Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent Troll Hopewell Culture and Design Uses Patent From Microsoft Gold Partner in Order to Tax Apple and Linux/Android

Monitor and keyboard



Summary: Microsoft and pet trolls want to carve out a profit from every desktop, tablet, phone etc. even if it does not run Windows; Rick Falkvinge, who used to work for Microosft, calls for the abolishment of all patents

THE ridiculous patent system in the United States is under growing pressure to be scraped or radically reformed. It has become an international laughing stock and at times a national embarrassment. Not every idea deserves a monopoly and some would say that not a single idea deserves a monopoly enforced by the government. According to this new report, Linux-based devices from Motorola are going to be taxed because of some terrible patent:



A Motorola Inc. unit on Tuesday became the latest electronics maker to settle a patent holder's Texas infringement suit over the double-clicking technology used in the Droid and Droid X smartphones and other popular mobile devices.


To provide some context and background, it is the infamous "Double-Click Lawsuit", which is hinged on a patent from a Microsoft Gold Partner, namely patent #7,171,625: “Double-clicking a point-and-click user interface apparatus to enable a new interaction with content represented by.”

While the USPTO continues to granted stupid software patents, patent trolls will get hold of these and tax the market at the expense of every buyer and developer. In a sane system, patent trolls should have no right to exist; they are parasites that are also sometimes used as litigation proxies for larger entities. They are like the mafia mob.

In other news of interest, "Man Tries to Patent His 'Godly Powers'" and as Rui Seabra put it: "Someone tell me this is an anti #swpat prank and not a for real lunatic..."

Here is the cited post:

Godly Powers: A Mystical US Patent Application



I’m going to take a break today from visiting obscure search systems (and writing long 2-part posts) to share with you a delightful patent application that I hold very close to my heart. I usually don’t spend my spare time reading the image file wrappers of US patent applications in PAIR, but I will openly admit that I spent a solid two hours one Saturday morning reading the entire file for US Application No. 11/161,345.


Guess what it's all about?

No wonder people wish not to even bother reviewing patents. This whole system is ripe for abuse and it empowers abusers.

If it was up to Rick Falkvinge of Pirate Party fame (the original one, in Sweden), there would be no patents at all (software or otherwise). He quotes startup Investors as saying that “Patents are a cancer” and reiterates his points that he made in his talks before (we shared them back in 2009):

One oft-questioned objective of the Pirate Parties is the dismantlement of the patent system, as in scrapping the concept altogether. Patents are a remnant from the guild era that has never served to advance the rate of innovations, but always to brake it in favor of incumbent industries. It should have been killed when free enterprise laws were enacted worldwide in mid-1850s, but wasn’t.

The patent system delayed the Industrial Revolution by 30 years, broadcast radio by five to ten years, powered flight by 25 years… I could go on and on. And today, it’s no different. The situation certainly isn’t helped by clueless politicians who measure “innovation” as “number of filed patent applications”, which is about as useful as measuring “economic growth” as “number of smashed windows”. It’s not just unrelated, the correlation is strongly negative.

This is important: the patent system hasn’t derailed just recently. It was always a retardant on innovation. It’s just that the pace of ideas has picked up, and so this fact has become much more apparent — and much more damaging.


This truthful statement is somewhat of a taboo in the circles of patent lawyers, who are wagging this dog (USPTO) by its tail. Time for reform or reboot, no?

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Register MS (Situation Publishing) is Participating in a Ponzi Scheme
The market in "tech" seems awful when a lot of it sells a fraud and journalism about this market is part of the fraud
Mass Layoffs in Starbucks... and Society Loses Nothing of Value
Society might even be better off if Starbucks shuts down entirely
Matthew J. Garrett Behaved in a Similar Fashion to 4Chan and Kiwi Farms
Opposites attract? Are they opposites at all?
Drew DeVault Suggests "CoC Enhancement", Starts Trolling Projects in Microsoft GitHub
And it backfires immediately
 
