Summary: Microsoft’s extortion of Android leads to passage of patents to Google, Apple loses its cases against Android, and Oracle too is gradually losing the argument against Dalvik

WE recently addressed the transfer of patents from OIN member IBM to OIN member Google (it is reported on as though it’s a sale) and we continue to see this sort of arms trade being done under a cloak of secrecy. One conspiracy against another, eh? To quote this new example:

Cryptography Research, Inc. (CRI), a division of Rambus, Inc., and CPU Technology, Inc. have signed a patent license agreement regarding the use of CRI’s patented innovations in CPU Tech products. This agreement covers the use of CRI’s patented countermeasures to differential power analysis (DPA) attacks for CPU Tech’s tamper-resistant products, including the Acalis® family of secure processors. This license also covers software developed by CPU Tech customers when executing on licensed CPU Tech chips.

These are software-related deals that involve submarine patents. Rambus, the company behind all this, is an atrocious aggressor [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. In many ways, years ago we compared the practices of Rambus to those of Microsoft, which no longer makes stuff that can sell; instead, Microsoft wants to compel people to pay up for something they do not want and never chose. Right now Microsoft is trying to force buyers of Android phones to pay Microsoft for a “licence” and LG signed the latest deal of this kind. Here are some interesting observations or theories from Muktware:

Is Android Part Of Microsoft’ Windows Phone License?

[...]

Let’s see what Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez has to say, “We are pleased to have built upon our longstanding relationship with LG to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.”

This statement is very important: “built upon our longstanding relationship”. If we look at Microsoft’s Android deals you will notice a pattern. Microsoft has succeeded in cracking deals with those players who are already Microsoft customers. Samsung, LG, HTC are all Microsoft partners as they use Microsoft OS in their devices. Why is Microsoft not excited about telling the world that their ‘longtime partners’ Samsung, LG or HTC will be putting Windows on their phones? Because, the Android deals could very well be the Windows deals painted as Android deals.

Here is a hypothetical scenario:
Microsoft Executives to LG: “We want you to commit to putting Windows Phone OS on x number of your devices. If you do commit that we won’t raise any Linux patent issues. In fact with Windows Phone License you will also get Android protection.”

What will LG do? Its a win win situation for them. They are getting Android protection for free with Windows phone license. Why will they even consider raising issues about patents.

Now how to hide the fact that it was a Windows phone deal, ‘sign an NDA’ so that the rest of the world won’t know the reality.

Ghabuntu explains why Microsoft’s WP7 is failing and notes that:

5. The OEMs just love Android: Why? Because it gives them the power to differentiate themselves completely from their competitors. Given its open nature, it is always easy and safe to model Android into anything one can think of, an example being what Amazon did with it on its Kindle Fire tablets. Which company would not love such an offering? It’s little wonder that even the home pages of almost all the device makers readily feature Android phones, with WP7 a few clicks down the menu. I don’t know the extent of customization Microsoft allows the OEMs, but it sure will not be on the scale Google gives them with Android.

Dr. Moody explains why on tablets too it is Android which is likely to win:

You don’t have to be a marketing genius or industry pundit to foresee that tablets will be an extremely hot sector in 2012. The launch of Apple’s iPad in 2010 largely defined the category, just as the launch of the iPhone defined a new kind of smartphone in 2007; in 2012 we will probably begin to see Android tablets start to gain major market share just as Android smartphones have done this year.

Currently, the tablet is something of a cross between the hipster tech toy of choice and a trivially easy-to-use computing device for couch potatoes. But those early sectors are incidental to the tablet’s real potential to revolutionize education, particularly in emerging economies.

The devices are perfect: they are compact, connect to the Net wirelessly, run off battery power for hours and can be used by children and adults alike with little or no training. There’s just one problem, of course: the typical tablet’s high-end pricing – hundreds of dollars – places it so far out of reach for most of the world’s population that it might as well not exist for them. That is what makes India’s Aakash tablet – basic cost around $50, but only $37 for Indian students thanks to a government subsidy – so remarkable, and so important.

For those who think that Apple can just sue Android out of existence, here is some news [1, 2, 3] that should worry Apple because “[t]he US International Trade Commission (ITC) has ruled against Apple in its patent suit against rival mobile vendor Motorola.”

The CPTN members (Novell patents) just cannot seem to keep Android away, no matter the number of lawsuits they launch along with predictions (FUD) of doom and gloom. As Mr. Pogson shows:

It’s always fun to see the school-yard bully take his lumps:

* ITC: Motorola does not violate Apple patents
* Oracle v. Google – Rock, Meet Hard Place
* Barnes & Noble Opposes Microsoft’s Motion for SJ on Patent Misuse Defense ~pj

Here is the latest from Groklaw: [via]

Judge Alsup is also not buying Oracle’s minimalist argument on how long the trial will take. He says it will be a two-month trial. And a possible date for the trial is a moving target because the rest of Judge Alsup’s docket continues to fill up, i.e., other trials continue to be calendared, further delaying the scheduling of this trial.

Of course, a further delay has the added impact of allowing the reexaminations before the USPTO to run their course, and the last we looked those reexaminations were not favoring Oracle.

Rock, meet hard place. In the other filing of the day we see Google’s (final) supplemental brief [PDF; Text] in support of its Motion in Limine No. 3 – the motion to exclude portions of the Cockburn report. Although this brief is not particularly timely (for us as readers) given that Judge Alsup has already ruled on the matter, it is noteworthy with respect to the main thrust of Google’s argument, i.e., challenging Oracle for continuing to ignore the actual Google arguments and trekking off on unrelated and irrelevant matters. No doubt we have seen this behavior before by Oracle counsel, but what reinforces it in this instance is the fact that Judge Alsup recognizes the Oracle behavior himself. Thus, the ruling against Oracle on the Cockburn report.

However, Google goes even further in this brief. Google argues that Cockburn never investigated or understood the real deal on the table between Sun and Google back in 2006. In a supplemental filing Google provides a Sun slide presentation [PDF] on the discussions, and it is fascinating. It would appear from the presentation that Sun wanted the deal with Google badly. It is also clear that the deal on the table would have been Java compatible, thus undercutting the fragmentation argument that Oracle keeps making to support a higher damages claim.

Oracle has other ongoing patent cases based on this new report:

JDA Software powered its way through 2011 to post decent financial numbers despite the legal battles it fought with Oracle over patent infringements and a lawsuit it inherited with the acquisition of i2 in August 2010.

