Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents Roundup: Microsoft Patents PR, Red Hat/Groklaw's Response, and Apple's Slide to Unlock Thermonuclear War

Rainbow troll



Summary: Microsoft pays more lobbyists to encourage software patents, Microsoft Jack defends racketeering, and Apple's lust for patents becomes a serious issue

WITH THE seminal goal of pointing out and countering FUD, we are still naming people whom people should watch out for because of their funding sources or agenda.



One publisher that we mention quite a lot is IDG (parent of IDC). It appoints Microsoft boosters to run an "open source" blog and it shows. Julie, for example, is their latest writer to do a Ubuntu FUD marathon, succeeding Tony in a sense (he did that some months ago for 30 consecutive days). Julie also runs the Microsoft blog and has run it for years. It's where she comes from and where she still writes primarily. Not so long ago she trolled Jim Zemlin in her headline. We wish we could keep the credibility index up to date, but people whom we add to it choose to feel insulted and then smear us, which makes it a somewhat unwise strategy. Julie is not alone in this. The pro-Microsoft bloggers from IDG (pretending to be pro-FOSS) carry on bashing Ubuntu in another new IDG marathon of Ubuntu FUD and now Android FUD too (using patents against Android). Expect more of the same. We wrote about those writers before, One of those Microsoft boosters from the same network is now infecting Ars Technica. People who are unfamiliar with his past repertoire will not understand that there is bias there. Unsuspecting readers tend to be unaware of affiliations and they can only ever assume that a writer on a particular topic has no conflict of interest. It is bad enough when publication get misused for promoting one's agenda; it's even worse when these get misused to attack the opposition's agenda, under the veil of "objectivity" or "journalism". This applies to both sides and there is no hypocrisy here. Most people probably know that Intellectual Ventures, for example, is very much tied to Microsoft and also to Lodsys, whose attacks by proxy on Android are not being overlooked by Groklaw, whose new editor does have a little conflict of interest because of the funding sources of Peer to Patent. None of this is secret and in his latest post he tackles Lodsys' attack on Android (among others), summarising as follows:



New York Times v. Lodsys

This case has been dismissed without prejudice by the consent of the parties and by order of the court. New York Times v. Lodsys (N.D. Ill.) (38 [PDF; Text]) The Eastern District of Texas case between these parties remains pending.

OpinionLab v. Lodsys

As with the New York Times case, the parties have stipulated to a dismissal with prejudice of this case, OpinionLab v. Lodsys (N.D. Ill.). (45 [PDF; Text]) The Eastern District of Texas case between these parties remains pending.

ForeSee v. Lodsys

Instead of a dismissal, in ForeSee v. Lodsys (N.D. Ill.) the parties have stipulated to a transfer of venue of this case to the Eastern District of Wisconsin where several other DJ actions remain pending against Lodsys. (45 [PDF; Text]) As a part of the stipulation, Lodsys has retained its right to seek a further transfer of venue to the E.D. Texas where Lodsys's complaint against ForeSee remains pending. The other interesting point in this stipulation is that Lodsys has stipulated that ForeSee's DJ action could have been brought in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, which should help the other DJ plaintiffs in that venue (Wolfram, RightNow).

LivePerson v. Lodsys

The one case still remaining in the E.D. of Illinois is the LivePerson declaratory judgment action against Lodsys.


Over in Europe, following the distasteful decision in the UK [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] there are British patent lawyers who smell the pounds and encircle software developers like vultures, saying:

This piece is not about what happens should you lose your mind and decide to perform a zany, dangerous practical joke at the Hearing Officer's expense. No, the "mental acts" the IPKat is concerned with are those mentioned in Article 52(2)(c) EPC among the exclusions from patentability, which were recently considered in the Halliburton decision from HHJ Birss QC (reported here).


British patent lawyers will find new victims to leech in their parasitical ways. It is sad, but there is not much that can be done about it other than protest. The plutocrats still write the laws that govern our lives and if multinationals along with their lawyers (lawmakers and politicians are usually lawyers) decide to screw over 99% of the population, they will.

This is not pure speculation. Watch how Microsoft pays Microsoft Florian to help them bamboozle politicians, gaming the system for some money. Yes, Microsoft pays him to do this (a bit like passing a bribe for the work he has done, under the guise of "consulting contract") and the same goes for the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which we now learn is lobbying again for software patents in Europe.

