The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) is under fire for allegedly reverse engineering a keyboard that was designed by a company called Lagos based in Nigeria. Lagos CEO and founder Oyegbola claims that the OLPC keyboard infringes on the patented LANCOR design.  Apparently, the problem is how the keyboard switches between special characters (similarly to how my keyboard does it when I want to enter kanji, hiragana or katakana). Both keyboards are featured in the title. The OLPC keyboard is on top and the LANCOR is down below.

Looking at both keyboards, I think that they do bear a rather striking resemblance.  Why, the Q, W, E, R, T, Y keys are all in exactly the same place.  Oh, so are all the other alphabet keys and numbers. Clearly there is some patent infringement taking place here and Mr. Oyegbola has the moral high ground suing a company that aims to give laptops to children to help them study.  I guess greedy litigious jackasses are not limited to any country on earth.  This is kind of like those pharmaceutical companies that sue Indian companies for replicating their overpriced HIV medications so that poor people can afford to live too.  Sure the kids won’t die without laptops, so it is not quite as mean spirited, but it is up there, right up there.  Or perhaps it is, because these two keyboards don’t really remind me of each other but he is suing OLPC all the same.

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