We keep insisting that Oracle may have attacked Android because Steve Jobs is Larry Ellison’s best friend. Oracle, Apple, and Microsoft are all CPTN members, which ties it all together with Novell and its sellout again. We were right all along about those patents. █

Summary: Apple gets unwanted attention for putting back doors in its software in order for authorities to intrude; more antitrust lawsuits (class action) brought against Apple

APPLE received a lot of flack (hot fire even) in recent day after it turned out that it had set up a backdoor for governments, validating many suspicions that we wrote about before. To quote Slashdot:

“In a tweet early this morning, cybersecurity researcher Christopher Soghoian pointed to an internal memo of India’s Military Intelligence that has been liberated by hackers and posted on the Net. The memo suggests that, “in exchange for the Indian market presence” mobile device manufacturers, including RIM, Nokia, and Apple (collectively defined in the document as “RINOA”) have agreed to provide backdoor access on their devices. The Indian government then “utilized backdoors provided by RINOA” to intercept internal emails of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a U.S. government body with a mandate to monitor, investigate and report to Congress on ‘the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship’ between the U.S. and China. Manan Kakkar, an Indian blogger for ZDNet, has also picked up the story and writes that it may be the fruits of an earlier hack of Symantec. If Apple is providing governments with a backdoor to iOS, can we assume that they have also done so with Mac OS X?”

This is an important development because with documents in our hands it will no longer be possible for Apple to duck serious allegations. Apple has more bad publicity coming as another antitrust class action is brought against it:

Four American iPhone users have launched a class action suit against Apple over its exclusive deals with carriers in the country and the way it runs the App Store.

Apple partnered with US carrier AT&T when it first brought the Jesus-mobe to stores in 2007, in a five-year exclusivity agreement that tied users to an AT&T SIM card with no option to use another network.

AT&T conspired with the government to spy, oppress and censor too. We wrote about this in previous years [1, 2, 3]. So AT&T and Apple have more in common than the common man (or woman) may realise. █

Summary: The WordPerfect case with its imminent future is reported to have approached settlement, but experts beg to differ

THE Novell of Mr. Noorda is said to have entered settlement talks with Microsoft and according to Groklaw Microsoft made a motion to dismiss. Based on the filings that Pamela Jones shows:

Microsoft intends to renew its motion to dismiss as a matter of law Novell’s antitrust case in Novell v. Microsoft. It sent a letter [PDF] to Judge Frederick Motz informing him of its intention, saying it will file by January 13th. I gather it would prefer to avoid a second jury trial. TechFlash reports Microsoft lawyers will claim that Novell lacks sufficient evidence to support its claims. And IDG’s John Ribeiro provides more details on Network World. So, no settlement, as Law.com reports: “Despite the close call, Microsoft’s lawyers say they won’t pay to make the case go away. ‘There are no settlement discussions,’ Sullivan & Cromwell partner David Tulchin told us. ‘Microsoft believes firmly that Novell’s claims have no merit,’ he added.”

Microsoft typically pays its victims to just disappear, but perhaps not this time. █

Direct link to deposition video | Full set of the deposition videos (including Ogg Theora versions)

Summary: Bill Gates’ crimes come back to haunt him, but he refuses to admit what things he previously wrote can show rather clearly — that he decided to break the competitors’ products rather than compete

MR. GATES was expected to be brought back to the courtroom. This finally happened some days ago and there is video coverage too:

Mr. Pogson points out and highlights some of Gates’ own words (as found in Comes vs. Microsoft):

I have decided that we should not publish these extensions. We should wait until we have a way to do a high level of integration that will be harder for the likes of Notes, Wordperfect to achieve, and which will give Office a real advantage. [...] Having the Office team really think through the information intensive scenarios, and be a demanding client of systems is absolutely critical to our future success. We can’t compete with Lotus and Wordperfect/Novell without this.

Now, look at the exhibits shared by Groklaw and some of the reports from there:

We had a reporter there at the Novell v. Microsoft antitrust trial on Friday, and I gather it was quite a day. As you probably saw from the Salt Lake Tribune article we put in News Picks yesterday, the judge, U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz, had set aside five hours Friday to consider a Microsoft motion on whether to stop the trial now, on the alleged ground that Novell had failed to present a case. That kind of motion is typical after the plaintiff finishes presenting its case in most civil trials. What was different was that the judge took it seriously enough to even listen to extended oral argument. He does seem to have a Microsoft tilt, frankly.

By the way, Bill Gates is expected to testify on Monday. The trial is scheduled to continue on Monday, but the judge took the arguments on the Microsoft motion under advisement, and he could still rule to stop the trial if he wants to. And from all I’ve seen, he wants to. But if that happens, it won’t be before Gates testifies. It seems Novell found a crucial bit of evidence that the judge was not expecting.

Here is another one from Groklaw:

The media reports that Bill Gates’ testimony was that they decided to make the API change because of worry about breakage, but Novell responds to that and the other excuses amply.

Novell even points out that the judge is bound by the appeals court. They did rule that this case had to go to the jury, after all. It’s the law of the case. Novell seems to be setting things up so the record is complete and clear for an appeal, should one prove necessary.

The Microsoft boosters cannot quite spin Gates out of this one. Yes, Microsoft needed to shoot Novell’s horse, as Pamela Jones once put it. Techrights‘ Ryan quotes an article as saying: “He [Gates] testified later that Microsoft had to dump a technical feature that would have supported WordPerfect because he feared it would crash the operating system.”

Based on the exhibits we have, this is nonsense. The statement from this article is a lie. To quote other bits:

Microsoft’s Windows 95 rollout presented the most challenges in the company’s history, leading to several last-minute changes to technical features that would no longer support a rival software maker’s word processor, Bill Gates testified Monday in a $1 billion antitrust lawsuit filed by the creator of WordPerfect.

As Homer put it in USENET, “Microsoft’s Godfather [is] back in court”

Quoting his message through The Register: “Gates: Novell are sore losers, Word trounced WordPerfect Microsoft supremo testifies at antitrust hearing

“Gates told a court in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Monday that his Redmond minions “worked super-hard” on Word. He added: “It was a ground-breaking piece of work, and it was very well received when we got it done.”"

Homer’s response is that “they worked “super-hard” … by poaching Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie from Xerox, to “rewrite” Xerox Bravo, the first GUI word processor, then rebranded it as Microsoft’s “innovation”.

“Then they worked “super-hard” to break cross-platform software, by releasing deliberately broken APIs, whilst using undocumented APIs for their own software, just like they did with Novell, Netscape, Real Networks and anyone else who dared to support anything but just Windows.

