09.30.11

Gemini version available ♊︎

Microsoft’s Patent Troll (IV) Helps Increase Microsoft Tax, BSA Changes Intellectual Monopoly Laws

Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents at 8:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Nathan Myhrvold

Summary: More analysis of Microsoft’s ‘Android tax’, the involvement of its former CTO in patent extortion, and lobbying through front groups

TECHRIGHTS has spent several years covering and warning about Microsoft’s aspirations to tax GNU/Linux — an effort that began in 2006 when Microsoft signed a patent deal with Novell.

Novell has been sold and broken down into components that include SUSE. It did not take long for SUSE to become Microsoft sponsored (through cash injection), which works well for Microsoft because SUSE legitimises a ‘Linux tax’. This is a very simple fact that Jos from OpenSUSE has been arguing with me about. It was actually Jan from Red Hat who came out in my support in the face of heckling from Jos, whose position is understandable given the company which pays his salary. Here he is speaking about openMind, an event which we are told has been hijacked or exploited by Microsoft and its friends to change perceptions (our source asked not to be quoted verbatim on this). “At the (pretty cool) openMind conference in Tampere, Finland,” writes Jos, “it came up that a big advantage of Tumbleweed is that it always has the latest hardware support. Thanks to the rolling release, Tumbleweed comes with the latest Linux kernel which plays a big part of the hardware support of a Linux distro.”

Just bear in mind that today’s openMind is a pro-Microsoft event (as much as it can be given the “open”) and this includes the Nokia which is tied to Microsoft and obviously suffers more massive layoffs this week, like most companies that enter Microsoft’s nest. A couple of days ago we learned that following Microsoft’s intervention inside Nokia, Intel too was moving away from MeeGo and establishing Tizen with the Linux Foundation instead. This is a success story to Microsoft, which managed to paralyse a great GNU/Linux distribution for mobile devices, vehicles, etc. That’s just the way Microsoft operates. When it comes to Android, Microsoft has become a major parasite and SJVN writes that: “According to a Goldman Sachs‘ tech analyst note, as reported by Business Insider, that’s exactly how Microsoft is cashing in on Android. Goldman Sachs estimates that Microsoft will pick up $444-million in revenue from its Android patent deals for fiscal year 2012. For those of you playing at home, that’s $3-$6 per Android device. Yes, that may well be more than Microsoft makes from its own troubled mobile operating systems.” For code it never wrote at all; this cost is being passed to customers.

“This is a success story to Microsoft, which managed to paralyse a great GNU/Linux distribution for mobile devices, vehicles, etc.”In a new article by Richard Hillesley he calls it a protection racket and the foreword explains: “Software patents are a racket for the protection of incumbent cartels and monopolies against innovation and competition, says Richard Hillesley

“The casual observer could be excused for believing that litigation and teams of lawyers were the largest part of technical innovation in the computing industries, such has been the part played by litigation and threats of litigation around patents, copyrights and trademarks during recent years.

“Litigation has become a highly profitable way of doing business. Big money can be made for a relatively small outlay and litigation predicated around the “ownership” of ideas, patents and copyrights requires minimal investment in staff, research, manufacture or the trading of hard goods.

“In fact all these activities have become superfluous in some areas of industry where possession of “Intellectual Property” has become the primary objective of trading. Pick the right target to make a claim against and the chances are that they will pay up before it gets to court. Throw enough patents at the competition, and you can slow them down. Make a patent stick and you can make a lot of money.”

More people need to change this emerging status quo, which normalises atrocious behaviour and makes it “business as usual”. As ECT put it, “Samsung, Microsoft Deal Tugs at the Rug Under Google’s Feet” because Google was never even given the chance to defend its own platform from this extortion. We wrote about it yesterday and showed that media distortion makes things worse, with Microsoft boosters portraying it as an acceptable transaction and a matter of obeying the law rather than actually breaking it. Larry Dignan writes that “Microsoft cements position as Android’s patent toll collector” and in curious spin from Murdoch’s press it is claimed that “Samsung also will work with Microsoft to develop smartphones and tablets based on Microsoft’s Windows software.”

