Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents Roundup: OIN, Patent Attorney Ignorance, “Ultimate Patent Troll”, the Rambus Submarine Patent, Death Patents, MPEG-LA, and i4i/Microsoft

Submarine (patents)



Summary: An overview of patent news from the past few days, ranging from issues that directly affect GNU/Linux to issues that simply show how amoral and dysfunctional the patent systems have become

IT HAS BEEN a long time since the last "Patents Roundup" per se. This post is intended to keep readers abreast of the developments in the spooky world of patents, so no single topic is covered here exclusively.



We wish to begin with Linux, which has OIN protecting it in somewhat controversial ways (fighting software patents with software patents), which is effective only in particular circumstances, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

“Our community—including all developers, distributors and users—owes Keith Bergelt of OIN, and the companies on his board of directors, a round of serious thanks...”
      --Eben Moglen
Groklaw's most recent take on OIN is a good source of information for OIN sceptics. OIN is not the "bad guy" here; not at all. Keith Bergelt of OIN is genuinely interested in protecting Linux from patent litigation by accumulating (hoarding) patents and killing weak ones rather than eliminating the foundations of this whole category which is known as computer-implemented inventions (CII, or software patents). Bergelt says he is in favour of "good" patents. It's not ideal of course, but the FSF/SFLC accepts the OIN and appreciates its work. Professor Eben Moglen wrote last year that "[o]ur community—including all developers, distributors and users—owes Keith Bergelt of OIN, and the companies on his board of directors, a round of serious thanks for interrupting this arms trade, and calling attention to a bad business practice."

With that in mind we can approach a new post which says that "OIN seeks to overturn weak patents":

The tech news industry is buzzing with stories about companies suing each other over patent infringement. Most of the supposed patent infringements come closer to patents representing a concept then an actual invention. As I have said before the conduct of many patent holders is the equivalent of patenting the color blue and suing anyone who wears a blue t-shirt.

This is where the Open Invention Network comes in to play. They have invited the public to review patents, especially patents that are being used to attempt to block open source development. The Open Invention Network is asking for its readers to submit examples of prior art. This is where a company has patented a product or concept that had already been developed by previous companies or individuals. Once evidence is in place of prior art in connection with a patent, that patent can be invalidated.


The Open Invention Network and its sibling projects are not as good as abolishing software patents a la FFII, but an analogy to them would be "pragmatism" in the Free vs. proprietary software sense. The OIN is a temporary fix, a Band-Aid€® of sorts.

On we move to an important observation from Patently-O, a popular Web site which mostly attracts American patent lawyers and even -- allegedly -- SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) appointees. Patently-O points out that not enough computer scientists occupy the USPTO, which implies insufficient knowledge about software patents.

Professors Ralph Clifford, Tom Field, and Jon Cavicchi have published an interesting study on the technical backgrounds of patent attorneys and agents. After the trio submitted a FOIA request, the PTO handed-over 50,000 pages of patent bar registration applications. Using that information, the trio created a database of registered patent attorneys and their associated degrees/schools.

The paper makes the legitimate argument that the PTO should allow folks with a computer science degree to register — especially with the rise in the number of inventions related to computer science. “[A]n institutional bias exists within the PTO that prevents software-savvy individuals from registering with the Office.”


This is a serious problem. A lot of patent lawyers who are proponents of CII simply don't understand how computational machines work; some ignorantly deny that computer programs (algorithms) can be encoded as mathematical formulae. That patent clerks at the USPTO fail to perceive it is a true travesty, not to mention similar problems among policy-makers, including Justices at SCOTUS.

Law Pundit has published this new post about a patent troll called George Selden. He is a patent lawyer who claimed a monopoly on the automobile. This sounds like some story out of science fiction, but it's not.

The fix in which modern technology finds itself today as the result of our ill-conceived and smothering patent laws is unfortunately nothing new, but was a battle fought more than a century ago over patent rights to the invention of the automobile.

Thankfully for the future development of the automobile industry, legal common sense only prevailed due to the tenacity of Henry Ford, who prevailed over "virtual" inventor George B. Selden upon appeal, in a story in which the otherwise unknown Selden is the main character.


Rambus, which is a shameful aggressor (greatly loathed by many of its peers in industry), keeps ramming the bus [pun] into just about every technology company in the area, using submarine patents [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. How destructive. It is now targeting Big Blue again:

Chip designer Rambus Inc (RMBS.O) has sued International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N), seeking to reverse a federal agency finding that its patent for a memory system was not infringed.


Pubpat.org (Public Patent Foundation or PUBPAT for short) offers a glimpse at the fact that, once we depart from the field of technology, patents may also deal with life and death very directly. We call these death patents and HIV/AIDS drugs are invaluable examples of that:

The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) announced today that it has formally asked the United States Patent and Trademark Office to reexamine eight patents held by Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) relating to the critical HIV/AIDS drug ritonavir, which is marketed by the Chicago, Illinois pharmaceutical giant under the name brand Norvir.

In its requests, PUBPAT submitted previously unforeseen prior art proving that the patents should not have been granted. PUBPAT also cited recent Federal Circuit case law that supports its detailed arguments for nullification of the eight patents.


