Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents Roundup: Patent Propaganda from the BBC, IBM in the Shadows, and Early Mistakes from David Kappos

Propaganda



Summary: The BBC serves a familiar agenda, Microsoft hype observed, USPTO heads the wrong way, and IBM lurks inside the Linux Foundation

THERE is a lot to go through today because Microsoft is stepping up efforts to spread software patents. We shall start by pointing out that Microsoft's darling [1, 2, 3, 4], the BBC, is spreading patent propaganda with words like "inventor" and the classic example of a "poor" victim (not the monopolies which actually leverage patents to block small companies).



Yesterday alone, the BBC published not one but two articles that glamourise and encourage stronger patent enforcement and broader scope. The first such article states:

Intellectual property rights are both a good thing and a potential obstacle. Imagine you've got a great idea, but part of the idea conflicts with someone's patent. You can propose a licence, but in a lot of cases it can be very difficult to secure the rights for a long period and at a reasonable rate.


The second article is almost worse because it refers to "stealing" of ideas, which obviously cannot be stolen, by definition. It states:

A major British inventor is calling for a change in the law to strengthen protection against those who try to steal ideas.


The Register (also UK-based) has already highlighted this propaganda from the BBC:

The inventor of the wind-up radio is calling on the UK government to toughen its stance on patent law, by making intellectual property theft a criminal offence.


A reader of ours from the UK states that "Patent law and criminal law are two (IMO) completely different things, as is copyright theft. In respect of the latter, the term theft IMO does not apply since [...] According to Sec(1) Theft Act - "To dishonestly appropriate property belonging to the other with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it." Since there is no permanent deprivation of "property" (in this case data), there is no theft....IMO [...] the copyright theft act deals with the "sharing" of the work and the deprivation would be loss of income, that's why the separate offence was created.... the point I was making was Copyright "Theft" is a bad choice of words since theft as outlined in Sec(1) does not IMO apply as per definition....in the case of copyright theft. It is worth noting, that file sharing is what makes the offence complete and the mere act of downloading would (IMO) have a civil remedy not a criminal one if no sharing was taking place although this is all open to argument and interpretation and is merely my interpretation of the criminal side of the copyright laws...."

There is actually a lot more Microsoft advertising in the BBC this week, as is the case most of the time. Maggie Shiels [1, 2] is at it again, advertising Vista 7 and citing other Microsoft shills for corroboration:

Ina Fried of CNET, who has covered Microsoft for over five years, said this issue has, in the past, been something of a hurdle for Microsoft and Intel.


Shiels and Fried make a good pair that seems like Microsoft PR masqueraded as reporters. This is based on a pattern observed long ago -- a pattern that endlessly persists. Sarcastically, says one of our British readers, "maybe the clue is in her name, Maggie Shills.....yep, she does. Names aside, yeah it's pretty blatant again -- links to the windows 7 pre sales, like the other Windows 7 slog posts they do. The keywords are a thing too, in pro-Microsoft posts, there's LOTS of Microsoft keywords, the post is littered with them, which makes them great consumption for the spiders, yet when it's stories which are negative, Microsoft keywords are hardly mentioned, except at the end of the peice as the knight in silver armour coming in to offer customers advice on how to fix the issue under their terms. It'd be funny if it was a normal slog site. What it does do is make a mockery of the BBC's claims of "independent high-quality journalism"."

Speaking of Microsoft hype in the press, there is more sentimental blackmail [1, 2] from this company right now and Apple too is hyping things up (unrelated to this, it has connections with AstroTurf agencies). According to the following review from Ars Technica, Snow Leopard represents a development stagnation at Apple. Here's the part which says:

Many of these same developers applauded the "150+ new features" in Tiger and the "300 new features" in Leopard at past WWDCs. Now they were applauding zero new features for Snow Leopard? What explains this?


There is even a photo.

Since we mentioned AstroTurfing, worth mentioning is also this update regarding Radian6, which we wrote about the other day.

