Bonum Certa Men Certa

Canonical Needs to Tell Ubuntu Users How Much It Paid MPEG-LA for Patent 'Protection'

MPEG LA logo



Summary: Canonical ought to offer some form of disclosure about patent deals with the MPEG cartel

FOLLOWING the KnowRi€§ht conference which we wrote about in the morning (FFII has a whole page about it), the president of the FFII linked to this article from Slashdot, which in turn links to a Microsoft booster from The Register. We have already written about this article and sort of defended Canonical's position when it comes to H.264 patents*. FFII's president, however, reacted differently and wrote: "Time to book BoycottUbuntu.com? How much did Canonical spent on the H264 patent license for Ubuntu? Ask them please."



He later asked Canonical's COO, but has received no answer yet.

Popey (from Ubuntu) passed along the message that "Microsoft patents portable applications," as reported by Microsoft boosters.

On Tuesday, Microsoft was awarded a U.S. patent for "portable applications." The description of this innovative technology? Running an executable file from a flash device.


The accompanying remark says: "Goodbye portable Firefox?"

In other news, a European/British lawyers' blog hosts this piece about "Removable Features of Operating Systems"; it covers patents as follows:

It is long established that intellectual property law applies to computer software. Source code written by programmers is subject to copyright and, where programmers are employees, the copyright is almost always assigned to their employer. The processes and techniques embodied in that source code may be further protected by patents. Individual programmers or, as is more common these days, teams of programmers invent technical solutions to problems, and those solutions may be protected by patents. Again, a patent will usually be assigned to the employer, if any, of the inventor, but sometimes to some other organization.


Software patents have no room in Europe and what's baffling is that Canonical pays for software patents, despite the fact that it's based in the UK. What gives?

That having been said, earlier today the president of the FFII said that the "European Commission [is] still using the undefined term FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory), pushing for patents." He linked to this new article:

Uncertainty over royalty payments is a bugbear of the wireless industry, as seen by the current nervousness over the IPR burden that will materialize in LTE devices. Once standards are set and start to appear in commercial products, patent holders often emerge from the woodwork to claim their fee, leading to complex cross-licensing negotiations and sometimes lawsuits and hefty royalty fees.

Many bodies, particularly the European standards agency ETSI, have been trying to get patent holders to declare their holdings in a would-be standard upfront, and the European Union is now offering a powerful incentive to turn this into best practise. The EU says companies that provide technology that could be adopted in industry standards could be exempted from strict European antitrust laws if they set out, from the start, the maximum fees they would charge for their patents.

[...]

According to the Reuters news agency, the draft rules contain benchmarks to assess the level of FRAND licensing fees. The Commission said companies would need to disclose their intellectual property rights before their patents were included in standards. "No or unclear disclosure obligations may furthermore give incentives to 'patent ambushes', that is companies hiding patents until industry is locked in and thereafter refusing to license or request exorbitant fees," the statement said.


As we pointed out before, heavy lobbying from Microsoft has bamboozled Neelie Kroes into accepting software patents through (x)RAND [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Does the H.264 cartel utilise the same RAND trick which Microsoft is already exploiting?

"Digital society depends upon open standards and interoperability. And with this in mind, public organizations should practice what they promote. If they don’t use open standards, why should citizens?"

--Jan Wildeboer

___ * Canonical paid to appease the patent troll, but the problem is that it legitimises an attack on other distributions like Fedora, Mandriva, and even Asterisk distributions.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft Uses LLM Slop to Defraud (or Rob) Shareholders
Microsoft is basically defrauding its shareholders by LLM slop
The "Davos Effect": Tarnishing the Reputation of Places Not by Overtourism But by Oligarch Infestation
The last Venice needs is an affiliation with Venetian oligarchs
 