According to the president of the FFII, the BSA makes its move:

BSA lobbyist writing "studies" for the European Commission on software patents and standards ur1.ca/5i2it


The BSA is a Microsoft front group. There is also this subsequent update:

BSA lobbyist Benoit Muller writing "studies" for the European Commission on software patents and standards ur1.ca/5i2it


Microsoft Jack -- just like Microsoft's lobbyists -- promotes Microsoft racketeering in blog comments in ZDNet right now. Apparently these people are not taught ethics in journalism school, so the cult of Microsoft comes first. We oughtn't allow people like Microsoft Jack 'normalise' racketeering, making it described as a standard procedure in the "real world". Some of those Microsoft lobbyists have a hard task of making crime seem like "business as usual".

This is something that we wrote about earlier this week and last week. It's like some sort of PR campaign and Jay from the 451 Group tries to look at the glass half full by writing this iffy response:

There’s been a lot of attention on the amount of money Microsoft is making from Android, including Microsoft’s own proclamations. Maybe it’s just that I’m more of a fan of Linux and open source software, or maybe I’m overly focused on the lawsuits and threats against Android, but I see serious downsides to all of those dollars for Microsoft from Android.

I believe Microsoft’s strategy to pursue patent licensing deals rather than sue, as we’ve seen from Apple, may prove to be a more effective strategy. Rather than limit or destroy Android, Microsoft is actually supporting its growth, meaning more Android devices and users in the market. Since it’s making so much money from Android, Microsoft may be less interested in limiting or attacking it, so that’s a benefit to Android. However, I do see some significant drawbacks to Microsoft’s Android strategy, all of which serve to limit Microsoft’s opportunity in the future.


Agree or disagree with Jay, what Microsoft does is extortion and it should be reported for the authorities to handle as soon as possible. This really requires US intervention because Microsoft is a US-based company. But need we hold our breath while the vast majority of Americans believe that money buys results and companies do whatever they want with their elected/appointed government?

We keep seeing patent promotion in press releases, vanity posts and announcements, realising perhaps that while the corporate press (with propaganda like this from Bloomberg) help reinforces an industry where ideas are"property" and are to be monopolised, then "sold" or "licensed". This is the same corporate press which calls sharing "piracy" and refuses to accept that there is another perspective which is legitimate and even plausible.

There is news right now about Klausner (a patent troll) suing Oracle and HP over ideas. Red Hat is meanwhile sharing some thoughts on the software patents situation in the United States. Its blogger/staff writes:

Last week, I participated in a panel discussion at the Eastern District of Texas/Federal Circuit Joint Bench-Bar Conference in Dallas. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is the specialized appellate court for patent cases. My panel was on corporate counsel opinions of patent litigation and recent judicial and legislative patent reform. The discussion was moderated by Judge Richard Linn of the Federal Circuit. It was a great opportunity to present some views of the patent system, and to provide options for improvement to the very people who can enact judicial change.

In my remarks, I pointed out that while there have been some significant judicial changes over the last five years (regarding damages, injunctions, obviousness, indirect infringement, and willfulness), much is still needed. As my colleague Rob Tiller has repeatedly discussed software patents exact considerable costs to innovation in this country. Although we are still waging the war on patent coverage for software, other battles are also in play, which I present here.


Tiller and his colleague are sadly enough not proposing the elimination of all software patents. Maybe they just don't want to aim this high in an event which is clearly affected by the cult of patents, to which Apple sites mostly subscribe (because the cult of Apple says so). Apple's patents boosters still worship Steve Jobs' patents while Android sites voice concerns about Apple's "slide to lock" patent, arguing: "Using the words “convoluted” or “confusing” to describe the patent battles going on in the mobile space might be going a little easy on them. Everywhere it seems companies are suing one another over anything they can think of, while others collect license fees from device and software makers just looking to avoid ending up in court. Just about everyone owns a small number of the patents necessary to create a smartphone or a tablet, and they’re all constantly at war over them.

"But a new patent just awarded to Apple brings a whole new level of pain to the game. According to a story from ZDnet, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office just issued Apple a patent for a design feature that’s found on every iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, as well as just about every single Android device currently in existence: “slide to unlock.”