After being angered by yet another Comcast f**kup that led to me being W.O.I. (With Out Internet) for over nine hours one day last week, I noticed that within the next day, a Comcast “representative” under the pseudonym of “Melissa Mendoza” had commented on the post with links to their “support” email address.

As I’ve written about before, Microsoft and other large companies often use the services of large astroturfing agencies. Microsoft uses one called Visible Technologies and apparently Comcast uses one called Radian6.


Moving on to important patent issues, this report suggests that China's patent system is imploding, just as people predicted. It was a volcano of lawsuits waiting to erupt.

When France's Schneider Electric faced a patent battle in a Chinese court recently it had reason to feel confident. It thought it had a solid prior art case for invalidating the patent being used against it by Chinese firm Chint, and foreign companies win 95% of patent cases in the Chinese courts.


As Masnick puts it, "Careful What You Ask For: China's Patent System Causing Trouble."

All those foreign nations who kept pushing China to build up its own patent system and learn to "respect intellectual property" may soon be regretting that, as they're suddenly blocked out of the Chinese market by Chinese firms who fast-tracked cheap utility patents themselves with little to no review. Be careful what you wish for.


The USPTO is not better off, but the approach taken to resolving the issue is totally misguided. A reader from Germany gave us a pointer to this document [PDF} ("fresh from Heise," as he put it). It is "only [the] interim rules," he stressed, "but still a good sign. See p. 3, section I.1 Step 1."

The USPTO is being harshly criticised elsewhere. David Kappos [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] uses the wrong yardstick to measure the success (or lack thereof) of this system and major delays are indicators of too wide a scope for patenting.

The other day we wrote about medical barriers caused by patents and Masnick appears to agree, adding that Kappos is "Suggesting They Want More Patents, Approved Faster." More patents?

Two separate stories concerning statements from those in charge of the patent system suggest that the new administration isn't about to help fix the problems in the patent system, but is eagerly looking to make them worse. It starts with new USPTO Director David Kappos, who some thought would recognize problems with the patent system from his years dealing with those problems at IBM. While IBM is a massive patent stockpiler, over the past few years it's at least indicated some recognition that the system is broken.

[...]

The real problem, which becomes evident in reading the article is that since the USPTO is funded based on patent application fees, it has every incentive in the world, as an institution, to approve more patents. The more patents it approves, the more applications it gets, which means more money as well.


Indeed, this sounds too greed-motivated. The EPO was accused of similar behaviour. To quote Richard Stallman, “Staff at the European Patent Office went on strike accusing the organization of corruption: specifically, stretching the standards for patents in order to make more money."

Tim Lee's warning against software patents has gotten Masnick's attention as well (because they know each other). The important points are being stressed again.

In the original piece, Tim also points out how software patents (contrary to the claims of some defenders of the system) unfairly tilt the balance of power to big companies -- the ones who can stockpile tons of patents to use as a weapon against infringement suits. It's the small companies who are left exposed.


It is worth repeating over and over again that experience suggests small companies are mostly victimised by the patent system. IBM's considerable role in OIN and the Linux Foundation is proof of this because IBM wants software patents and it wants to use them to increase its dominance/control in the area. According to this new exchange of ideas, IBM is partly behind the Linux Foundation's patent policy.

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Manny W Schecter <schecter@us.ibm.com> Date: Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 12:12 AM Subject: Re: [priorart-discuss] No more software-patents in the us? To: OSS and USPTO prior art discussions <priorart-discuss@lists.linux-foundation.org>

Not exactly. You are citing interim guidelines from the USPTO which are not binding law by their own admission. The USPTO has invited public comment on the guidelines, and there will be plenty I'm sure. The Bilski decision pending before the Supreme Court is what you should be watching. A decision is expected 1H10.

