Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents Roundup: Red Hat, Acacia, Microsoft, Apple, and the European Commission

RED HAT is calling for participation in the discovery of prior art to be used against Acacia's trolling [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]. From the blog of Fedora's current leader:

Back in 2007, IP Innovation filed a lawsuit against Red Hat and Novell. IP Innovation is a subsidiary of Acacia Technologies. You may have heard of them — they’re reported to be the most litigious patent troll in the USA, meaning they produce nothing of value other than money from those whom they sue (or threaten to sue) over patent issues. They’re alleging infringement of patents on a user interface that has multiple workspaces. Hard to say just what they mean (which is often a problem in software patents), but it sounds a lot like functionality that pretty much all programmers and consumers use.

That patent was filed back on March 25, 1987 by some folks at Xerox/PARC, which means that prior art dated before that date is helpful — and art dated before March 25, 1986 is the most useful. (That means any examples from Linux aren’t really going to help, seeing as how Linus Torvalds first began the Linux kernel in 1991.


According to this new essay, patent trolls are merely a "tax on innovation" and it is important never to forget the intersection between Acacia and Microsoft, in addition to interesting timing.

Many years ago, wrote Bill Gates: “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." Things have changed since then because Microsoft is spending a lot of time filing patents rather than developing actual products and this gets criticised in CNET. Other points are raised too:

Microsoft earlier this week celebrated its 10,000th patent. Implicit in that announcement is the supposition that "patents = innovation." However, a quick look at Microsoft's last five years demonstrate a company that is struggling to copycat the best the industry has to offer, rather than innovate.

[...]

In this way it's much like the criticism it has of open source: Microsoft claims that open source steals others' intellectual property and doesn't innovate. Pot calling kettle black?


Here is an indicator of Microsoft's newly-discovered obsession with patents and here is a new article bearing the headline "Microsoft: We won't sacrifice original IP."

But Microsoft has no intention of sacrificing its "focus on exciting IP" and will continue to invest in innovation in order to emerge from any ongoing recession in a "healthy" state.


This is an obnoxious little article. It's filled with buzzwords like "innovative" and "IP" despite the company's true (and original) understanding that patents are weapons to very large companies. They are monopoly enablers.

Microsoft's obsession with patents is not unique because, according to this report, China may be following a similar route.

Patent applications submitted to China's State Intellectual Property Office totalled 828,328 during 2008, according to statistics just made availableon the office's website. That's up over 130,000 on the figure for 2007. But before anyone chokes on their lunchtme sandwich or afternoon tea, just remember that the vast majority of this number would have been for unexamined utility and design rights. That said, examined invention patent applications grew by over 50,000 - with domestic companies accounting for most of the rise from 245,161 in 2007 to 289,838 at the end of last year. This makes SIPO the third biggest patent office in the world after the USPTO and the JPO.


Why is it that every single thought (or idea) needs to be "owned" by someone regardless of the origin of this thought? That is the point being raised thusly:

A patent is not the ownership of a pre-existing thing that needs an owner. Rather, the things over which the patent system gives people ownership are the creations of patent law. And in many cases, it makes little sense to talk about them as “things” at all.


Apple's case against Linux-powered devices was mentioned the other day, but over in Europe it turns out that two -- not one -- companies are suing Apple for patent infringement, doing to Apple almost exactly what Apple is doing to others.

A pair of small Scottish companies have filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc. (AAPL), claiming two of the computer maker's best- selling products include technology that infringes on their patents.


Meanwhile, and also in Europe, it turns out that Commissioner Viviane Reding does not understand the problem and she's being misinformed.

The problem is those kind of numbers is that they seems to be calculated in function of software vendors, which represents only 15% of the whole software industry. The other large part of the industry is pure services. And this does not seems to be taken in account. Does Mrs Commissioner Reding have the wrong numbers? Or she does not know the european software industry?


It's quite likely that lobbyists will have commissioners bamboozled. That's just what they're there to do.

Comments

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