With Intel said to be about to go into the solar power business we could be treated to some entertaining legal shenanigans about the exploitation rights to sun-rays.
Maybe some sharpie legal eagle in Santa Clara is already thinking up ways to get a lock on sun-ray supply.
After all the Russians seem to think they can get a lock on the North Pole’s mineral rights by dropping a Russian flag on the bottom of the sea.
It shouldn’t be beyond the wit, or the pocket, of Intel, to get the US Space Shuttle to take up a tool capable of arranging the electrons and protons of the Van Allen Belt into a giant Intel logo and trademark. Or indeed, a series of logos, each one covering a continent.
Then it should be a piece of cake for Intel’s formidable and finely-honed legal department to establish commercial exploitation rights to all sunlight passing through the Van Allen Belt.
What a market for the ‘Intel Outside’ campaign! Every solar panel installation, every watt of solar-generated power, every politican trying to establish his green credentials by putting a solar panel on the roof, would have to pay a tariff to Intel.
That should get those marketing guys at Intel slavering into their slurpees.
TOMORROW MORNING: THE TEN MOST CHARISMATIC SEMICONDUCTOR BOSSES.
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