Comment Re:Standards not Monkey Antics? (Score 1) 254
No, I did not RTFA, who does that anyway? My point was, you have people like Tesla and people like Edison. Some people are fine sitting in a lab, working through the equations, conducting actual experiments (and now days, computer simulations), making sure something is worked-out thoroughly. Meanwhile, guys like Edison are out in the field, creating products that either succeed or fail. Using those experiences to improve their previous products until they have a more refined product. Sure, Tesla's A/C wins-out in the end, but if I recall, it's GE that's one of the top companies in the world.
And who says someone else's research is free? What about current advances in gestural interfaces? Doesn't Apple own patents covering multi-touch gesturing? Seems to me that Apple's existing research has hindered the cell-phone industry, because now anyone who wants to implement anything similar (based on Apple's research or their own), has to pay Apple. So until we do something about the patent system, people have two options: Try to come up with a novel approach to doing something, or pay out the nose to whoever did the research before you.
Hell, the summary at the end of the article points out how Nielsen himself holds 79 U.S. patents. Seems to me, if someone wants to benefit from his research, they're going to have to pay him. Therefore, his whole article can be boiled down to this: People aren't licensing his patents, instead they're coming up with their own way of doing things. Nielsen apparently feels that less money in his pocket is a step backwards.