"This is the feature on touchscreen devices that requires users to “unlock” the device by sliding a thumb over a specific section of the screen, where it looks like they’re moving a button from one position to another. The slide feature has been widely adopted because it’s both simple and genius – it’s hard to accidentally unlock your phone in your pocket and start making inadvertent calls with the “slide to unlock” feature in place."

Apple has gone too far and Techrights takes this very seriously because Steve Jobs' made it his top goal to obliterate Android/Linux. For a guy who disowned his daughter by lying about being "sterile", Steve Jobs is far too widely admired. His real legacy, as far as we are concerned, is a "thermonuclear" patent war that harms Linux.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

[Video] Richard Stallman's Talk in Sweden, Attended by Nearly 700 People, is Now Online
The Web page is in Swedish, but the talk is in English
Coping With the Site Going More Mainstream
Fame is no laughing matter
21 Pages in Less Than 7 Hours is No Joking Matter
We've become a lot more effective and efficient
Generation Chaff - Phase V: Censorship of Dissent (Painted as Harassment or Terrorism)
Censorship is all around us now
Generation Chaff - Phase IV: Apps Only Few Companies Decide On
Tools are being collectively confiscated, under the premise or false prospect of "security"
 
The Serial Slopper Starts Up - or Restarts - His Plagiarism Machine (LLMs)
Serial Sloppers like these don't belong in news sites. That's why he got sacked by BetaNews.
Links 24/10/2025: Esperanto Music History, Anxiety, and New Portals
Links for the day
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity.com, Linux Journal, and Pet Slopfarms of Google News
Why does Google News still advance these fake sites to the top of search results?
Links 24/10/2025: Inequality Grows, Billion-Dollar Scam Center Industry
Links for the day
Links 24/10/2025: "Independent Media in Cambodia is Collapsing" and Serious F5 Breach
Links for the day
They Never 'Put Down' Corporations
There are "pests" that are traded in Wall Street
Correct Information is a Valued Asset in the Age of Slopfarms and Public Relations (PR) or Spin
Publishing suppressed facts is never easy
The Register MS Continues to Bag Money to Promote a Ponzi Scheme, Even Money From China
Today in the front page
analytics.usa.gov: The Only Supported Version of Windows (This Past Week) is Only Used by About 13.9% of People in the US, the Home Base of Windows
Even Vista 7 is still used more
Rust is Very Secure
If only Rust itself is secure
Who Will be Held Accountable for Breaking Ubuntu by Imposing Rust on Otherwise-Functional Programs, in Effect Replacing GNU With Proprietary Microsoft (GitHub)?
they're practical people who merely point out that a bunch of buffoons not only ruin Ubuntu but also every future distro based on Ubuntu
Generation Chaff - Phase VIII: In Summary
Like "Science" with a capital "S", what we see here commercial interests usurping everything
Generation Chaff - Phase VII: Curtailing Alternative Media
There was always an obligation - a collective duty of sorts - to uphold independent journalism
Generation Chaff - Phase VI: Centralisation of Information (X, Cheetok/Fentanylware)
Would you trust information when controlled by such people?
Generation Chaff - Phase III: Slop and Plagiarism
A lot of the current so-called 'economy' is built upon false valuations
Generation Chaff - Phase II: "Cloud", Blockchains and Other Hype
For those of us who turned down those propositions there was a struggle; we needed to justify not having skinnerboxes or "social" accounts in some site run by a private company
Generation Chaff - Phase I: Social Control Media
IRC predates the Web
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 23, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 23, 2025
More Clues Shed on Collapse of Microsoft XBox
XBox is basically circling down the drain as Microsoft implements 2-3 waves of layoffs each month
'Vibe Coding' Doesn't Work
In a lot of ways, so-called 'Vibe Coding' is already considered vapourware or a passing fad promoted in the media by managers who try to justify mass layoffs, especially ridding companies of "very expensive" software engineers
Links 24/10/2025: Microsoft's Killing of XBox Connected to Revenue/Profit Problems, "How Elon Musk Ruined Twitter"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/10/2025: 86,400 Seconds and "Society's Task"
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Google News and Slopfarms That Relay Nonsense From LLMs
Google News, which once prioritised or used to care about provenance and quality, is feeding slopfarms
Links 23/10/2025: More Health Concerns Over Dumb Chatbots (LLMs) and "Talking Cars" as Latest Buzz
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/10/2025: Daylight Savings Time and Duration Shorthand
Links for the day