Links 01/07/2025: "Independence Day in Taiwan", Bounties on Software Patents
Links for the day
What Happens When Your Law Firm is Preoccupied With Harassing and Trying to Extort a Humble Couple in Manchester, Even on Behalf of Violent Microsoft Staff From Another Continent
It's good to see that law firms which operate in bad faith are perishing
Lawyer X, Law Firm X and Elon Musk's X: scandals linked by Old Xaverian
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 01/07/2025: Distraction-Free Writing and Hytale Mismanagement
Links for the day
Links 01/07/2025: "Beauty of Blogging" and "Etiquette of Collapse"
Links for the day
The Web is a Dead End
We need to adopt alternatives
When Words Lose Their Intended Meaning
examples of words that, at least in the technical spheres, don't mean what they sound like
People Who Disagree With You on Technical Matters May or May Not Agree With You on Political Things (But Usually They Do)
What bothers me a great deal is seeing left-leaning people accusing other left-leaning people of being "nazis"
"Too Much Choice" and "Too Many Programming Languages"
What IBM and its apologists aim for was attempted in the 1930s and it failed
Microsoft Lost 400,000,000 Windows Users, According to Microsoft
more people adopt smaller computers and many people replace Windows with GNU/Linux, as they don't really need a new computer
Half a Year Gone, What's to Come Next
In the second half of 2025 we expect to be done with the Microsoft SLAPPs
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 30, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 30, 2025
People at the Very Top of Microsoft Know How Bad Things Really Are
There's no product that can replace the former profitability of Windows licensing and stuff that went on top of Windows
Gemini Links 01/07/2025: Mid Year and a Tour of Old Languages
Links for the day
EPO Presentation Bemoans Misuse of Slop in Decision-Making on Patents and in Classification (Which is Likely Illegal Too)
We habitually mention failed use cases of LLMs on the Web
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Confirmed, "XBox Hardware Is Dead"
It's possible that over 20% of the staff will be laid off
Links 30/06/2025: Kyrgyzstan vs Media Freedom, Dalai Lama Succession
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/06/2025: Backend Programs in Gemini and Dynamic Content Without The Scripting
Links for the day
Links 30/06/2025: Zuckerberg’s Tax-Evading Scheme Harms Kids, US Copyright Office Lacks Leadership
Links for the day
Microsoft Isn't Laying Off Tens of Thousands to 'Invest' in Slop ('Hey Hi'), It's Laying Off Tens of Thousands Because It's Running Out of Money (and Willing Lenders)
the layoffs are a sign of the business failing, not "hey hi" (whatever that is) replacing staff
Intel Lays Off 20% of Its Workforce, Microsoft is Doing the Same This Year
Like a yoyo, whatever goes up will come back down
Microsoft XBox Layoffs: Almost 2,000 Layoffs Became "Over 2,000"? (Over 20% of the Staff)
over 20% of staff will be let go, not counting staff that leaves voluntarily
GNU/Linux Rises to New Highs in Angola, Africa in General is Abandoning Windows
Western media barely covers Microsoft layoffs in Africa, but in recent years Microsoft culled the workforce and even shut down entire operations
Summer Plans in Techrights and Elsewhere
massive layoffs at Microsoft
Destination Geminispace (in the Age of LLM Slop and Slop Images That Infest the Web and Social Control Media)
Geminispace isn't vast, but at least it is - on average - a lot "cleaner"
GNU/Linux Growing in Sierra Leone This Year
Based on what statCounter is seeing, this year there are more and more people there who adopt GNU/Linux
Serial Sloppers Gonna Slop
More sites out there ought to call out the cheaters
Quartz (qz.com) is Spam and a Slopfarm
It used to be OK. Then they fired the staff.
Links 30/06/2025: US Economic Woes, Extreme Heat
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 29, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 29, 2025
Gemini Links 30/06/2025: "The AI Hype" and New AuraGem Ask
Links for the day
Our Desktops Are Not Your Experiments, X is Not an Experiment
Breaking what already worked
Microsoft's Big Lies Regarding This Week's Mass Layoffs Have Already Begun (and They're Already Being Spread by Slopfarms)
Microsoft is the "market leader" in slop
Explaining the Full Story of SLAPPs From Microsoft Staff
For every action there is a reaction, for every attack there will be proportionate consequences
The Openwashing Shills Initiative (OSI) - Part III: IRS and Status of OSI
"They lied to the US IRS and there’s a paper trail"
IBM Red Hat's Dogmatic Fanaticism Under a Thin Veil of "Modernism"
IBM now has the audacity to paint people who don't agree as "nazis"
Microsoft's Share in Guatemala Fell From 97% to 14%
Eventually Microsoft will get stuck in a loop of layoffs, layoffs, and more layoffs
They Made Technology Scary and Taught Us That It's Innocent, Friendly, Even "Social"
Rejection of all this "apps" and "gadgets" and "Smart" (whatever that means!) status quo isn't a rejection of society
The Media is Under Attacks Partly Because There's Little Other (Remaining) Press to Speak in Its Defence
The biggest danger here is that when there's very little press or no "opposition media" left it becomes even easier to crush critics because there aren't many people left to speak about the matter
If Your Web Site is Run by Bots, Eventually Nobody Will 'Read' It Except Bots (People Don't Want to Read Slop)
Eventually people learn from mistakes
Links 29/06/2025: Microsoft Releases False/Fake Benchmarks, "Google Wants You to Watch Ads or Take Surveys to Read Articles"
Links for the day
Links 29/06/2025: Data Breaches and Online Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/06/2025: "The Price Of Eggs" and Gemini 3D Tic Tac Toe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 28, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 28, 2025