“Both the DOJ and the EU Commission have already exposed Microsoft’s criminal business methods in great detail, producing a swath of court evidence, most of which originates from within Microsoft, so why does this even need to go to trial again? It should be an open and shut case.

“Here’s a good summary [PDF]”

Here is another article about it:

Attorneys for Novell are expected to cross-examine Microsoft chairman Bill Gates Monday in a federal courthouse in Utah, where jurors are hearing Novell’s claim that the software giant used anticompetitive means to quash Word competitor WordPerfect and Excel rival Quattro Pro.

U.S. district court judge J. Frederick Motz, who is presiding over the case in Salt Lake City, may also rule Monday on Microsoft’s request, submitted Friday, to dismiss the case.

Novell sued Microsoft in 2004, claiming the software maker “deliberately targeted and destroyed” its WordPerfect word processor and Quattro spreadsheet franchises because they were compatible with non-Windows operating systems. Novell also charged that Microsoft banished WordPerfect from the Windows 95 rollout in an effort to drive the application into obscurity.

While it is true that this was ages ago, no justice was ever restored and Gates has done some other atrocious things since then. He is a user, a self-glorifying one (reputation laundering). █

Ray Noorda, who died three weeks before Novell became partly Microsoft controlled

Summary: Clarifications about the Novell vs. Microsoft case and what it’s really all about (or who it really involves)

A FEW days ago we wrote about antitrust cases and about Novell's case against Microsoft in particular. It is not about today’s Novell, but about Noorda’s Novell. Noorda died almost exactly 5 years ago, leaving a legacy that teaches what a corrupt company Microsoft really is (we have some court exhibits in our wiki). It’s about a different Novell that existed long ago and was run under completely different reign/leadership. The Novell of the past 5 years was run jointly by Microsoft and now by Attachmate, which is a top partner of Microsoft (apropos, watch some Novell-related videos from Attachmate’s BrainShare [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] and some about Groupwise, such as this new one).

SUSE has been decoupled from Novell and it is doing its own rituals, pretending that SUSE itself is not in Microsoft’s pockets (even though it is, especially since July) and it’s no wonder that there are delays. The project has been suffering delays for quite some time and even frequency of releases got lowered a couple of years ago. It is not looking too good. OpenSUSE only matters for marketing purposes. It makes Microsoft's GNU/Linux distribution be portrayed as "open" and "community-driven". But moving on a bit, it seems as though Mr. Gates will have to leave his PR/lobbying/investment operations for a day or two to explain/justify his crime to the courts. As Pogson puts it: “Remembering the past should help us avoid a repetition. We shall see whether or not the message was learned. It seems the old “partners” of M$ are continuing to go along. It will take the new power houses of Google and Android/Linux to finish the battle between good and evil in IT.” He also wrote about “harassing customers” of Android, which is something we addressed the other day.

A lot of the coverage of the case against Microsoft comes from Pamela Jones, who is very familiar with this case. So aside from the continued focus on the Oracle vs. Google case and analysis of patent trolls from Professor Webbink (who already highlighted the connection to Intellectual Ventures, Microsoft’s patent troll), Groklaw covers the Novell case in two parts (so far). Pogson remarks on Gates’ role while Jones writes:

Today was the first day of the trial in Novell v. Microsoft, the antitrust trial over WordPerfect and Quattro Pro. Novell won the right to this trial on appeal. The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed Judge J. Frederick Motz’s ruling [PDF] on summary judgment in favor of Microsoft, basically on a technicality, and so it’s back to Utah they had to go, but with Judge Motz, who is a judge in US District Court in Maryland, where the case had been transferred from Utah, commuting to Utah to stay in charge of the case.

The case matters, because normally Microsoft settles antitrust litigation either before they go to trial or early in the trial, and frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened again.

Our own Chris Brown attended for us today. He says that mainly today was about picking the jury. They sat 12 jurors, out of 45 prospective jurors, just in case. In Utah, where this trial is happening, the judge explained, you only need 6 jurors for civil trials, but things happen, and rather than run out of jurors, they picked double the amount, and he says the judge said all of them would participate if they all make it to the end of the trial. They were then released until the morning, 8:30 AM promptly, and the lawyers then argued about whether the Findings of Fact from the US government’s antitrust trial against Microsoft should be called Findings of Fact or just Findings.

This trial will be interesting to watch, but it is not related to the same Novell we were boycotting, the Novell which was a Microsoft ally rather than a foe. The ‘old Novell’ died just weeks after Noorda had died. The ‘new’ Novell needs to die because it is actively helping Microsoft promote Linux tax, promote .NET, promote OOXML, and so on. It ought to be noted that Novell's role in the SCO case also predates Ballmer’s and Hovsepian’s leadership at Novell. █

“Now [Novell is] little better than a branch of Microsoft”

–LinuxToday Managing Editor

Summary: Novell’s lawyers still pursue justice in the case against Microsoft, which used illegal tactics to derail Novell and prevent people from using anything but Microsoft

MICROSOFT’S history with Novell is a subject that we mostly covered in 2006 and in 2007. We used antitrust exhibits to support our allegations with evidence that had not been publicly viewed before and some of it got organised in our wiki. This post is not about to repeat what we already covered as it would be rather wasteful. Instead we shall look at the latest news.

“Novell is a shadow of its former self,” explains this item of news which looks back at the 1995 era and says:

Who were the big companies back in the 1995 era Internet? Sun, Cisco and Novell come to mind. Sun is now part of Oracle, Novell is a shadow of its former self, and Cisco has acquired 75 companies since then, or so it seems.

“Novell takes Microsoft to court in dispute over Windows 95,” says a British news site about the latest from the Novell-Microsoft antitrust case:

Novell is to begin antitrust proceedings against Microsoft today in the hope of finally settling a long-running dispute involving Windows 95, with Microsoft founder Bill Gates expected to make an appearance as a witness.

Novell alleges that Microsoft deliberately delayed releasing Windows 95 in order to harm Novell’s WordPerfect application software business in the mid-1990s and to crush competition in the office applications market.

The press in the United States covered this too:

Long-running Novell, Microsoft antitrust case going to trial in federal court

Two high-tech heavyweights will go to battle in federal court Monday in an attempt to settle a long-running dispute, and Bill Gates could make an appearance as a witness.

Novell Inc. sued Microsoft Corp., accusing the computer giant of violating U.S. antitrust laws, primarily through its arrangements with other computer makers. Since the suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City in 2004, a judge has dismissed five of Novell’s six original claims.

