06.22.07
Patents Perceived as “Harassment“, Microsoft Falls Victim to More Patent Trolling
Based on PwC, it’s looking as though companies are kind enough (or just tactful enough) to realise spurious patent lawsuits are a form of harassment, which does more harm than good.
Forty-seven percent of the 195 technology executives taking part in the survey also suggested that a large majority of IP-related lawsuits were spurious and intended simply to harass the competition. The figure was significantly higher among North American respondents, at 63 per cent.
Yesterday, Microsoft had a little taste of its own poison. This reaffirms Mark Shuttleworth’s recent warning about minuscule patent trolls.
Publisher sues Microsoft over patents
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The patents in question are 5,982,889 – “Method and apparatus for distributing information products” and 6,173,403, with the same title.
In another nice new article, innovation is being tied to use, as opposed to patents and so-called innovation (let alone trolling over trivial ideas).
How uses, not innovations, drive human technology.
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We tend to think of technology in futuristic terms, barely noticing many older technologies so ubiquitous as to be almost invisible.
Another little item worth reading explains why attempts to squash patents actually make them stronger, but it goes further than and links to various bits off interest.
There is scrutiny of patent claims, comparison of those claims to existing knowledge and prior art, and a purported desire to improve the quality of technological patents. However, if the FOSS movement does not like the Peer-to-Patent Project, but supports the patent busting efforts of relatively anti-patent FOSS affiliated parties, one must question whether those parties really want to improve the patent system or simply take it apart.
The past few days have been quite as far as Microsoft’s legal team and ‘FUD Brigade’ are concerned. The big day for GPLv3 is meanwhile approaching. Let’s hope for calm, not to be followed by any storms.
While it’s quiet we might as well add that if you, the reader, have anything you want published in the Web site, just send it over. As we said before, we’re open to contributions by anyone. It’s a community effort to squash FUD and inform the gradually-growing number of site visitors.
