Bonum Certa Men Certa

Robbery in the USPTO, More Software Patent Lawsuits, and Rise in ODF's Popularity

"Software patents have been nothing but trouble for innovation. We the software engineers know this, yet we actually have full-blown posters in our break-room showcasing the individual engineers who came up with something we were able to push through the USPTO. Individually, we pretty much all consider the software-patent showcase poster to be a colossal joke." —Kelledin, PLI: State Street Overruled... PERIOD



Summary: Where patents meet formats ODF is still winning

THE USPTO has earned little love for the fact that it permits people to gain a monopoly on algorithms, despite copyrights doing the job perfectly well. According to The Register, "Apple has filed a patent application that would enable iPhone users to transfer files and typed messages to others while speaking with them during a voice call." That is another software patent for a company that uses them against Linux devices.



Corruption was found in the USPTO, which helps its reputation not at all. From The Washington Examiner:

Minister pleads guilty to stealing $500K from U.S. patent office



[...]

Court documents show that the patent worker stole a total of $534,338 over 32 transfers, 27 of which were to Reid. It is unclear from documents where the other $80,000 went.


Another company which people love (or love to hate) is being sued by TechRadium and Wired Magazine has the details.

TechRadium, a little known Texas-based player in the emergency mass-notification field, didn’t just wake up this month and decide to sue Twitter for patent infringement.

The company says it didn’t care about Twitter when the Twitterati was watching the tweets of NBA superstars, musicians, politicians and news outlets. But then TechRadium began seeing promotional materials and news accounts of companies, school districts and local governments using, or considering adopting, the microblogging service as their emergency notification system – muscling into TechRadium’s wheelhouse.


TechRadium's lawsuit against Twitter was mentioned in [1, 2]. TechRadium also mutually sued Blackboard [1, 2], which was financially backed by Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4].

Speaking of companies that received funding from Microsoft, Finjan is one of them [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and right now it is suing Microsoft's competitor, McAfee. It's about software patents again.

INSECURITY FIRM McAfee has been whacked with an extra $13.7 million in damages because one of its acquisitions infringed patents held by Finjan Software, a Delaware judge has decided.


Finjan is unlikely to ever sue Microsoft, which is -- after all -- its major backer. Finjan has been somewhat of a leech for quite some time.

Turning some attention to the i4i case [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10], there is no sign of remedy for Microsoft, yet.

MICROSOFT MUST BE PANICKED that its recent loss in a US patent lawsuit could dampen the retail launch of its massively hyped Windows 7 operating system on 22 October.

Last Friday it filed a sealed Emergency Motion asking for a stay of execution following its loss on 11 August in i4i v. Microsoft, a patent infringement lawsuit covering Custom XML.


BusinessWeek has this article on the subject. It mentions Microsoft's misconduct in the courtroom.

In addition to the injunction against selling one of its most popular products, the court ordered Microsoft to pay $290 million in damages to i4i, including a fine of $40 million after the judge ruled that Microsoft’s lead lawyer in the case made misleading statements to the jury.


Microsoft appears to be pretending that people would be jammed without Word, but it could not be further from the truth. Just a free download away exists a solution; people can obtain a copy of one among many office suites, some of which do not even require downloading (SaaS). It must be terrifying to Microsoft -- the thought that people would discover that there is choice. as one blogger put it:

Word ban threatens industry? Not mine



[...]

Really? Believe it or not, I have acknowledged that Microsoft Office is good enough to buy for power users. However, to say that there are no alternatives is obviously ridiculous. Can you say OpenOffice? Google Apps? Zoho? StarOffice? Lotus Symphony?


No office suite supports OOXML, not even Microsoft Office, which probably comes closest nonetheless. That too is a tremendous issue to Microsoft. Not only Word is in jeopardy but its file formats too; the patent problem is inherent in the format, which ODF does not suffer from.

ODF support can now be found in Storyist. From the news:

Storyist also has an impressive export capability in case your publisher wants to see the document in Word, Open Document, or several other formats. Screenplays can be exported to Final Draft, considered by many to be the industry standard for script writing.


There is also ODF support in JDBReport. From this new reference page:

Reports can be exported to HTML, Open Document Format (Text Document, SpreadSheet), Excel XML.Version 1.3 adds Export to PDF and RTF using iText and Export to MS Excel 2003 using Apache POI.


The Register brings back memories of what Microsoft did in Massachusetts.

Open access to data's been a growing trend in government circles, thanks to the politics of who controls information. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts typified the move in 2005 when it said official documents must use the open document format (ODF), as Microsoft's Word would lock documents into a format owned by a single company. This was before Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) formats.