Bill Gates may now be spending well over a million dollars per day on just PR (not donations but buying positive coverage alone); however his past crimes are known to many. His present greed is a subject we’ll return to covering quite soon. This greed helps feed some patent trolls and lobbyists, not just harmful companies that raid society. █

Summary: Apple is said to have committed a serious felony by pretending to be police and it is also attacking Linux through the courtroom, much to the chagrin of Microsoft proponents and lobbyists

THE cult which is Apple “will die with steve jobs,” wrote to me someone in Identi.ca two hours ago, after I had posted a link about Apple losing its leadership to Linux (more on that in our daily Links).

The latest disgrace from Apple is this allegation that Apple has again misused police powers that it does not have. To quote:

If accurate, his account raises the possibility that Apple security personnel attempting to recover the prototype falsely represented themselves as police officers — a criminal act punishable by up to a year in jail in the state of California — or that SFPD employees colluding with Apple failed to properly report an extensive search of a person’s home, car, and computer.

A “criminal act”? Don’t worry, cults do that a lot. Ask Scientologists. As TechDirt put it in its headline, “Man Claims Apple Investigators Pretended To Be SF Police In Searching For Lost iPhone Prototype”. Criminal if true, but Apple is never punished for such behaviour, just like it got away with it the previous time (the police typically protects rich corporations from the people, not vice versa). Quoting TechDirt:

Earlier this week, News.com broke a story of yet another Apple employee losing an iPhone prototype in a bar (stop me if you’ve heard this one before…). Unlike the last one, this one (as far as we know) did not get sold to some tech website for a few thousand dollars. However, reports are emerging that raise some serious questions about how Apple went about trying to retrieve the phone.

A man in San Francisco, Sergio Calderon, claims that six people showed up at his door claiming to be San Francisco Police Department officers, and that they had badges. They claimed they were looking for a lost phone, but didn’t say it was a prototype. The original News.com report had said that police together with Apple investigators went to the guy’s house — but the SFPD says they have no record of SFPD being involved in any such action (which it should have if they were involved). The guy whose house was searched says that no one identified themselves as being from Apple. They also threatened him and his family over their immigration status (even though he says they’re all legal). Either way, he was nervous and let them search his house (a mistake) and even check out his computer. They didn’t find anything.

What we cannot help but notice is that many of the pro-Microsoft people have become Apple boosters when it comes to the war on Android. They just cannot stand Linux and Free software, so Apple and Microsoft share common goals. Microsoft’s shameless booster Matt Rosoff continues to promote anti-Linux sides (Rosoff came from a Microsoft consultancy) and the egomaniac pro-Microsoft lobbyist we have all come to know and loathe also quotes Microsoft boosters like Ed Bott in order to make Android/Google/Linux look bad. That one example was just a few hours ago. He does this all day long. They work in unison to daemonise Android and prop up Apple’s case, which by the way has been noticed also by Neil Richards, who writes the column “I Can Sue You, But You Can’t Sue Us: Apple”. To quote:

Apple has sued almost every other company in the mobile industry, in not only US but around the globe. The company also tried to patent a rectangular design claiming monopoly in the tablet segment.

The same company whose ex-CEO quotes “We are shameless about stealing from others.” has sued everyone else over minor similarities in the box of the product, icon design and rectangular shape.

[...]

This is not the first time anti-FOSS bloggers are trying to spin the story. They recently twisted the story of Samsung’s victory in the Dutch court as the victory of Apple diluting the fact that Apple lost its design patents and all other software patents except for one. The court gave Samsung 7 weeks and one day’s time to fix the problem or the injunction will be enforced. Trusted sources like BBC also fell for this trick and covered the defeat of Samsung.

It is interesting to see that such blogger, with no legal expertise, are supporting Apple’s foul cry that Samsung and Motorola are abusing their patents. What they won’t tell us is its Apple which is suing everyone else using software patents.

It’s interesting to see that the same anti-Android lobbyists while support Apple’s ‘right’ to use a broad rectangular design and block everyone else from selling a device, but they criticize competitors when they try to defend themselves using the technologies they actually invented!

We mentioned this yesterday and also this morning. Apple has no shame left. And on the same subject, for those bolstering the anti-Android camp there’s the Oracle case on which Groklaw remarks: “Google’s response is a thorough recitation of the current law of copyright when it comes to analyzing software on the issue of copyright infringement, at least within the 9th Circuit. Google’s strongest arguments are that the JAVA API’s at issue are functional and, thus, not protected by copyright and, to the extent Google has copied anything, the copying has been de minimis, i.e., a few lines of code out of thousands.”

What’s very popular right now among anti-Android lobbyists is to claim copyright-related problems in Android that almost nobody cares about (not even the developers). They try to cause friction and infighting. Some of these people have employment history in Microsoft. We know those tactics. █

Summary: Steve Jobs’ mob is systematically manipulating images that his lawyers submit as ‘evidence’ with which to ban Linux-based devices

LAST YEAR a Microsoft Lawyer said that Microsoft “covers up alleged misconduct, mischaracterizes evidence [...] protects the perpetrators and retaliates against victims.” A few days ago we saw that Apple too is perturbing the legal system with potential illegalities like Microsoft's. According to another report from Holland/USA [via], “In a court filing, Apple resized a photo of the Galaxy S smartphone to match the dimensions of an iPhone 3G” (not just its hypePad).

Microsoft got fined $40,000,000 for trial misconduct. Will Apple be filed for submitting evidence which it knew was fake? How about banning Apple rather than devices Apple wants banned, using fake evidence as an instrument that deceives/manipulates judges?

Apple: where gullibility is the business model. █

Summary: Why the courtroom is tossing more software patents out and why the US political and patent systems are unlikely to just altogether forbid software patenting any time soon

EARLIER today, our reader Jose told us about this new analysis from Mike Masnick, who interprets the news we wrote about last night as meaning that software patents are weakened in the US system of courts. Quoting part of the blog post:

Well, this is getting interesting. Last year, when the Supreme Court ruled very narrowly in the Bilski case, without making any explicit statement (as precedent) on overall software or business model patents, many people were frustrated. Here was a situation where the Supreme Court could have drawn a much clearer map, but it declined to do so. Of course, we wondered if this would just mean that another case would have to make its way to the Supreme Court to get a clearer ruling on software patents. In effect, with Bilski, the Supreme Court basically said “this one test you use is fine, but it’s not the only test.” It didn’t say what those other tests should be, but basically left it up to the courts to decide. However, it did reject the specific Bilski patent for being an “abstract” idea, saying that this was not patentable under Section 101 of the Patent Act.