Manny Schecter

From: Jan Kechel <jan@kechel.de> To: OSS and USPTO prior art discussions <priorart-discuss@lists.osdl.org> Date: 09/02/2009 06:09 PM Subject: [priorart-discuss] No more software-patents in the us? Sent by: priorart-discuss-bounces@lists.linux-foundation.org ________________________________

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: RIPEMD160

Hi everybody,

I just found a nice article about changes in the USPTO, seems that there are no more software patents until some other court stuff will be finished:

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/dapp/opla/2009-08-25_interim_101_instructions.pdf (see page 15)

My source (german:) http://www.heise.de/newsticker/US-Patentamt-vergibt-vorerst-keine-reinen-Softwarepatente-mehr--/meldung/144681 claims that this is based on the following decision:

http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/07-1130.pdf

What do you people think about that?

cu,

jan

- -- publictimestamp.org/ptb/PTB-7047 ripemd128 2009-09-02 21:00:05 5DBB1B771C93BD9D613377AD58266747

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEAREDAAYFAkqe7J0ACgkQ58nJkn8diosxcgCfW0E24NfvCwMaSZlq40/RXIBc 2xsAniUHZxWyM9/rg5knFSQKyABI0Xl7 =XrKR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


The above shows the involvement of IBM staff. As we have shown before, IBM is part of this problem because it lies when arguing that software patents have been beneficial to Free software [1, 2]. They take away basic rights and then "donate" or sell them back to us. A lot of people are being fooled, but they don't have to.

"According to Software Magazine, last year we were the 92nd largest software company in the US. My perspective on software patents is simple: stop issuing software patents. Software patents should not exist." —Jerry Fiddler, Wind River Systems

Recent Techrights' Posts

"Cloud Computing" Was Always a Joke, But This Week Was the Punchline
Maybe stop following tech trends and fashions
A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe, by Richard Stallman
"The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place"
 
