Bill Gates Without Limits

Back in 1991, William Gates III - otherwise known as Mr. Bill Gates said, "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...The solution is patenting as much as we can. A future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high. Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors."

Now that Microsoft is an "established company", does it have an interest in excluding competitors? Some would say yes, especially since 17 years on Bill Gates is now seeking 3000 new patents per year via Microsoft (more specifically, he has raised the bar for Microsoft and wants 60 new, non-obvious ideas to be submitted for patent protection every week; his former objective for the company was 2000 per year). Some patent attorneys are saying that software patents, which are usually what Bill Gates and/or Microsoft seek out, should be abolished. There seems to be a movement for this in the popular geek culture (if there is such a thing) embodied by the phenomenon of Open Source programs. Some journalists and others have made the argument that the likes of Thomas Jefferson, an early advocate of patent protection, would be appalled by Bill Gates' patenting quest, since Jefferson thought patents should only be granted in a relative few, carefully selected cases. The number of patents that Microsoft already has is already staggering.

Then again, the plethora of ideas that are capable today--thanks in large part to software that Bill Gates has or has had patents on--was not possible in Jefferson's day and age. And, it seems to be a matter of facing cold reality that is leading Gates and Microsoft to seek out patents like sharks seeking blood. Brad Smith, Microsoft's senior vice president and general counsel, says that in the early years Gates thought Microsoft "could rely on copyrights...We realized we were under-patenting."

Bill Gates first became a millionaire, and later on the richest man on the planet, by not allowing his work on OS2 to be "legally stolen" from him by giant IBM. Is Microsoft just turning into another corporate giant like they are? Probably not. The company still maintains the culture of the self-taught college drop-out and the geek-in-the-garage-. While Microsoft has often been justifiably criticized for its rush to market approach, Bill Gates' entrepreneurial imagination and intellectual vision simply cannot be questioned.

Internet Browser and Windows are Gates' two best-known patented software packages, and of course they and their constantly upgraded versions have taken the world by storm since 1995, bringing Apple-like user friendliness to the world of the PC and sparking the second tier of the personal computer revolution. Could Gates' associate Steve Jobs and Apple have done the same thing, and done it better? Probably. But, somehow, they just never were interested enough. But Bill Gates was.

And, although the romantic bloom is off the rose of the real business world for Gates, he still clearly maintains and infuses Microsoft with that essential ingredient for becoming a multimillionaire (or billionaire): never ending curiosity and excitement. Now, that's just not part of Corporate America these days (although once upon a time things were different). To learn more about computers here is a great resource. go

Gates did not patent his way to the top: he drove himself there with true innovations that have benefited numberless people. Microsoft got funding from its 1986 IPO, but before that Gates got funding by doing things like his very earliest business venture with Paul Allen: Traf-O-Data, which earned them $20,000 (which went considerably farther in the early 1970s) before Gates even went off to college. Later, Gates and Allen worked for IBM as independently contracted computer code writers.

In short, Gates was constantly exploring and plumbing his passion and getting money from it that he then leveraged later on to expand his business. To learn more about computers and their roll in everyday life go to www.marketsavings4u.com/computer/

In his ways of doing things, he is reminiscent of another visionary businessman named Howard Hughes.

In Hughes' case, he inherited money and a special patent on oil tool drills from his father's business, Hughes Tool Company. However, Hughes did not rest on his laurels any more than Bill Gates ever has. Hughes took his inheritance and instead of piddling it away he turned it into an even greater fortune, most famously forming the Hughes Aircraft Corporation and setting new flight speed records as a pilot himself, famously being the first to fly the cutting-edge Spruce Goose. Hughes aviation company and his relentless entrepreneurial spirit threatened the success of other aviation enterprises that sought and got government backing such as Pan American, just as Microsoft has threatened and challenged IBM. Hughes Aircraft Corporation led to the subsidiary Hughes Space and Communications Company being formed in 1961, leading the way into the Space Age of the 1970s and beyond. Hughes Aircraft has 6054 U.S. patents.

Hughes' movie studio productions were equally daring and successful, with '20s and '30s films including Two Arabian Nights and Scarface becoming award-winners and enduring cinematic legends. With these and his aviation accomplishments, Hughes, who became a billionaire, took something that was state of the art and leveraged it into technological and conceptual cutting edge creativity. Like Gates, Hughes was a lone visionary who was bare-knuckles businessman and would not take no for an answer and would not let "the establishment" tell him what he could or could not do.

Incidentally, William Gates III also received some help from his well-to-do family. His father successfully helped him win his legal case against IBM that prevented them from taking his work. But for both Howard Hughes and Bill Gates, they got help from family and elsewhere because they made others believe in them. Here are some great tips to help you get your finances in tip top shape. www.marketsavings4u.com/finance/