What’s been interesting is that this seems to have emboldened a few judges to apply new or different tests (with clear reasons and caselaw for why they do so)… and some of this is leading to more software patents getting rejected. In a new ruling at the Federal Circuit appeals court (CAFC), the court appears to open up a potentially broad path for rejecting all sorts of bad (mostly software) patents by deciding that the Supreme Court’s Bilski ruling might not have been so narrow after all.

We might be approaching the elimination of software patents. it is one thing for software patents to be approved by the USPTO (which makes money from it) but entirely another for those patents to withstand scrutiny from the defendant and the judge/jury. Of course it might take a while for silly SCOTUS to do what’s right for the population and not what’s good for very large corporations, but politicians too — not just the legal system — can make an impact. The problem is that the term “reform” got hijacked to mean the wrong reform that mostly benefits very large corporations, not the population. As one new article puts it:

According to Bernard Codd, an intellectual property partner with McDermott Will & Emery, the proposed “first to file” provision “would be a fundamental change to patent law.” The U.S. is among the only developed countries that clings to the “first to invent” system, he explained, which tends to inspire litigation over who actually invented a particular product or system. Under a first to file system, the first party to file is the presumed inventor, which creates what some refer to as a race to file.

Not everyone is happy about this likely change, with opponents claiming it unfairly favors large companies that can more easily afford the relatively expensive and complex process of filing patent applications. However, Codd thinks this characterization of the first to file system isn’t entirely accurate. Ultimately, he said, it means “you can’t afford to sit on ideas anymore,” regardless who you are, because if the guy across the street files first, you get nothing.

It might actually end up leveling the playing field for small businesses, according to him. Large companies often go through elongated processes when filing patent applications, Codd explained, and they’ll have to adapt to the new system. He added that there’s a tactic called the provisional patent application that should become a lot more popular. Codd thinks provisional applications will be a godsend for small inventors because they can draft and file a provisional application in a day and then have a year to undertake the laborious patent-application process.

Of course, this assessment comes from an “intellectual property” people, who is biased by the nature of his financial interests. They’re hijacking this debate, too. A few days ago we were approached by an analyst/researcher for a survey about Acacia (for its valuation). It turned out that he had only surveyed “intellectual property” people, who told him how wonderful and valuable Acacia was. As long as the legal system and political system are both run by people from law schools, we’re all deep in trouble. █

Summary: The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), comprising no scientists, rules in favour of software patents and thus endorses a $290 million fine, affecting OOXML

AS PROMISED, this is a standalone post about the i4i ruling at the SCOTUS.

So the news is just about everywhere, especially in the Canadian press (because i4i is a Canadian company). The SCOTUS ruled against Microsoft as we mentioned earlier. King of the trolls, Microsoft, suffers from a verdict which is good news for patent trolls. The i4i case is not about patent trolls (in fact, i4i does have products), but the consequence of it is that rogue patents get legitimacy from the incompetent and at times technically-illiterate SCOTUS (they went to law school many decades ago). The SCOTUS is against fundamental principles that legalese experts rarely grasp and it neglects the people’s interests, too, not just technologists’. It helps monopolists under the assumption that their disinformation campaigns actually bear truths.

About Microsoft losing the case, Rui Seabra says that “being a patent aggressor themselves, they kind of deserve it, however… SCOTUS validating #swpat is definitely not good.” As pointed out by the other side of this debate (patent lawyer Mike Wokasch):

Prediction: Breyer’s concurrence, (w/ Alito & Scalia) re:role of courts, becomes important fodder for the anti-#swpat crowd. #patents #i4i

A FOSS respective on this case can be found in Groklaw, which calls it a “Disappointing Supreme Court decision”. This was covered by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols and Joe Brockmeier too. They explain the relevance to FOSS.

Here is the official decision [PDF] and other news coverage below. The success of Free software is hinged upon eradication of software patents because they impede dissemination. █

• Microsoft loses Word patent appeal
• Microsoft loses U.S. Supreme Court case on patent
• The new standard for justice in patent law is i4i
• I4i wins Microsoft Word suit in U.S. Supreme Court
• Microsoft to pay $290m court fine
• Supreme Court decision could have big effect on patent law
• Microsoft loses $290m patent case over Word tool
• Supreme Court Ruling Seen as a Win for Patent Trolls
• How Microsoft lost 8-0 at the Supreme Court
• Microsofts failed attempt to change patent law forever
• Microsoft loses Supreme Court appeal in i4i case
• Supreme Court Upholds $290 Million Patent Ruling Against Microsoft
• Microsoft Loses Supreme Court Case
• Microsoft loses $300 million Supreme Court case
• Microsoft loses Supreme Court patent appeal
• i4i wins top court battle against Microsoft
• Supreme Court Upholds $290 Million Infringement Award Against Microsoft
• In i4i Case, High Court Pitches 8-0 Shutout Against Microsoft
• Microsoft loses in Supreme Court case versus i4i
• Supreme Court rules Microsoft must pay $290M in patent case
• Microsoft Will Have To Pay $300 Million Patent Fine (MSFT)
• US top court rules against Microsoft in patent case
• Microsoft v. i4i Decided: IP Community Crisis Averted?
• US Supreme Court shoots down Microsoft, orders i4i payday

Summary: Customers continue to replace GroupWise and Techrights wonders what Attachmate will do about the WordPerfect case

Attachmate, a Microsoft partner, has bought Novell while leaving Mono out in the cold and letting Microsoft take the patents. The thing is, Attachmate has hardly said anything about GroupWise. A tricky situation for sure as the product keeps bleeding. EAT is the latest large user to dump it. From the news: “The chain rolled out the cloud-based Apps productivity suite seven months ago to help meet its goal of doubling the size of its business. It replaced a 10-year-old Novell GroupWise system.”

There is more about it here and here:

The migration involved a move away from Novell Groupwise.

Cesar Ramanauskas, systems engineer at EAT, says in a blog post, “In preparation for our goal of doubling in size, EAT migrated to Google Apps for Business, after more than a decade of using Novell GroupWise.”

Inaction from Attachmate cannot help much, can it? But the elephants in the room are actually SUSE, the SCO case, and the Microsoft case. Will Attachmate dump the case against its partner, Microsoft? We are not sure what might happen with the antitrust case because Attachmate never mentions it and the Microsoft booster portrays it as just a “headache” when he argues:

But Microsoft’s antitrust problems aren’t ending just yet. Another old case involving WordPerfect, the once widely used word prcoessor, has been resurrected by a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling overturning a previous judgment in favor of Microsoft and allowing the case being pursued by Novell to proceed. Novell, now owned by Attachmate, owned WordPerfect for a couple of years in the mid-1990s before selling it to current owner Corel.