Links 27/09/2025: Australia Might Ban Microsoft GitHub for Young People, Likely Illegal Executive Order Turns TikTok Into Cheeto Propaganda
Links for the day
Repeating the Lies to Promote a Ponzi Scheme is Not OK Because "Many Other Sites Do This" (Including Slopfarms)
They already work on the next Ponzi scheme
Glimmer of Hope: More People Realise and Come to Accept "AI" is Just a Giant, Elaborate Ponzi/Pyramid Scheme That Will Leave Everyone Worse Off (Except the "Top of the Pyramid")
quoting Einhorn and some comments
Do Your Job and Demand Your Compensation - But in That Order.
We'll do our best to convince the Judge to award all costs to us (lawyers, barrister, LIP bills etc.) plus judgements against them, for abusive litigation and needless suffering associated with that abuse
Like Nazi Germany and Volkswagen
Tell us all about "freedom" when your government runs a Ponzi scheme
Microsoft Sponsored This Man, Microsoft Sponsored His Behaviour (and He Controls Microsoft)
They get what they paid for
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 26, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 26, 2025
He Talks Too Much, He Says Dumb Things
only British when that suits him
Slopwatch: FUD and Plagiarism (Working Against Linux) Promoted and Rewarded by Google News
Shame on Google News
Reminder: We're Unloading Some Publications to Tux Machines
About 15 years ago I was struggling to keep up with TechDirt
The E-mail Protocol is for Text
bad netiquette
Gemini Links 26/09/2025: Slop in OpenStreetMap and MOPML (My Own Private Markup Language)
Links for the day
Links 26/09/2025: More Provocations Against NATO by Russia (Near Alaska, USA), Microsoft Booster Accenture Has Mass Layoffs
Links for the day
Links 26/09/2025: Hardware, Security, Health, and Nuclear Armament
Links for the day
Links 26/09/2025: "Digital Fatigue" and Slop Frenzy (Hype) Ruining Work Productivity, Culture, Languages
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Unwilling to Disclose or Explain How 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Pays for His SLAPPs Against Us (He Cannot Afford These), So We Are Escalating
Escalated in the British authorities
What 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Could Learn From Jimmy Kimmel About the 'Streisand Effect'
Lawyering up is risky and is usually doesn't work
Linux is Replacing Apple
Apple is money down the drain. Not only are the gadgets overpriced; they cost a lot to maintain and keep going over time
"We don't have that kind of relationship with Microsoft. The only public key that every UEFI firmware is guaranteed to have is Microsoft's, and only Microsoft owns the private key."
This is how to sabotage GNU/Linux distros that Microsoft does not control
Slopwatch: linuxconfig.org, linuxsecurity.com, and Google's Promotion of the Worst and Most Prolific Slopfarms
Over in Google News it has been quite chaotic this past day
Gemini Links 26/09/2025: Reading RSS Feeds, ROOPHLOCH 202
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 25, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 25, 2025
Links 25/09/2025: More European Airports Shut Down Due to What Seems Like Russian Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/09/2025: Amiga Revived and Hackers (UTF-8)
Links for the day
Purchasing Concert Tickets in 2025 in Manchester: The "Modern" Experience
I recently spent a couple of days here testing the "terrain" in order to better understand how large public venues, for concerts rather than sporting events like football, currently "work"
Links 25/09/2025: French Unions Want Another Strike, Super Typhoon Ragasa Kills Many
Links for the day
Microsoft 'Secure Boot' and Shim as Barrier or Obstacle to New GNU/Linux Users Trying to Escape Microsoft
Just as intended all along
Lovers and Haters
Always beware hate preachers and demagogues (or how they frame issues or whose fault they distract from)
Focusing on What People Have in Common Instead of Killing and Cancelling One Another
Men and women of both "wings" stand to gain a lot by working together on common interests
'Cancel Culture' Isn't About Enforcing Ethics (and It's Done by People on the Right, Not "The Leftists")
Smarter folks would leave social control media
Russia's Attack on Europe (and NATO) Will Worsen Censorship and Corruption in Europe
Can we still debate issues that predate the invasion of Crimea?
Lawyers Should Permanently Lose Their Licence (and Worse) for Using Chatbots in Legal Work
They not only waste people's money and time. They pollute the literature with falsehoods. They commit perjury. [...] Brett Wilson LLP sent the Judge nearly 1,000 pages of material (mostly mine, copied without proper permission) shortly before a short Hearing, which lasted less than an hour
GAFAM and MATA (Mythical, Metaphor) as Explained by analognowhere.com
They're instruments of suppression that sponsor the oppressor
We've Already Mentioned Who Nowadays Funds Garrett's SLAPP Against Us (Not Garrett), Let's Examine Who Sponsored His Litigation Partner (Other Than Microsoft Salaries There's a Buddy of Bill Gates)
it's alleged that the Serial Strangler from Microsoft got money from him
Florian Müller: Using Software Patents to Attack Software Developers, Agitate Against Patent Reform
He also promotes attacks on the German Constitution and laws
Reliance on Typepad Seems to Have Doomed the Voice of Software Patents and Patent Maximalists in PatentDocs
Follow the money
UEFI 'Secure Boot' is Potential Mayhem to the Environment (Older and Leaner Distros Stop Working)
creating new problems, disguised as "solutions" to problems that do not exist
Sometimes 'Cancel Culture' Backfires Badly
There's no such thing as "too much" coverage
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Links 25/09/2025: Jimmy Kimmel Returns to Air (With Limitations) and London Stansted Airport Latest to Have Incident (Fire)
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake Articles, SPAM With Slop, and Google News Directs People to Read Slopfarms
why does Google News insist on still linking to prolific slopfarms?
Gemini Links 25/09/2025: New Game for Gemini Protocol, Eleven, and Network Solutions Woes
Links for the day