being the same, then I am for that. It's the spirit of competition, of capitalism, and patents like this only serve to stifle that.

This ruling says that no program sold in Korea can auto-switch between English and Korean. Manual switch? No problem, but no auto-switching. Not even if you create a totally different way to go about it, it's the automated aspect that is patented. I think that is lame-o.

I wonder if Dragon had Korean support for Naturally Speaking, where the user could simply speak the language of choice and the program would output it to the document, would that too be a violation? Interesting scenario.