Some of us think that Microsoft toys around with Skype and Nvidia simply because of loose/lenient oversight. █

Summary: Bedrock’s lawsuit against Yahoo! sinks like a rock. Here’s why.

NOT so long ago Yahoo joined the Linux Foundation, whose head has just said that “Software Patents invite Trolls,” based on Falk Metzler, who is a patent lawyer.

Well, on the same day we learn that “Yahoo won the Bedrock patent trial that Google lost”: [via]

There may be only one place in America where Yahoo is outperforming Google: the Tyler, Texas, courtroom of federal district court judge Leonard Davis, where a patent holding company called Bedrock accused both companies of infringing a Linux software patent.

On Tuesday Yahoo and its lawyers from McDermott Will & Emery won a jury verdict that Yahoo does not infringe Bedrock’s patent, which involves code for removing expired records while the operating system performs other operations. On April 15, a separate Tyler jury reached a contrary conclusion in Bedrock’s case against Google, finding that Google infringed the same patent and awarding Bedrock $5 million in damages.

To be fair, the Google verdict was hardly the windfall Bedrock and its lawyers at McKool Smith were hoping for. McKool lead trial counsel Douglas Cawley told jurors that Google had saved half a billion dollars as a result of its infringement of Bedrock’s patent. He asked for an award of $183 million and got only $5 million. But given the success Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has had in East Texas litigation for Google, it’s worth taking a look at why Yahoo got a flat-out defense win and Google didn’t — especially because McKool put on the same three Bedrock witnesses (the patent inventor, a damages expert, and a technical expert) in both trials.

First off, Bedrock had a stronger case against Google. Cawley put on evidence that Google used Bedrock’s Linux code on its servers (although Google got rid of the code before trial). Yahoo, on the other hand, used a different form of Linux, and its lead trial lawyer, Yar Chaikovsky and Fay Morisseau of McDermott Will, were able to argue that Yahoo never executed the Bedrock code.

Yahoo also benefited mightily from going to trial second. Chaikovsky and local counsel Jennifer Doan of Haltom and Doan were in the teeming throng of defense lawyers who sat through the Google trial in April, along with lawyers for co-defendants Amazon, AOL, MySpace, and SoftLayer. They got to preview Bedrock’s case and watch how Cawley of McKool Smith handled Google’s experts and its corporate witness, software engineer Lucas Pereira. That undoubtedly helped Chaikovsky prepare his witnesses. (McDermott was also smart to call Yahoo co-founder David Filo as his corporate witness — East Texas juries love hearing from top-level execs.)

For related posts about Bedrock, consider the following:

• 2010 the Year When Microsoft Became a Systematic Patent Bully
• SCO’s Strategic Consultant Mike Anderer Foresaw Microsoft-Organised Patent Lawsuits Against Linux (Through Small Companies)
• 2010 the Year When Microsoft Became a Systematic Patent Bully
• Shades of SCO in Action Against Android
• Why Google Will Invalidate Linux-Hostile Patents
• What Google Should Do Now That Android is Being Poisoned by Novell (With Mono) and Sued by Microsoft
• Patent Question Becoming Central in the Software Freedom Debate
• Acacia Extorts Red Hat Again

Soon we will find out how mobbyists will try to spin this after exaggerating the risk and pushing journalists to play along (following the preliminary Google ruling, whose outcome was dubious and can be overruled). █

Summary: TSG is SCO’s new name and Novell falls under the wing of AttachMSFT

HERE at Techrights we have been keeping track of SCO since the very beginning of the site. There is a lot of overlap between Novell and SCO, not just because of their legal battle. But a lesser known or insufficiently explored aspect of the comparison is their relationship to Microsoft. Both companies used to contribute to Linux before turning rogue and their reputations declined very rapidly as a result. It did not really require sites like Groklaw (which ends next week) to make it happen, but such sites did produce evidence and analysis that fueled other sites. In this age of the Internet and the World Wide Web, one site always builds upon the work of others, usually within hours or days. So by showing refutations of the allegations from SCO the company’s critics soon made it a laughing stock and no amount of PR or AstroTurfing could counter that.

There are parallels in Novell’s case. Novell worked hard on marketing the goods and promoting the perception that it was a good “open source” citizen whilst at the same time fulfilling its commitments to Microsoft. Part of Novell’s PR was attacking me personally. I disrupted their reality distortion field. Even now there is this new event that we mentioned last month for the confusing role it serves. It is called the 2011 Future of Open Source Forum and it is influenced by friends of Microsoft and Novell, which will participate despite the fact that Novell is not an open source company, it only pretends to be one, probably for karma.

Groklaw continues to cover Novell’s legal cases, but it probably remains for others to do as the site will cease posting new material. Who is going to gather PDFs from the cases and present them in HTML form? What about public discussion about the court proceedings? If nobody else does it, maybe Techrights Legal will (we need volunteers, so please contact us if you can lend a hand). Now that another round in the Novell vs. Microsoft case is expected, it is clear that nothing is truly over or resolved. What will these cases be renamed? The TSG vs. AttachMSFT case? Yes, SCO is nymshifting again:

Formerly known as. Like they’re a rock star. The et al references SCO Operations, Inc., now to be known as TSG Operations, Inc., which doesn’t make a lot of sense, if you think deeply, but then, this is SCO. I assume that this is because SCO sold the trade name to unXis, and unXis will be selling the software products. I say I assume, because SCO’s filing [PDF] with the court was an APA with many things left blank, including, as far as a quick check indicates, who gets the name SCO. Then again, does anyone want it? Here’s a question. What about the headers on the documents in SCO v. IBM or SCO v. Novell? I mean, exactly who is who going forward? Is anyone going forward? That’s the real question.

The odd thing is, Novell is now Attachmate’s property, so that is changed, and SCO sold its software assets to unXis, but it retained the prior litigation, so that changed, and the lenders appear to be no longer in harmony with SCO or each other, so that’s a change, and so who exactly is SCO nowadays? If SCO is TSG, who is SCO? Nobody? Or is unXis going to call itself unXiSCO like the domain name?

Maybe nobody wants to be called SCO. Maybe it’s like a mobster entering the witness protection program.

Blackwater did the same. █

Summary: AttachMSFT, a liquidator, has not made very harmful decisions (so far); it remains to be seen if an appeal in a Microsoft case will be carried forward

NOVELL is in the headlines because of layoffs which are the doom of Mono. AttachMSFT will continue to support the Microsoft-taxed SUSE in Germany, apparently as a separate entity. Sam Varghese says that the “SUSE business will be headquartered in Nuremberg, its original home before Novell bought the company in 2003.”

We are not sure what this means for OpenSUSE, which is not the same as SLE*. It is hard to say if it will survive because AttachMSFT invariantly speaks about “SUSE” and not OpenSUSE. Well, here is a new review of the latest release, which suggests that OpenSUSE is well built:

Unlike Ubuntu, Peppermint or Fedora, openSUSE is a fully-fledged KDE distribution, and offers the most integrated experience of all the distributions we’ve looked at.

With openSUSE, this approach stretches to non-KDE applications too. For example, despite using GTK+ for its widget toolset, Firefox is skinned to look like a native KDE application. That includes the toolbar icons, framing and file requesters, and even functions like mailing a link will use KDE’s mail application rather than the default.

The problem we have had with OpenSUSE is that it helps promote the Microsoft-taxed SUSE, which can in turn help Microsoft and software patents.

According to other reports [1, 2], “Novell wins appeal in Microsoft antitrust lawsuit” and AttachMSFT will hopefully capitalise on this. A reader mailed us the Reuters report, which says:

Software maker Novell Inc can proceed with a long-running antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corp after an appeals court reversed a lower court’s summary judgment in favor of Microsoft.

Novell, which was bought by Attachmate Corp earlier this year, claimed that its operating system products and several of its software applications were unfairly squeezed out of the market by Microsoft in the 1990s.

Let’s see what AttachMSFT does with the SCO case and the Microsoft case. It will hopefully carry on and fight these battles. If not, more critics will come out of the woodwork. █

Summary: OpenDocument Format (ODF) keeps spreading while OOXML shows patent complications

Somebody called ruslinux (in Twitter) writes: “Berita baik untuk semua pengguna program perkantoran, pemerintah akui OpenDocument Format sbg standar nasioal dg No. SNI ISO/IEC 26300:2011″

“Which I take to mean that ODF now approved as a national standard in Indonesia,” says Rob Weir from IBM.

We wrote about this (or something similar) last year after we explained what Microsoft had been doing in Indonesia. This helped in providing some background.

The i4i case is back in the news, showing OOXML’s legal problems. For those who cannot recall, Microsoft and its friends (like Alex Brown) lied about the patent status of OOXML in order to push it past ISO. It’s a good thing that nations do not adopt OOXML. The case is still ongoing (many appeals) and OOXML suffers as a result. In another case, Microsoft is appealing a decision regarding its abusive behaviour which Pogson explains as follows:

Duh… It’s not “double recovery”. The conspirators conspired to set up their criminal organization that way. Make them pay for it. That’s a judgment to be made in penalty phase, what portion of the overcharging was due to M$. Pathetic… criminals protected by the legal system.

When consumers complain they are told the competition does not protect them but businesses in competition. When businesses sue, they are kicked out because they did not buy direct from M$.

That’s just Microsoft bending the law. █

(ODF | PDF | English/original)

Resumen: Una reciente hornada de las actividades que proporcionan una vista en como Microsoft cabildea por la patente europea y algunas otras lecciones de la Oficina Europea de Patentes EPO.

La patente europea (o la patente de la UE) fue descarrilada[http://techrights.org/2011/03/16/eu-treaty-vs-swpats/], solamente uno no debe olvidar como Microsoft ha cabildeado por éllas más agresivamente que cualquier otra compañía nosotros que seamos consciente de; y Microsoft no es incluso una compañía europea. Para ayudar a el novicio, Microsoft quiere la patente europea debido a su impacto en patentabilidad del software en Europa y usando sus grupos frontales, Microsoft ha estado ejerciendo presión sobre Europa para adoptar la patente europea. La más notable entre esos grupos delanteros fue el cínico: Estadounidenses por Tecnología “Competitiva” ACT, que finge representar pequeñas empresas mientras que sus cheques llegan del campeón de ética: la Microsoft Corporation. El presidente de la Fundación para una Infraestructura de Información Libre, FFII escribe[http://twitter.com/zoobab/statuses/46100775226720256]:

Microsoft promueve las patentes del software para las PYMES – Las Pequeñas y Medianas Empresas.

Él señala a esta nueva página[http://www.microsoft.eu/Futures/Viewer/tabid/64/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/889/An-Innovation-Union-for-SMEs.aspx] donde Microsoft también cabildea “a favor” de las pequeñas empresas por sus muy propios intereses como monopolista. Para citar la mentira:

Las pequeñas y medianas empresas – PYMES – serán la central eléctrica de la Unión de la Innovación que la UE debe convertirse en si debemos disfrutar de prosperidad sostenible frente a una competición mundial siempre más fuerte.

Con nuestras ofertas de la unión de la innovación el 6 de octubre, la Comisión Europea está pidiendo una impulsión concertada en el europeo, el nacional y los niveles regionales hacia tres objetivos generales.

Como si eso no sea bastante desvergonzado, hay una cierta corrupción política en Europa, cortesía de Microsoft, como de costumbre. Microsoft Polonia fue confirmada oficialmente como un socio de la presidencia polaca de la UE, escribe Microsoft Europa[http://twitter.com/MSEurope/status/44786314884820992] (que FINGE CONVENIENTEMENTE SER UNA compañía EUROPEA) y durante los últimos 2 años hemos demostrado que ese Microsoft pagó a otras presidencias con base en la UE las cuáles entonces promovían patentes del software en Europa. Es una forma de soborno y todo lo que da realmente es un manojo de LOCK-IN. Para citar estas últimas Relaciones Públicas[http://www.microsoft.eu/Posts/Viewer/tabid/120/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/882/Microsoft-Poland-officially-confirmed-as-a-partner-of-Polish-EU-Presidency.aspx?utm_source=SocialMediaPush&utm_medium=socialmediarepublishing&utm_term=&utm_campaign=MSsocialMedia&utm_content=]:

Junto con Jacek Murawski Microsoft Administrador General de Polonia, Brad se unió al ministro Dowgielewicz en la firma de un acuerdo de la sociedad y la declaración de cooperación, en base de la cual Microsoft apoyará la presidencia de la UE del polaco con préstamos del software de tiempo limitado (400 oficina 2010 y 400 Windows 7 licencias) así como con la comunicación común y actividades promocionales. Los representantes del ministerio y de Microsoft tenían también una ocasión de discutir las prioridades de la presidencia polaca, particularmente como se refieren a la industria de IT.