Who Asked Software in the Public Interest (SPI) for a Refund? ($100,000, Resulting in Losses of $267,201 in 12 Months, Highest-Ever Losses)
The IRS does not reveal who or what's tied to this refund (or the cause/reason)
Trouble in Red Hat/IBM and a Retreat to Ponzi Economics in Search of Wall Street Market Heist
Would you invest your life savings in this kind of crap?
12 Months Ago the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Officially Went 'Tag-Team'
We're actually sort of flattered or proud that such despicable people are so desperate to censor us
"Cloud Computing" Does Not Mean Safety
Fault tolerance is related to the notion of software freedom
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 21, 2025
The Fall of Windows: From Something to Nothing
Of course Microsoft will pretend everything is fine and "just trust the hey hi" (AI)
Sounds Like Fedora is Ready to Become Less of a Slave of Microsoft (GitHub)
This seems like a belated move in a positive direction
XBox is a Dead Microsoft Product in a Dying Industry
It's probable that another wave of XBox layoffs is just over the horizon (maybe even before month's end)
Progress on Techrights Site Search
Fun times
IBM's Bluewashing of Red Hat Means the Layoffs Are Silent, Barely Reported
Don't wait to hear about "Red Hat layoffs"
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Happy Disconnection, AWS Falling Apart, Closing of Gemlog Blue
Links for the day
Full Audio of Today's Richard Stallman Talk in the Technical University of Munich
Free/Libre software and freedom in the digital society
Microsoft XBox is Just Vapourware (Promises of Hardware That Doesn't Exist), Real Products Perish
just as developers lose interest in developing for XBox Microsoft is increasing the costs imposed upon them
Slopwatch: Fake Articles (Slop) in "Linux" Clothing in Google News (Noise)
all about what Google does
Links 21/10/2025: Even "Inventor of Vibe Coding" Rejects Vibe Coding, USPTO Experiments With Slop in Examination
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Talk Now Available for Viewing (Archived Copy, Not Live-streamed)
This recording is over 2 hours old
Links 21/10/2025: AWS-Induced Chaos and Social Control Media Curbs
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Programming, StarGrid, Brand-New Palm OS Strategy Game in 2025, and Chatbot as Addiction Mechanisms
Links for the day
The African Lion and the American Cowards
Safaris exist for people to watch and enjoy animals
Amazon Web Shenanigans Perfectly Timed for Today's Talk by Richard Stallman
Maybe listen to him instead of looking for excuses to ridicule the messenger
Mission:Libre Has Taken Off (Project by Carmen Maris)
there will be a lot more to report on next month (after the event)
Techrights to Publish More EPO Leaks Next Week
We're meanwhile also doing lots of work on search, whose interface now looks better
Links 21/10/2025: 'The Lost Art' of Neon Signs and Twitter (X) to Enable Identity Theft (or Handle Theft) as a Service
Links for the day
Plagiarism With LLM Slop: Hindustan Times (HT Digital Streams Limited) Has Become a Slop Factory/Hub
What a disgrace
Next Week We Launch Search at Techrights
We're planning to launch it some time next week. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Thursday.
Talk by Richard Stallman Will be Live-streamed in Less Than 10 Hours
Happy hacking
"No Kings" in the Software World (GAFAM Should Not Exist, Either)
"No Kings" is a good slogan. Let's start by ridding ourselves of masters, not only those who reside in DC or visit DC
Every Morning
Bugs/edge cases combined with automation can spell disaster
Insane, Deliberately Dishonest, or Just Another Bigot?
very intellectually-dishonest human being
A Lot of Techrights is Built on Perl
Perl also runs the sister site
The Register MS Selling Slop for Microsoft (Vapourware, Ponzi Scheme, False Claims)
What will be left of The Register MS if it keeps repeating falsehoods and looking to profit from Ponzi schemes?
analytics.usa.gov Says Less Than 14% of Web Requests (to Government Sites) Come From Vista 11
Vista 11 was released more than 4 years ago!
People Who Attempt to Take Down Correct Information Need a Doctor a Day
“Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 20, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 20, 2025
Vista 11 is Sinking While Microsoft is PIPing (Mass Layoffs But Silent Layoffs)
We're witnessing a shift in platform dominance
Richard Stallman is Having a Good Week Already (Stallman Was Right About 'Clown Computing')
That alone is worth bringing up in his talk
An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle"
Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
When Prominent GNU/Linux Distros Are Run by Spies
What has Microsoft Canonical become?
More Publishers and Companies Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux", Not "Linux"
It's not to see InstallAware saying GNU/Linux this week
Google News is Now Promoting a Parasitic Slopfarm Called "findarticles.com", Where Plagiarism of "Linux" Articles is Rampant
Does Google even care about the slop epidemic? Google itself is a vendor of slop now (and it calls it "Gemini")
Gemini Links 20/10/2025: Pumpkin Carving, "Hey Hi", and Other Buzzwords
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Google News Promoting Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
What is the value of Google News if so many results in it are fake 'articles?
Rejecting 'Snoop-Phones' and Turning "Old" Phones (or Tablets) Into Freedom-Respecting Appliances
Paul Fernhout (pdfernhout.net) wrote back to Akira Urushibatathis this past weekend
Our Uptime This Year Was Better Than AWS (Also a Lot Cheaper)
We never used "the cloud"
Amazon Web Shenanigans
An ongoing, experimental endeavour
Death of Elias Diem: FSFE mailing list archives hidden
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/10/2025: Louvre Museum Reveals Weakness, About 7 Million Protest US Turning Into Oligarchy/Monarchy
Links for the day
They Should Have Listened to Techrights Over a Month Earlier (Xubuntu Site Compromised)
we reported this issue about 40 days earlier and nobody did anything about it
Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science)
Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
Apple is the Company of Dictators and Worse
Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
Counting Unhatched Eggs Is Not Counting Chickens
Everything here will persist as normal
Barry Kauler Explains That Puppy Linux and EasyOS Exclude Systemd to Keep Things Simple
Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
The "Infinite Bread"
The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works)
If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time
The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data)
Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 19, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot')
Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With
4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
Liberation From 'The Feed'
They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD)
We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles