Lessig: A war against the freedom to innovate
He pointed to Microsoft, which he said could spend more than anyone could imagine in defense of what he called its monopoly, primarily through arming itself with lawyers and defending its patents. "Microsoft believes a form of property [patents] to be their saving grace. There is a huge sucking sound as Microsoft fills its arsenal with lawyers," Lessig said during a keynote at the Open Source Business Conference.
According to Lessig, big, bad Microsoft wants to lock out competition, and the open source--what Lessig likes to call "free software"-- community is the anti-monopoly. Despite the fact that Microsoft has mostly used its patents defensively so far, the company could switch to offense, he said.
His advice to the open source crowd was to stop sitting back and watching others wage the battle and to become part of the struggle to ensure that innovations don't get eclipsed by the incumbents who want to stifle competition. "You could start simply with how much money and support you are giving to organizations supporting pro-innovation messages....More significant is to become part of the debate. The biggest problem is that the debate is dominated by lawyers and lobbyists who don't have a direct stake in the outcome." He called for Republicans in the crowd to get involved, so that the Republicans in power can