10.26.10

Google and Linux/Android Under Attack by Microsoft Folks (More Lawsuits), Mobbyists and Boosters Jubilant

Posted in Site News at 2:57 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Report from the trial of Microsoft’s co-founder’s Traul [sic] Allen versus Google et al.; Microsoft’s partner Gemalto sues Google over Android

GOOGLE HAS been having a tough time in Land of the Fee, where lots of patent trolls love to charge a fee using software patents that had been blessed by the USPTO and often changed hands. Fortunately, not the whole world had yet been ‘infected’ by the same sort of distorted patent law and judging by world economics, it is possible that the USPTO will adapt to the rest of the world, rather than it working the other way around (software patents dying internationally instead of going international).

As we pointed out before, Microsoft is a major breeding ground for patent trolls and Traul Allen is one of its creations/exports. Traul decided to sue Google back in August and Groklaw has early details about the case:

Google et al respond to Paul Allen with Motions to Dismiss, Sever – A Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On

[...]

All month there has been a flurry of activity on the part of the defendants in Paul Allen’s patent infringement litigation, Interval Licensing v. AOL, et al, against Google, Apple, Yahoo! and pretty much everyone else you can think of — mostly all the companies have been busy getting lawyered up. I see Yahoo! has added Morrison & Foerster’s Michael A. Jacobs to its legal team, so I am getting quite excited about what we may get to watch.

The Linux-powered Android has just been sued by yet another company. It is called Gemalto and it’s a buddy of Microsoft, based on its own Web site [1, 2] (they recently collaborated around Microsoft Forefront, which died a month later). The Register says:

Security chip maker Gemalto has launched its own attack on Android, claiming to own patents essential to the use of Java as a mobile OS.

The suit, filed in patent-friendly Texas, accuses Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung of infringing Gemalto’s patents which, according to the company, cover techniques essential to the use of a high-level language such as Java on a device with limited resources.

Microsoft and Apple have also sued Google over Android; Oracle sued Google for the Java-like part of Android alone.

It is worth seeing the reaction from mobbyists who use this to spread FUD about Linux/Android. One of them is also linking to stuff like this one tweet from O’Gara (FUD galore) where she summarises with: “freebie operating system is quite a little suit magnet ”

For those who do not know O’Gara, read older posts such as:

In short, O’Gara is one of those longtime foes of Linux and people who work with Microsoft PR. O’Gara can be considered one of the mobbyists because she went as far as stalking and harassing Microsoft critics. She is part of the mob. And speaking of mobbyists, do not believe them for a second about the status of software patents around the world. As hinted in the previous post, they seemingly try to spread defeatism among the Free software developers/community by saying that software patents got their way around the world. The matter of fact is, Amazon is still struggling (for many years!) with its controversial ‘one-click’ patent which it wants to spread to Canada and to Europe. We wrote about this patent last week [1, 2, 3] because it gets a lot of people involved and they protest against software patents. █

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9 Comments

twitter said,

October 26, 2010 at 4:21 pm

The reemergence of the disgraced, pseudo journalist is an amazing proof that the current patent attacks against free software are just a continuation of Microsoft’s long standing judicial extortion of free software users and competitors. The only thing more perfect would be a few words from Laura Didio

This reminds me that I should brush up my Poison Pens Collection.

twitter Reply:
October 27th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
I did not have to wait long for perfection. Laura Didio is quoted in this CNN puff piece about the death of Microsoft as a “consumer brand”.

“In this age, the race really is to the swift. You cannot afford to be an hour late or a dollar short,” says Laura DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC. “Now the biggest question is: Can they make it in the 21st century and compete with Google and Apple?” Some influential analysts think not.

The rest of the article is devoted to downplaying the obvious irrelevance and reduced profitability of the company. They run through the littiny of failures, Zune, IE, Vista but pump up supposed business purchases of Windows 7 as evidence of hope for the company. They do point out that people prefer other program when given the choice at work, but GNU/Linux and other free software is not mentioned.

Laura Didio’s revival as an analyst is a little less surprising than the revival of O’Gara. Didio was a principle promoter of the Amitiville Horror fraud back in the 1970s. Her Wikipedia article suffered a ghostly deletion but most of the info is still in the wikibin and the fun parts are:

While still in collage and working as a News Assistant and News Writer at Channel 5 News in NYC, DiDio contacted Kathy and Lee Lutz who agreed to let the then Metromedia (now Fox News) news outlet have exclusive access to film a seance in the house. The seance was organized by Connecticut based paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The Warrens invited a number of other psychics to the seance including representatives from Duke University’s School of Parapsychology. DiDio served as a producer for the evening’s events and assisted reporter Marvin Scott in his reporting of the seance, which was televised on the Channel 5 10 O’Clock News broadcast. She later also accompanied well-known paranormal investigator Hans Holzer into the house to document a follow-up seance he did using trance medium Ethel Myers-Johnson. The events surrounding the alleged haunting at 112 Ocean Ave, Amityville, NY served as the basis for a book “The Amityville Horror” by Jay Anson and several movies. The topic remains one of intense interest to this day. DiDio has been interviewed frequently on the subject, but she herself has never published any articles or reports on “The Amityville Horror.” DiDio believes that something extraordinary did happen to the Lutzes to cause them to flee 112 Ocean Ave, Amityville after only 30 days.

A true story! After that, she went on to her career as a Microsoft booster, which was crowned by pretending the SCO case had merit. Seven years after signing the SCO NDA and claiming the now failed copyright extortion was on solid ground, it seems she may rise from the discredited and promote again. A happy Halloween, indeed.

Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
October 27th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
We covered this Amityville ‘fame’ in 2008.

twitter Reply:
October 27th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Nice work, both articles you cite are now gone. The Wikibin article claims, “DiDio also says that she did not see or experience anything out of the ordinary during her several visits to the Amityville house.” That is clearly contradicted by the dissapeared articles. One of the quotes lives on here and here.

Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
October 27th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
‘Web rot’ must be good for Laura Didio’s career.
Eruaran said,

October 26, 2010 at 11:37 pm

John Pilger appropriately calls it “corporate journalism”.

Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
October 27th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
I like the term. I’ll use it more.

twitter Reply:
October 28th, 2010 at 8:11 am
I like other terms better term. “Corporate journalists” elevates Microsoft’s mouth pieces and insults real journalists. Microsoft, as we know from their court published emails, has gone as far as to create “controlled press” where every single word is approved and actively works to “subvert” real journalism. Microsoft’s controlled press should not be treated with respect because it was established to betray readers. Journalists are supposed to be independent reporters of noteable events. Microsoft’s controlled press is just another arm of the dishonest company’s “technical evangelism” which it considers “war”.

Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
October 28th, 2010 at 8:34 am
“Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever…” –Microsoft [PDF]