MPEG-LA, which is spearheaded by a patent troll, has not only a codec monopoly; it has begun forming an equally-despicable strategy in areas such as the above (which makes it a huge threat to life, not just to culture).

Simon Phipps, who recently said that "MPEG-LA is a parasite using standards bodies as its host, whether they want it or not," addresses the latest stunt from this parasite [1, 2] and heralds that "H.264 Is Not The Sort Of Free That Matters" (same as the argument we made last week). Simon says:

The statement actually takes a lot of unpacking, probably intentionally so. H.264 is the widely-used "MP4" video format created many years ago by the Motion Picture Experts Group, MPEG. Those "experts" were mostly associated with various corporations and research labs, and the international standard they created was heavily encumbered with patents.

Realising that no-one much would use the standard if each user had to go negotiate patent licensing terms with a large number of separate parties, the patent-holders wisely decided to get together outside the scope of MPEG and create the "MPEG Licensing Authority", MPEG-LA.

Despite the name, MPEG-LA is nothing to do with the standards group itself. It's a for-profit company devoted to making the patent problem worse in the name of making it "easier to handle" by creating patent pools for all sorts of other technology areas, beyond the media formats they already police. Go looking for the exact terms under which they are offering "free use" in this case and you'll find they are not keen for you to know. The best available are summaries that are sketchy about the exact definitions of terms.


Last but not least, yesterday we wrote about the i4i case, noting that Microsoft decided to appeal (again). As Masnick correctly points out in his long and informative headline, "Microsoft, Who Supports Software Patents, Now Asks Supreme Court To Help It Against Patent Holder" (great news if this is indeed going to SCOTUS).

Microsoft, who has become a strongly pro-software patent company (despite Bill Gates' old claim that patents would have harmed the software industry in the early days), is finding out (yet again) that such a stance can come back to bite you. We've already covered the somewhat ridiculous lawsuit that Microsoft faced from a small Canadian company, i4i, who claimed a patent (5,787,449) on an XML editing feature. Microsoft lost the lawsuit, and the court issued an injunction against Microsoft and claimed that the feature was worth an astounding $98 per copy where the feature was used.


Well, it's even more interesting than that because Microsoft's infringement was deliberate and it involved stabbing a 'partner' in the back. Can Microsoft help abolish software patents right now? Highly doubtful, but this case against Microsoft might contribute towards this goal.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
 
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually
Participation in Cancel Culture Detrimental to One's Career
A cautionary tale
Passion Wins
we've increased the number of birds we feed to 100+
How Solderpunk and Sean Conner Started Gemini Protocol (and, Collectively, Geminispace) Back in 2019
Based on the "official" history
Arduino is Now a Patent Bully (Qualcomm)
Qualcomm has just bought Arduino
Many Years of Microsoft Cancellations and Faked (Acquired) Revenue "Growth"
XBox is basically the "next Skype"
The Comment TheLayoff.com Has Just Censored for Criticising a Ridiculous Puff Piece of IBM Management
If comments get censored for their "style" rather than their substance, then society will be worse off
The Power of Writing Down Facts
The more we write and publish, the more people will know what happened
Microsoft's Non-Denying Denial About XBox's Death is Already Being Shattered to Pieces
Like Microsoft's 'open' 'hey hi', heralding meaningless non-committing agreements with AMD is little more than vapourware
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT Joins the Slopfarms Club
Slopfarms gonna slop
Links 07/10/2025: Privacy at Risk, GAFAM Remains Off the Hook
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/10/2025: Modern Retro Console Idea and Batch vs Bash
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2025: International Criminal Court (ICC) Convicts Ali Kushayb; Moroccan Imprisoned for 'Offensive' Shirt
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2025: EU' Chat Control is Back, US Cracks Down on Democracy
Links for the day
Techrights Pursues Justice and Truth Because, Without Those, Society Descends Into Chaos
most people reject dogma and pseudoscience
Upcoming Talks by Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Göteborg, and Rome
Join with him and share the software
Something Bad is Happening in the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
The latest OSI blog post is from a Microsoft operative and a few weeks ago the Executive Director left
TLS 1.3 Dominates Geminispace (99% of Known Capsules)
it's nowadays safe to assume almost every capsule can handle TLS 1.3
Why soylentnews.org Has Been Having Technical Difficulties Lately
The network has been going up and down quite a lot this past week
A Statement Against Violence
The facts are on our side
They've Run Out of Things to Rebrand or Label as "AI"
The next few years will be interesting because if Microsoft lays off tens of thousands of workers each year, there won't be much left except mountains of debt and dying brands
The Register MS is Still Being Paid to Participate in the "AI" Ponzi Scheme Which Will Crash the Economy
The Register MS is hoping to get lucky by tricking people into a scam
Richard Stallman Confirms His Talk in Göteborg This Coming Friday
"The hosts say that the list will not be given to the state"
Most of the "Linux" Results This Morning in Google News Are LLM Slop From the Same Slopfarm, Plagiarising Phoronix
The main question is, does Google even care at this point?
Gemini Links 07/10/2025: Civil War and "Goodbye Web"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 06, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 06, 2025