Bonum Certa Men Certa

Architect of Microsoft's Patent Strategy Has Left the Building

Senjatrollet
The world`s largest troll, Norway



Summary: Marshall Phelps left Microsoft after equipping it with a software patents portfolio similar to the one he created for IBM

OVER a year ago we alleged that Microsoft's Marshall Phelps had failed to sign Red Hat on a patent deal and was therefore dismissed. The closest Microsoft ever got to 'taxing' Red Hat was its Amazon deal and maybe that case involving Acacia (assuming that Microsoft was a backer). As rightly pointed out in this new post, software patents are antithetical to software freedom.

Few topics can illicit a more guttural response from an open source advocate than the topic of software patents. In many respects they are the very anti-thesis of open source. In security there has been one particularly irksome patent that has bedeviled the industry for years and probably held back innovation and progress in gateway anti-virus technology. Now after all these years, as many have claimed in the past, the patent is on the verge of being over turned as invalid. The best news is that it very well may have been the open source community that showed it as invalid!


We now have it confirmed that Phelps left Microsoft and according to the following new article, Marshall Phelps left Microsoft after helping their anti-Linux strategy and doing similar work at IBM (which is also in favour of software patents). From Law.com: [via]

Last week, MDB Capital Group--an IP-focused investment bank that promises to help investors understand "the hidden value of intellectual property assets and future technological leadership"--held what it billed as its first annual "Bright Lights" intellectual property conference, bringing together IP-centric speakers from a variety of small and medium-size companies.

The Prior Art attended the opening panel, which included the heads of two of the largest, and most litigious, patent-holding companies—Erich Spangenberg and Paul Ryan, the CEO of Acacia Research Corp., the largest publicly traded patent-licensing company.

The panel also included representatives from consultancy ipCapital Group and RPX Corp., which buys litigated patents in order to strike deals between NPEs and operating companies, as well as IP guru Marshall Phelps. (Phelps is something of a legend for building IBM's legendary $2 billion patent-licensing operation; most recently, he helped Microsoft build up a patent-licensing operation before leaving the company last year.


When Phelps was in Microsoft they managed to sign the patent deal with Novell and later on he wrote a book on the subject.

Novell poses a risk to Free software [1, 2]. Novell's patents become ammunition against GNU/Linux itself and Nortel -- a company whose name is similar to Novell -- is in a similar situation: [via]

Nortel may raise $1.1 billion from patents



Nortel Networks Corp., the insolvent Canadian phone-equipment maker, may get as much as $1.1 billion (U.S.) for technology patents that analysts say would benefit potential bidders including Research In Motion Ltd.


Several days ago Florian Müller openly criticised the OIN, which is part of IBM's reason/excuse to keep software patents in tact. "Mueller calls OIN a scam," says the headline at ZDNet. It's an overstatement. It also says:

Much of what Mueller has been doing of late is setting himself as an active FOSS advocate, and that’s a good thing.


That's still in doubt (FOSS advocacy), but the agenda which favours abolition is clear and that's the right route to take. In his latest post he proposes a grading system for conduct, suggesting that companies get classified for their attitude towards software patents.

Harmfulness ranking of ways to use software patents



[...]

That trend isn't difficult to imagine. Just look at the current situation surrounding smartphones, a field in which there's now a number of lawsuits and countersuits among big players as well as different non-producing entities ("patent trolls") targeting large vendors.

In light of all that's going on, which ways to use software patents are more harmful than others? After giving it some thought, I have arrived at this harmfulness ranking:

1. most harmful: malicious strategic patent holders pursuing exclusionary/anti-competitive objectives

2. second-most harmful: non-producing entities ("patent trolls")

3. least harmful: cooperative strategic patent holders granting licenses to entire portfolios on acceptable terms

[...]

"Trolls" are a feature -- not a bug -- of the software patent system

The above subhead is a summary of a statement that Carlo Piana, a leading European FOSS lawyer, recently made on identi.ca/Twitter.

If one believes that certain general ideas should be "monopolizable" through patents, then it's a natural consequence that some will obtain (or acquire) patents and try to derive commercial benefits from them without ever creating their own products. Far be it from me to defend the concept of "patent trolls" -- I just want to point out that it wouldn't be practical to impose an obligation on every patent holder to make actual products. At the most it might be possible to limit the procedural rights of a non-producing entity to the right to be indemnified (excluding injunctive relief).


Companies that still defend software patents are not genuine proponents of software freedom. And yet, it is better to meet half way and accept the fact that companies can change over time.

“Other than Bill Gates, I don’t know of any high tech CEO that sits down to review the company’s IP portfolio.”

