The intention of patents is to not spur competition, it's to encourage innovation by justifying/giving ROI to research. The examples you cite are demerits of the patent system: divergent formats were created, duplicating efforts and worsening user experience, not for technical reasons, but to avoid the patent costs and pitfalls.

Just proves that's something very odd about this whole story. Every 5-buck chinese mp3 player supports vorbis, but the brand ones don't.

Silverlight is almost shoved down the throat of anybody who enables Windows Update or visits microsoft.com. I can't find any number on SL user base, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's over 90%.
It's just people like you and like me who won't install SL (just out of distrust in MS' security).

OT: And that _was_ me, because fortunately in Brazil the price wars caused several vendors to start selling notebooks with Linux and my last one is one of those - to avoid the possibility of starting a war about Linux distros ;)

Wrong. This is just a disingenuous twist used by immoral people. The job of the lawyer if to defend the client so that they get a just trial.
Just like that "enterprises are meant to profit" thing. No. They're meant to generate capital, and in the way, jobs.

to hell with karma...

Wooosh. Or so I hope ;)