Originally posted by: Tiptup
Jedisage, Microsoft owns a patent on the 86-DOS language and all of the other OS languages it made after purchasing it.

I'm confused. Are you classifying the underlying code that makes up the OS as a language? Or are you talking about the OS as a whole as a language? I think Windows is written in C and assembler for the most part. Sorry if I sound dense I'm just not following you. I mean, DOS was a looooong time ago, and it would be hard to say that they're STILL profiting from it in a technical sense. I guess I just don't see what the problem is with patenting a programming language.

As far as smart business moves, Apple made a HUGE one with Xerox-PARC. The GUI revolution came out of that group and Apple had no problem "positioning" themselves to take advantage of it.