--Marshall Phelps

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 13/06/2025: Journalists Targeted by Cracking, China-Japan and Israel-Iran Tensions Grow
Links for the day
Twitter (X) is Dying, Now It's Just Like a Mafia-Type Operation of the Man Who Does Nazi Salutes in Public
a form of extortion
 
BetaNews Has More or Less Died After Experiments With LLM Slop, Is Linuxsecurity Next?
It doesn't seem like BetaNews knows what it's doing, let alone what it talks about
Gemini Links 14/06/2025: Historic Ada Design and GeminiSpace.Club to Expire
Links for the day
Links 14/06/2025: India Plane Crash and Middle-Eastern War
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 13, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 13, 2025
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: (Not)virtues and Project Yeet Broadband
Links for the day
Links 13/06/2025: US Reduces Nonessential Staff at Baghdad Embassy Ahead of Strikes in Iran, Invasion of California Debated
Links for the day
X11 is Free Software
Whether you agree (e.g. on politics) with the person/s forking it doesn't matter
The More Time Passes, the Better Our Advice on Social Control Media Seems
At the end of the day, any platform you do not control yourself is working for someone else
UK High Court Blasts Brett Wilson LLP for Misusing "GDPR" After Failed Efforts to Censor Critics Using 'Libel' Claims
No wonder this firm is rapidly shrinking
Recent Blunders in Microsoft GitHub (e.g. Slop-Generated Bug Reports or GPL Violations 'as a Service') Taking Their Toll?
Put bluntly, if you still use Microsoft GitHub, then you're slave to Microsoft
American Imperialism and Microsoft Plagiarism
Techrights will therefore do what Microsoft does not want it to do: it'll write even more about Microsoft
When They Have Nothing Left to Help Advance Abusive Litigation for Microsoft People... Other Than Throwing ~500 Pages of Someone Else's Work Into a PDF
Microsoft is having a very tough year
The Price of Exposing Corruption in Poland (and Elsewhere)
It's easier to participate in corruption than to merely do the right thing and oppose it
Slopwatch and Yet More Holes in 'Secure Boot' (as Usual!), Promoted Inside Linux by the Man We Are Suing
Today's Slopwatch will be short
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: People You've Left Behind, Life Update and OS Changes
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 12, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 12, 2025
Links 12/06/2025: Portland Homeless Deaths Quadruple, COVID Cases Surge in Asia
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IX: Minimum Wages For You (Experienced Scientist), Alicante/EU Paydays For Me (Unproductive, Corrupt Official)
Does UPRP maladministration extend to the false belief that qualified and experienced scientists can play the role of circus clowns?
"The Liberating Power of Simply Telling People the Truth."
'polite' bullying
Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
let's revisit the subject
EPO's Gareth Lord Asked About "Quality and Productivity" or, Put Another Way, Why the EPO Keeps Granting So Many Invalid/Illegal Patents
letter to Lord
EPO's Central Staff Committee (CSC) Scrutinises the Man Who Illegally Grants (and Forces Others to Illegally Participate in Granting) Software Patents in Europe
EPO compels examiners to break the law in the name of obeying illegal "rules" or "orders"
The Latest Rumour Says The Next (as Correctly Predicted Before) Wave of Layoffs at Microsoft is 3 Weeks Away, "Larger Than the First Wave"
Step 2
TV Licensing Used to SPAM Your Postbox, Now It Does the Same to E-mail
First they ask for your E-mail address; then they start nagging you via E-mail
The Toxic Playbook
Either you support Prince Mohammed bin Salman or you're a nazi
It's Possible That BetaNews Got Cracked, But Nobody Talks About It, The Site Contains an Outdated Old Image, No Activity
It's possible that they will never explain what happened to the site and users' accounts
Links 12/06/2025: Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson Dies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/06/2025: Video Game Diegesis and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Why the Militants Have Lost Every Battle Since 2022 (When Attacking My Wife and I in Various Ways, Even Attacking Our Employers)
This takes patience, sure, but at the end most evildoers face the consequences for their actions
Our Priority is Still Tackling Software Patents and Corruption in Patent Offices
Meanwhile we got compliments on our recent articles, which means that they are effective
Politics Will Impact Software Choices
Will those systems respect users' freedom?
EPO: Neglecting Children to Promote American Monopolies by Shielding Them From European Competition
Yesterday the Central Staff Committee at the EPO spoke about another "reform" at the Office
Slopwatch: Another Day, Another Slopfest, LLM Slop Scrapers Slow Down Our Site
We too have some slop issues; this past day this site and the sister site had to answer about 2.5 million requests (not counting Gemini Protocol) and it's slowing things down for everybody
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 11, 2025