Links 23/10/2025: LLM 'Hallucinations' (Defects) in Practical Code 'Generation', China Becomes More Economically and Technologically Independent
Links for the day
Why We Support Richard Stallman and You Probably Should Too
It's not about being "Richard Stallman fan", it is about maintaining the right to hold positions (on technology) like his
Linux Foundation Uses LLM Slop to Promote Microsoft in Linux.com (Again), Rendering It a Linux-Hostile Slopfarm
Openwashing with slop by "Linux.com Editorial Staff", which basically seems to be a bot
Some Large German Media Covers Richard Stallman's Talks in Germany Earlier This Week
LLM-based chatbots are just "bullshit generators" (as he has long called them)
Links 23/10/2025: Windows TCO Galore and "The Internet Is Going to Break Again"
Links for the day
Trouble in Red Hat/IBM and a Retreat to Ponzi Economics in Search of Wall Street Market Heist
Would you invest your life savings in this kind of crap?
Who Asked Software in the Public Interest (SPI) for a Refund? ($100,000, Resulting in Losses of $267,201 in 12 Months, Highest-Ever Losses)
The IRS does not reveal who or what's tied to this refund (or the cause/reason)
Social engineering attack: Debian voted to trick you on binary blobs
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Techrights Will Always Stand for Women's Rights
We even invest money - personal savings that it - in our principles
Certified Lawyers Should Know Better (Than to Intimidate Us With Man Who Drives on Motorcycle Through a Really Bad Storm Between Distant Cities, Then Collects Photos of Our Home)
Mentioning someone was in prison for bad things isn't a crime, it's a public service
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble is Already Imploding
"ChatGPT Usage Has Peaked and Is Now Declining, New Data Finds"
The So-called "Sexy" Buckets (AI, Quantum) Cannot Save IBM From Reality, Shares Tank
"No matter how much financial hocus-pocus they use to reclassify revenues to land in the "sexy" buckets (AI, Quantum), it still smells old and musty - just like this company."
Paul Krugman is Wrong About the Scope of Mass Layoffs in the United States
A few years ago society was accelerating its journey towards feudalism, boosted by COVID-19
Links 23/10/2025: Proprietary Blunders and CISA's Latest Disclosure of Holes
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/10/2025: Fast Past (F1), 99.9% Uptime
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 22, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Slopwatch: Google News is Promoting Fake 'Articles' About Fake Xubuntu, Fake Articles About Replacing Windows With GNU/Linux
The quality of the Web deteriorates and unless someone cleans up the mess, real sites will lose an incentive to produce anything
When "AI Layoffs" Mean Layoffs Due to the "AI" Bubble Popping
many people that are laid off by Microsoft claim to be specialists in "AI"
Mysterious grant forfeited, $100,000 from Software in the Public Interest accounts 2023
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Evidence: bullying, student union behaviour: Armijn Hemel's FSFE resignation
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Evidence: psychological abuse, stalking, Galia Mancheva, Susanne Eiswirt ignored by FSFE judgment for Matthias Kirschner
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Helping FSFE scam victims and conference organisers
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Nigerian fraud in FSFE constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Worrying and Amusing Stories of "Clown Computing" Gone Awry
Many of these disasters could be avoided
Links 22/10/2025: Amazon Plans to Replace Workers With Robotics, AWS and Clown Computing in General Ridiculed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/10/2025: Niri Completely Changes Multitasking and Overview of Diff-ers
Links for the day
Links 22/10/2025: Study on Misinformation by Slop and Heavily Debt-Sabbled Microsoft OpenAI (ClosedSlop) Uses "Browser" as Gimmick/Distraction
Links for the day
They've Already Spent Close to a Million Dollars on Lawyers and Sent Us About 50 KG of Legal Papers (Sponsored by Mysterious Third Party) to Try to Censor Techrights, Without Success
They try to overcompensate with sheer volume for a lack of solid, clear arguments (we are the victims here)
12 Months Ago the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Officially Went 'Tag-Team'
We're actually sort of flattered or proud that such despicable people are so desperate to censor us
"Cloud Computing" Was Always a Joke, But This Week Was the Punchline
Maybe stop following tech trends and fashions
"Cloud Computing" Does Not Mean Safety
Fault tolerance is related to the notion of software freedom
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 21, 2025
The Fall of Windows: From Something to Nothing
Of course Microsoft will pretend everything is fine and "just trust the hey hi" (AI)