Bonum Certa Men Certa

'Defensive' Software Patents Useless Against Patent Trolls

Paperwork cannot and will not stop patent trolls

Form for taxpapers



Summary: Reminder of a universal truism that falsifies common talking points of software patents apologists like Twitter, Google, and Red Hat

The quickly-declining technology company known as Twitter (it very rapidly loses traffic, i.e. its lifeblood, this year, or ~20% in the past 3 months alone based on Alexa, which says roughly the same thing about Facebook) had announced patent de-weaponisation efforts [1, 2] before getting some software patents. It recently put to practice its promise, as was covered here last week. Here is how a good news site explained it: "Twitter has put its previously announced defensive patent plan into action, applying its Innovators Patent Agreement (IPA) to US patent 8,448,084. The IPA was introduced by Twitter in early 2012 as a way to keep companies from using patents assigned to them offensively by agreeing with the creators of the patented technology to only use them defensively. Under the agreement a company wishing to use a patent offensively would have to get the written permission of the creator to do so. These provisions also hold if the patent is sold on to another company."



What Twitter does here is misguided. It loses focus on technology and instead focuses on wasteful activities that would not even defend the company. It's what declining companies such as Microsoft do when they lose momentum and are unable to strategise a comeback. Trolls would not be deterred by any patent portfolio. Twitter helps legitimise software patents in the same way Red Hat and Google do (IBM, by contrast, openly promotes software patenting, too), never mind the openwashing of these patents.

Since Red Hat paid trolls (potentially a proxy of Microsoft) some days ago and trolls cannot be counter-sued using patents, what good are Red Hat's patents? I am still waiting to hear from Red Hat's lawyers about it, but I am not holding my breath. They are secretive, the very opposite of open.

Meanwhile, reveals a rant about MPEG-LA, trolls continue to harm everyone using software patents. These trolls are a proxy (no secret about it, this is stated in their official Web sites) for companies like Microsoft and Apple. Steve Pociask, President of the American Consumer Institute, publishes "Consumer tech rip-off from patent pools" and it says: "That is right. Some manufactures and inventors must pay a license fee per device for the MPEG-2 patent pool that represents a collection of over 1,000 patents related to audio and video compression technology.

"These patents are required by manufactures to make such common household devices as personal computers, digital set-top boxes, DVD players, digital television sets, digital cameras video game systems and digital video recorders.

"Most of the MPEG-2 patents have expired, but they still remain bundled with the other essential patents.

"Instead of manufacturers being able to freely to use these expired patents without paying any royalty associated with them, Denver Colorado-based MPEG LA, the MPEG-2 administrator, continues to collect the full licensing fees from manufacturers who pass these fees along to – you guessed it – you, in the form of higher prices on these tech goods.

"The patent pool was started, with the early nod from the Department of Justice (DOJ), when the number of patents stood at 1,048. By the middle of June 2013, the number will have fallen to 416."

Remember that these are all software patents, which therefore are not even legitimate in most of the world. This is worse than a ripoff; it is extortion. Behind MPEG-LA there are companies like Microsoft and Apple. This is a loophole. MPEG-LA cannot be sued, as it simply has no products to sue over.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The 'Culture Wars' in Free Software Have Gone Out of Control
Social control media amplifies such utterly infantile discourse
10 Out of 10: RMS Attracts Massive Audience in Göteborg, Sweden (All Seats Occupied, Some People Standing)
a 55-second clip of his talk
The Lawsuit by Clients of Brett Wilson LLP Against Brett Wilson LLP is Officially On, It is Progressing, The 'Experts' Pick Outside Law Firms (RPC and Mills & Reeve) to Spare Them From Litigants in Person
So it is probably quite potent
Slopwatch: Plagiarism and "Linux" Articles by Bots
Sites that do this won't survive; many of them rely on slop services (suppliers) that will cease to exist after the bubble bursts
 
Geminispace is Very Large
The word continues to spread and the number of participants grows
Teaser: To Compensate for the Fact Our Clients Are Terrible Human Beings Who Strangle Women (While on Microsoft's Payroll) and We Get Paid by Mystery Parties We Bombard You and Your Wife With Almost 10 Kilograms of Legal Papers
If you can't win an argument, then drown the other side with papers?
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, This Time During National Day Holiday
This time it's China again
Staying Happy in Times of Crackdowns on Civil Society
Optimism in this sort of "new reality" or "new normal" seems like something for the irrational person
"Nobel" Exploited Posthumously for "AI" Hype, Now They Do the Same With "Quantum"
ere have been many jokes about "Nobel" for peace (often granted to pro-war people) and a fake one for "Economics" (establishment propaganda)
Distinguished Lecture by Richard Stallman This Coming Monday in Rome
After "Free software, Crucial for Freedom in a Digital World"
Links 10/10/2025: Putin Admits Russia Downed Azerbaijan Airlines Jet, More New Heat Records
Links for the day
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually