Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent Trolls Watch: Harassment Continues, Wheels Reinvented

Increasingly we find that abuse of the patent system is followed by malicious action. Such action, however, exposes the weaknesses of the system and gives reasons for the system to be mocked until it t is reformed.

Perhaps we should occasionally highlight the issues and remind ourselves that no danger exists until a case is actually proven and defended in court. Last week, Microsoft escaped the wrath involving a $1.5-billion penalty. The takeway is that this case was weak or altogether baseless, as are the claims Microsoft makes against GNU/Linux. Here are some other highlights:

Insanity Awards



The past week introduced some tough choices with many patent trolls and people who seek to bend rules and even own creativity. Here is one amusing story that The Inquirer covered:

Steve Jobs 'nicked my battery design'

He apparently contacted Apple with a request for the California firm to change its product or else to license the patent.


Here is the law doing a backward routine. Companies are attacked due to their potential, so no longer is it a 'cold war'. It is a lawyer's paradise though.

Veoh files pre-emptive copyright lawsuit

Online video sharing site Veoh has pre-emptively sued Universal Music Group, asking a federal judge to prevent the giant music label from filing its own copyright infringement action.


Winner of the week comes from a column rather than an actual news story:

If you thought software patents were bad...

Instead, he's talking about what amounts to the instructions for making a specific movie: a script.

A script defines the appearance of sets, lines for actors to read, camera angles and lighting to be used during the production, and a specific sequence of scenes that express a story. By any reasonable standard, a script is a description of a process. It seems to meet the requirements of 35 USC 101: it's new (in the sense of being original or novel), and it's useful because it tells us how to make a movie.


Are patents on sit-coms coming any time soon? Or is it just copyrights?

More Patent Stories



Week in review: Patent woes

After getting through funding, research and development, marketing strategies, and getting your product to consumers, here comes the hard part: navigating the patent storm.


Vonage "working around" Verizon patents"

Vonage was sued by Verizon on five counts of nicking technology in its Voice-over-IP operations. A jury found the company guilty of breaching three Verizon patents and fined the company $58 million.


Markman Decision Announced

The importance of any Markman decision is twofold. First, it provides the definitions for terms that are in dispute between the parties. The definitions provided by the Court must be used at trial – the parties typcially cannot re-litigate the definitions before trial. Second, it reviews the claims of the patent in light of certain challenges from the opposing party, and the result of that review may be fatal to certain patent claims.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
 
Links 09/06/2025: Science, Hardware Projects, and Democracy Receding
Links for the day
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025
Links 08/06/2025: Tiananmen Carnage Censorship Persists, North Korean Goes Offline
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2025: Love as an Ethnographic Method and Monitorix Gemini-Frontend v0.1
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2025: Exposure of More GAFAM Surveillance and Social Security Records Compromised
Links for the day
Linux Foundation is a Mediator for Microsoft et al, Not for Small Companies That Support Rather Than Attack the GPL
Many people still wrongly assume that because it is called "Linux Foundation", then it is pro-Linux and represents the same mindset
This Past Friday, Confirming What We Said All Along About Brett Wilson LLP: It's Shrinking, Has Considerable Debt, Loss of Net Assets Despite the Microsoft SLAPP Money
The documents only became publicly available less than 2 days ago
Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
perpetrators of harassment
For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
"Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
What many IRC users lost sight of
Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
From a Microsoft media operative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
Integrity matters
"Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year
Links 08/06/2025: Security Lapses, CISA Cuts, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: Mime Types and Geminisphere Introduction
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: Slop Companies Retain All Private Data, More Books Banned in the US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: "A Monk's Guide to Happiness" and "Wireless Earbuds"
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: More Rumours of Mass Layoffs in Microsoft's XBox Division, New COVID Variant
Links for the day
Drug Addiction is a Real Problem, It Destroys Families
a rather sensitive matter
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IV: Political Scrutiny and Errors/Inconsistencies in Official Documents
When such organisations receive scrutiny they start focusing on cover-up and muzzling of facts (or crushing people who say the truth)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 06, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 06, 2025