Bonum Certa Men Certa

With the Patent Office, State Serves Corporations, Not People

Statue of liberty and NYC skyline



Summary: How the USPTO helps support monopolies rather than the interests of individual people

THE OIN has just grown a little bigger while Microsoft, which OIN strives to defend Linux from [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], is attacking through the court system and more Web sites are complaining about it:

Synchronising email between different devices seems like a great idea, but don't think of synching it between the web and a mobile device. Why not? Because, thanks to software patents, Microsoft owns that idea.


Apple too is attacking Linux and OIN has hardly said anything on this matter. Here is the updated lawsuits chart which includes Apple's new lawsuit:

...we've updated to put Apple's (AAPL) countersuit against Motorola (MOT) late Friday into context.


What enables those lawsuits is software patents and in particular the USPTO, which was taken over by interests of lawyers and monopolists that employ them. Corporations have no rights, people do. But in a distorted system where lobbyists set the rules (see the previous post), it is all upside down sometimes. The USPTO, for example, is being operated like a business whose goal is to sell (grant) as many patents as possible rather than function as a filter like it's supposed to and Groklaw links to an "Independent Inventors Conference" from the USPTO, which only helps show this blatant fascination with monopolies, perfumed to some degree with words like "independent" or "inventors" rather than "monopoly" and "barriers".

It is not just the USPTO which gets it wrong. NASA turns out to be pursuing patents rather than better technology (not the same thing) and it is auctioning software patents right now. A lot of the press treats this as interesting or somewhat banal, but a much better headline says that "NASA Auctions off Federally Funded Patents", as we pointed out days ago. What is NASA thinking?

In a patent trolls haven some days ago we found out that even the Supreme Court does a poor job by using entertainment/fantasy as a source:

Then, if you jump down to Footnote 21, you get:
See STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (Paramount Pictures 1982). The film references several works of classic literature, none more prominently than A Tale of Two Cities. Spock gives Admiral Kirk an antique copy as a birthday present, and the film itself is bookended with the book's opening and closing passages. Most memorable, of course, is Spock's famous line from his moment of sacrifice: "Don't grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh . . ." to which Kirk replies, "the needs of the few."


These laws may be written by film enthusiasts and amateurs, who are at least honest enough to acknowledge that mythical extraterrestrial have a clue about those who the system is supposed to serve.

Over in India, software patents has been a serious issue for years and The Hindu has this new article about business method patents (which are somewhat related to software patents). It says:

Computer programs or software is stated explicitly as non-patentable subject matter within the Indian patent office, unless the invention is implemented along with appropriate hardware. In most cases, implementations of software are not independent of the hardware that they run on (I have not seen a program run in vacuum thus far, vacuum tubes are different) and one way of interpreting the law in this case (which is why India has granted several software patents, yet, this subject remains wrapped in many urban myths) is that anything except a pure API is patentable. That patents are a gross overarching right over what is essentially a copyright in the case of software is correct for purposes of argument but seldom hold during defence in any court of law. Thus, we have introduced two separate elements, business methods (which by themselves stand un-patentable) and the software that implements them (which when coupled with a machine, is patentable).


Microsoft et al. would love to legitimise software patents everywhere in the world. It matters a lot now that racketeering [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] gets used to prevent large companies from selling products with GNU and Linux.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
 