“More people need to change this emerging status quo, which normalises atrocious behaviour and makes it “business as usual”.”The article contains a lot of euphemistic language and regarding Windows at Samsung, this is not new. Microsoft did the same thing after it had signed the Android patent deal with HTC. Here is an example of a very poor headline from the corporate press. Microsoft goes around the room threading to sue companies and this is somehow being portrayed as a legitimate practice.

Meanwhile it turns out that Wistron, which Microsoft extorted recently, is now coughing out money to Microsoft’s patent troll as well. To quote: “Wistron Corporation and Intellectual Ventures (IV®) announced today that they entered into a license agreement. The deal provides Wistron with access to IV’s extensive patent portfolio of more than 35,000 IP assets, and also provides them membership in IV’s IP-for-Defense program. Wistron is among the world’s largest original design manufacturer (ODM) companies producing information communications technology (ICT) products.”

This is just a troll to be paid to the world’s biggest patent troll, Intellectual Ventures. Why should this be tolerated? Where is the value to the industry and to customers?

As pointed out in a new comment on an article about Google, “software patents are doing more harm then google is. remove the patent system and go back to software copyrights and all will be well again. I find it very funny that microsoft railed against software patents early on until they had acquired a large amount of them, then they rallied for software patents. now they are getting bit by their own snake as software patents are killing innovation.

“If Google had given equally to republicans, this issue would never have come up.”

This whole patenting frenzy at Microsoft can even see in this week’s headlines, some of which say that Microsoft strives to get more patent monopolies on phones [1, 2]. As we claimed earlier in the week, Microsoft’s business plan is to sell mobile patent licences, not mobile phones. This would essentially make Microsoft qualify as a patent troll, as soon as it drops actual products due to poor sales.

For better coverage of the Samsung deal, see this Linux site. It is not saturated with euphemisms and spin.

Microsoft has been relying on a shift in law — a shift that puts great focus on patents and copyrights maximisation, to the extent where one can claim to own someone else’s code for merely achieving something similar. Based on the following new report, lobbying from the Microsoft front group, Business Software Alliance, has been considerable enough to reach about half a million dollars in publicly-disclosed spendings (the real numbers are usually orders of magnitude higher):

The Business Software Alliance spent $440,000 on lobbying on issues relating to cloud computing and other topics in the second quarter, down slightly from the year before, according to disclosure documents filed with Congress.

The organization lobbied Congress and various government agencies on issues concerning online privacy, patent issues, and criminal punishments for violation copyrights, it said in a disclosure report it filed July 20 with the House clerk’s office. The alliance is an industry group that has an extensive focus on fighting software piracy.

In our Cablegate collection we have amassed some examples of BSA lobbying, some of which is indirect. This helps set the scene for Microsoft’s patent extortion, not just so-called ‘piracy’ crackdowns.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Links 27/03/2023: Twitter Source Code Published (But Not Intentionally)

    Links for the day



  2. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 26, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, March 26, 2023



  3. Links 26/03/2023: OpenMandriva ROME 23.03, Texinfo 7.0.3, and KBibTeX 0.10.0

    Links for the day



  4. The World Wide Web is a Cesspit of Misinformation. Let's Do Something About It.

    It would be nice to make the Web a safer space for information and accuracy (actual facts) rather than a “Safe Space” for oversensitive companies and powerful people who cannot tolerate criticism; The Web needs to become more like today's Gemini, free of corporate influence and all other forms of covert nuisance



  5. Ryan Farmer: I’m Back After WordPress.com Deleted My Blog Over the Weekend

    Reprinted with permission from Ryan



  6. Civil Liberties Threatened Online and Offline

    A “society of sheeple” (a term used by Richard Stallman last week in his speech) is being “herded” online and offline; the video covers examples both online and offline, the latter being absence of ATMs or lack of properly-functioning ATMs (a growing problem lately, at least where I live)