Massachusetts went on to reverse the decision following lobbying from Microsoft and local political pressure, but other national and local governments in the US and world wide have been moving in the direction of using open formats.


Also in The Register, Gavin Clarke is pushing the Fraunhofer study, which is somewhat of a tool for promoting OOXML. Coming from Clarke, however, this is not particularly surprising. Microsoft keeps pushing the false perception that two formats are needed and that ODF is deficient. Well, yes... it is deficient... to Microsoft's revenue.

“It’s a Simple Matter of [Microsoft’s] Commercial Interests!“

--Microsoft on OOXML



Recent Techrights' Posts

Why We Publish Information About the SLAPPs (But Not About the Legal Process), an Abuse of Process by Americans Trying to Silence Critics of Their Employer, Microsoft
It doesn't take thousands of pages to explain something simple
 
The Register MS Says "AI Web Crawlers Are Destroying Websites", So Why Does The Register MS Help 'AI' Companies? (Spoiler: Money)
People need to call out The Register MS on its hypocrisy
Slopfarms Already Peaked, They Will Die When Slop Companies Run Out of Money to Borrow
slopfarms will lack an actual "engine"
Links 02/09/2025: Attacks on Unions, Microsoft TCO, and DDoSing a Growing Problem
Links for the day
Internet Relay Chat Didn't Fall Off a Cliff
IRC will turn 40 in less than 3 years from now
The UEFI 9/11 - Part V - This is Not a Drill (Disable "SecureBoot" Now)
A "9/11" Coming
There's No Obligation to Speak to Anybody
The very fact that "bkuhn" is till spending time in social control media says a lot about his poor judgment
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 01, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 01, 2025
Microsoft Trying to Force People to Resign (Amid Mass Layoffs) a Strategy That Takes Its Toll
Microsoft seems to be circling down the drain and the "final flush" will be the moment the "hey hi" (AI) bubble implodes completely
Google Simply Cannot Be Trusted
Only fools would trust GAFAM
Admission That a Third Party (or Parties) Funds the SLAPPs Against Techrights
This can end up costing them over a million dollars
Modifying and Writing One's Own Computer Programs is Not a Crime (or: Google Proves That Stallman Was Right)
We're generally gratified to see so many positive mentions of him
Why We Stopped Publishing Videos (for Now)
We'll probably get back to videos one day, but it's hard to say when or to what extent
What Animal Rights Activism Teaches Us About Sympathy and Focus
It's possible to believe that the planet is warming, that we must do something about it, and still eat eggs and butter
When You Turn Web Sites About Tech Into Political Sites
A lot of people fall into the trap of catering only for particular groups
Gemini Links 02/09/2025: ROOPHLOCH 2025 and Lagrange 1.19 Released
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: News Corp. WSJ and A Month With NixOS
Links for the day
“Sideloading” Never Killed Anybody
There are many online discussions this week about the misnomer "sideloading"
Slopwatch: Google News as FUD Vector Against Linux and Plagiarism Enhancer, Serial Slopper (SS) Uses LLMs to Googlebomb "Linux"
Slop destroys the Web not just by screwing with search engines and helping plagiarists. It's also responsible for de facto DDoS attacks...
Links 01/09/2025: "Attacks on Science" and China's "Soft Power" Grows
Links for the day
Links 01/09/2025: Fresh Backlash Against Slop and "Norway’s Electricity Crisis is About to Hit Britain"
Links for the day
Writing and Coding Isn't Always Enough
Last year we had to assume a role we didn't have before: litigants
Links 01/09/2025: Catching Up (Mostly via Deutsche Welle), "Windows TCO" Effect in UK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: Linguistic Barriers and "Web 1.0 Hosting"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 31, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 31, 2025
Autumn Has Come
Autumn should be exciting in all sorts of ways; it'll also mark our anniversary
The UEFI 9/11 - Part IV - External Interference
They all seem to be playing a role in crushing Software Freedom and self-determination for users
Links 31/08/2025: Baggage Claim Scams, an Insurrectionist’s War on Culture, and a Sudden Robotics Hype
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/08/2025: Reviewing Netsurf and Slightly Less Historic Ada Design
Links for the day
IBM Has Taken Control of GNOME
Don't expect a successor to be found any time soon
Links 31/08/2025: Google Gmail Data Breach and LF Puff Pieces for Pay
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 30, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 30, 2025
This is What Google News Has Become
Moments ago