Saturday, November 22, 2008

Lawsuits As Google's Chess Pieces

Google is Done Paying Silicon Valley's Legal Bills
For most of the decade, Silicon Valley technology startups have assumed that Google would pay their legal bills. Not literally, mind you, but rather by taking on the big, high-profile cases about fair use, interoperability, and other digital intellectual property issues that would set precedents that all disruptive innovators could rely on.

Well, Google just put the Valley on notice that the free ride is over, which means more legal burdens for smaller technology companies that previously depended on Google clearing a path for them.

Go read the rest.

I wondered why Google settled when the Book Search deal was announced.

This seems to explain why.

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