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: Thinkpad and Pinephone
Links for the day
Links 22/07/2025: "Blog Restart" and Microsoft Clobbered by “ToolShell"
Links for the day
Global Warming and Global GAFAM Energy-Wasting
Burn more money (borrowed, loans), then hope the waste will somehow translate into profit?
No Compliance With the European Patent Convention (EPC) at the European Patent Office (EPO)
It's about preventing competition against this autocracy
Blue-Collar Trolls vs White-Collar Trolls
Examples of white-collar trolls
Apple Vision Pro Failed So Badly That Its Sales Are About 2,000 Times Smaller Than iPhone Sales
What's left for Apple to offer other than hype?
To Millions of People "Year of the Linux Desktop" Was Some Time in the 1990s (Bootable GNU/Linux as a Complete Operating System is Over 33 in Age)
In some sense, "year of the Linux desktop" was 33 years ago
Make No Assumptions (or Demands) About the Screen Resolution Used by Other People
There are usability aspects, aside from accessibility aspects
Why Wayland (and XWayland) Won't Solve the Key Problem It Proclaims to be Tackling (the Same Is True for Rust)
The problem isn't Wayland per se but the false promises and efforts to force everybody to move to it whilst insulting or demonising everyone who won't play along
They Don't Tell Us that 'Digitalisation' (Now Sold as "Hey Hi") Just Means Customers Become Unpaid Staff and Are Made Accountable
People are being conditioned to associate technology with something undesirable, at times even unbearable
Diplomatic Immunity Should Not Exist for Anybody
The EPO in its current form gradually 'normalises' the end of European democracy
Brett Wilson LLP Stopped Sending Me Papers When I Showed It had Sent Me Over 5 Kilograms of Legal Papers
A week ago we lodged our third lawsuit
Microsoft Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns Became the New Normal at Microsoft
Microsoft mass layoffs became a topic of everyday media coverage since May
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Has Layoffs and Microsoft Gaming/Entertainment Division Has an Uncertain Future
it's good to see all those horrible things crashing and burning
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 21, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 21, 2025
FSF "Raised Almost $139,000 During This Summer Campaign"
"Thank you for making a stand against dystopia!"
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: VPS Exploited and Fear of View
Links for the day
LLM Bots vs Techrights
Slows things down a bit
New Publication Sheds Lights on Abuse of Workers at the European Patent Office (EPO)
Put in simple terms, they're killing the Office, harming remaining staff, try to hire rubber-stampers
Links 21/07/2025: Hardware, Health, and Imperialism
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/07/2025: "When Buying Isn't Owning" and "CMS Special Edition"
Links for the day
Links 21/07/2025: Indie Web and Toxic Politics
Links for the day
[Meme] Microsoft Lawyers Throwing Stones in Glass Houses
threatened me with bankruptcy
Google "AI Overview" is Not AI and Not Overview
do not be misled; what Google does isn't smart, it's just ripping off the sites it already crawled for as long as 27 years
Making the Case to Dump Microsoft and GAFAM for National and Digital Sovereignty
"Sovereignty is difficult"
The Tactics of the Opposition (Microsoft Lunduke): Associate With K00ks, Throw in Vaccines to Muddy the Water
Who stands to gain from this?
Europe's Second-Largest Institution (EPO) and Largest Patent Monopoly Office Needs More Transparency, Not Less Transparency
In the EPO, what good are elections when one candidate literally bribes all the voters?
How Not to Report News About Microsoft
This pattern of misreporting is so widespread that it's hard to believe it's not intentional
Computer Science is Under Attack, They Want Everyone to be a Consumer
If people can no longer acquire Computer Science education and real Computer Science experience, they will not know how to control their own digital destiny or emancipate the very same universities that now control the syllabus and instead of teaching Computer Science encourage the outsourcing of systems
The Best Tools Are the Simplest Tools
There's a hidden message here about the merits of sticking with X
Ofcom Online Safety Group Speaks of Protecting Women Online, Will Brett Wilson LLP Ever Listen?
They've essentially became like the Taliban's "burka police"
Social Control Media Relies on Advertisers, So It'll Always Be Hostile Towards Free Software
Sales, sales, sales
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 20, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 20, 2025
Fragmentation of Data
Life is too short to "hoard" data
In Defence of "Spinning Rust"
Just because something is "old" (or older) doesn't mean it ought to become extinct
Using Free Software to Prepare Legal Documents
LibreOffice is openly complaining about OOXML as an obstacle
Tech and Technology Are Not the Same Anymore
"Are you into tech, Sir?"
Our Articles About SLAPPs Receive Recognition and Interest
This week we shall continue writing about the 3 lawsuits we filed