  7. Techrights Develops Free Software to Separate the Wheat From the Chaff

    In order to separate the wheat from the chaff we’ve been working on simple, modular tools that process news and help curate the Web, basically removing the noise to squeeze out the signal



  8. Links 26/03/2023: MidnightBSD 3.0 and FreeBSD 13.2 RC4

    Links for the day



  9. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 25, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, March 25, 2023



  10. Links 26/03/2023: More TikTok Bans

    Links for the day



  11. Links 25/03/2023: Gordon Moore (of Moore's Law) is Dead

    Links for the day



  12. Links 25/03/2023: Decade of Docker, Azure Broken Again

    Links for the day



  13. [Meme] Money Deducted in Payslips, But Nothing in Pensions

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ has stolen money from staff (in secret)



  14. IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 24, 2023

    IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 24, 2023



  15. The Corporate Media is Not Reporting Large-Scale Microsoft Layoffs (Too Busy With Chaffbot Puff Pieces), Leaks Required to Prove That More Layoffs Are Happening

    Just as we noted days ago, there are yet more Microsoft layoffs, but the mainstream media gets bribed to go “gaga” over vapourware and chaffbots (making chaff like “Bill Gates Says” pieces) instead of reporting actual news about Microsoft



  16. Sirius 'Open Source' Pensiongate: Time to Issue a Warrant of Arrest and Extradite the Fake 'Founder' of Sirius

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ is collapsing, but that does not mean that it can dodge accountability for crimes (e.g. money that it silently stole from its staff since at least 12 years ago)



  17. Links 24/03/2023: Microsoft's Fall on the Web and Many New Videos

    Links for the day



  18. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 23, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, March 23, 2023



  19. Links 24/03/2023: Social Control Media Bans Advancing

    Links for the day



  20. Links 24/03/2023: GNU Grep 3.10 and Microsoft Accenture in a Freefall

    Links for the day



  21. Links 23/03/2023: RSS Guard 4.3.3 and OpenBSD Webzine

    Links for the day



  22. Experiencing 15 Years of LibrePlanet Celebration Firsthand as a Volunteer: 2023 - Charting the Course

    Article by Marcia K Wilbur



  23. [Meme] Grabinski the Opportunity

    Reports of European Patents being invalidated (judges do not tolerate fake patents) have become so common that a kangaroo court becomes a matter of urgency for the EPO‘s Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos; will the EU and the EPO’s Administrative Council go along with it, helping to cover up more than a decade of profound corruption?



  24. Union Syndicale Fédérale Cautions the EPO's Administrative Council About Initiating an Illegal Kangaroo Court System for Patents (UPC) While EPO Breaks Laws and Sponsors the Ukraine Invasion

    Union Syndicale Fédérale (USF) is once again speaking out in support of the staff union of Europe's second-largest institution, which lacks oversight and governance because of profound corruption and regulatory capture



  25. Investigation Underway: Sirius 'Open Source' Embezzled/Stole Money, Robbed Its Own Staff

    In light of new developments and some progress in an investigation of Sirius ‘Open Source’ (for fraud!) we take stock of where things stand



  26. [Meme] Sirius 'Open Source' Pensions: Schemes or Scams? Giving a Bad Name to Open Source...

    What Sirius ‘Open Source’ did to its staff is rightly treated as a criminal matter; we know who the perpetrators are



  27. Sirius 'Open Source' Under Investigation for Pension Fraud, Several Pension Providers Examine the Facts

    2 pension providers are looking into Sirius ‘Open Source’, a company that defrauded its own staff; stay tuned as there’s lots more to come. Is this good representation for “Open Source”? From a company that had many high-profile clients in the public sector?



  28. Links 23/03/2023: Sparky 2023.03 Special Editions and SUSE Changes CEO (Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen)

    Links for the day



  29. Links 23/03/2023: Linux 6.2.8 and XWayland 23.1.0

    Links for the day



  30. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 22, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, March 22, 2023


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts