Microsoft, Novell, and "Clone Product" Lawsuits

El_Oscuro writes "The MS/Novell deal specifically excludes patent protection for "clone products." In the agreement, a clone product is broadly defined as "a product (or major component thereof) of a Party that has the same or substantially the same features and functionality as a then-existing product (or major component thereof) of the other Party ... and that has the same or substantially the same user interface, or implements all or substantially all of the Application Programming Interfaces of the Prior Product." The text of the clone product definition subsections is very cumbersome to read, but it specifically mentions OpenOffice, Wine, and OpenXchange by name without asserting that they are necessarily clone products."

They are not clones

[uspsguy]

Functionality is the key. Linux products are dependable and do not crash so they are functionally different than any MS product.

yeah well

[JeanBaptiste]

I patent the numbers 0 and 1

A penny per usage

(patents for the numbers 2, letters F and U still pending)

how dare they clone us!

[phrostie]

the nerve to clone wonderful original works like WordPerfect or Lotus123,,,,wait, are they saying MS Office is original?