Techrights nunca olvidó qué Microsoft una de las compañías más éticas de mundo hizo en Polonia para comprar votos[http://techrights.org/2007/08/31/poland-ooxml/]. La Comisión Europea dijo que lo investigaría, pero lo hizo nunca realmente, alegado debido a la complejidad. Mientras tanto, el presidente de la FFII[http://twitter.com/zoobab/statuses/44869341044412416] señalo el nombramiento del titular de las patente de software 3DHistech de parte de la EPO[http://www.epo.org/news-issues/news/2011/20110303.html] y otras compañías para el inventor europeo del 2011 (ninguna sorpresa aquí). Él también comparte este pedazo de noticias[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110215/01010213094/be-careful-what-you-wish-taiwan-using-us-pressured-patent-laws-against-us-companies.shtml] sobre la ley de patente de los E.E.U.U. que resulta ser una maldición a los Estados Unidos (así que presten atención, Europe/EPO). Para citar: Es realmente increíble cómo la Cámara de Comercio puede ser tan miope. Su presión de cabildeo da a gobiernos extranjeros perfectamente las herramientas proteccionistas legales que pueden utilizar contra las compañías de los E.E.U.U. que a la CdC supuestamente se le paga para representar. Si fuera miembro de la Cámara de Comercio, querría mi parte del dinero devuelta.

Está todo sobre el cabildeo -lobbyism-, es todo sobre intereses especiales, y es sobre aquellos en el poder asegurándose de que permanezcan en el poder. Cualquier cosa que Microsoft dice es bueno para Europa es exactamente lo contrario. Para crédito de Apple, nunca participa realmente en este tipo de abominables actividades, a diferencia de Microsoft. Parece a veces como Microsoft es un continente pues su comportamiento es definitivamente único. Microsoft es una de las compañías más éticas del mundo. █

Many thanks to Eduardo Landaveri of the Spanish portal of Techrights.

(ODF | PDF | English/original)

Resumen: Las demandas tratando de bloquear a los competidores se están convirtiendo en una norma de negocios para Microsoft.

En la última fase de su incierta vida útil Microsoft puede ser recordado como una cáscara rota, que había demandado con patentes para embargar la competencia. Eso es lo que vio hacer a TiVo esta semana[http://techrights.org/2011/01/25/banning-tivo-with-swpats/] y ahora esto se hace en contra de Datel [1[http://techrights.org/2010/05/09/bungie-says-goodbye-and-more/], 2[http://techrights.org/2010/05/03/moonlight-vs-mozilla-firefox/], 3[http://techrights.org/2010/05/05/microsoft-turned-from-apple/], 4[http://techrights.org/2009/11/24/microsoft-kicks-datel/], 5[http://techrights.org/2010/04/06/zune-mobile-xbox-failure/], 6[http://techrights.org/2010/05/17/novell-and-lg-boost-microsoft/], 7[http://techrights.org/2010/08/24/datel-settling-apple-spyware-swpat/]] en la cara de ello[http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1939308/microsoft-calls-itc-investigation-british-company]:

EL VENDEDOR DE JUEGOS DE CONSOLA Microsoft, parece estar un poco molesto con una empresa llamada Datel Design & Development.

El campañol se ha quejado en los términos más enérgicos posibles a la Comisión de Comercio Internacional de los EE.UU. que Datel Design ha hecho algunas cosas terribles y ha pedido una investigación inmediata.

Según Microsoft, Datel ha estado violando sus patentes y robando sus ideas. También parece que hay una historia de mala sangre entre las dos compañías.

Wolfgang Gruener sostiene[http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Xbox-360-Kinect-Windows-7-WP7-Xbox,12071.html#xtor=RSS-181] que en 2011, Microsoft puede estar “Hacia la deriva a la insignificancia”. El resumen dice:

Microsoft ha desarrollado un talento muy especial para darse a sí mismo un tiro en el pie y me pregunto qué pasó con la empresa que hizo commodities equipos con ideas y pasión inusual para el futuro de la informática?

Microsoft nunca se convirtió en éxito en el mercado de hardware. Rebadging algunos periféricos apenas cuenta (de hardware de marca Apple también tiene sus limitaciones artificiales[http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/01/pentalobe-screw-apple-war.php] que molesta a mucha gente [1[http://techrights.org/2011/01/24/cult-mentality-in-classroom/], 2[http://techrights.org/2011/01/26/software-oligarchs-distraction/]]). Así que Microsoft se está convirtiendo rápidamente en una EMPRESA DEMANDANTE, en el pasado reciente (hace aproximadamente 2 años) que se jactaba de no demandar por patentes, pero las cosas han ido cuesta abajo desde entonces, Microsoft demanda por patentes más que uno puede perder de vista. Esto un signo de pérdida. █

Many thanks to Eduardo Landaveri of the Spanish portal of Techrights.

Summary: Lawsuits seeking to block competitors are becoming a business norm at Microsoft

Towards the later phase of its uncertain lifetime Microsoft may be remembered as a broken shell, which was suing with patents to embargo the competition. That’s what we saw it doing to TiVo this week and now this is done against Datel [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] on the face of it:

GAMES CONSOLE SELLER Microsoft appears to be a bit miffed with an outfit called Datel Design & Development.

The Vole has complained in the strongest possible terms to the US International Trade Commission that Datel Design has be doing some terrible things and has called for an immediate investigation.

According to Microsoft, Datel has been violating its patents and stealing its ideas. It also seems that there is a history of bad blood between the two companies.

Wolfgang Gruener argues that in 2011 Microsoft may be “Drifting Into Insignificance”. The summary says:

Microsoft has developed a very special talent to shoot itself in the foot and I am wondering what happened to the company that has commoditized computers with passion and unusual ideas for the future of computing?

Microsoft never became successful in the hardware market. Rebadging some peripherals hardly counts (Apple-branded hardware too has its artificial limitations which upset a lot of people [1, 2]). So Microsoft is rapidly becoming a lawsuits company; in the recent past (about 2 years ago) it bragged about never suing with patents, but things have been going downhill since then; Microsoft sues with patents more than one can keep track of. It’s a sign of loss. █

Summary: Carlo Piana et al. take Microsoft to court for removing choice in the OEM channel, including reasonable choices such as GNU/Linux, BSD, or simply no operating system at all

THE MICROSOFT WINDOWS chokehold is being eroded in the OEM channel. Vista 7 refunds are already becoming possible in Denmark, in Brazil, and in Portugal. Back in the days we also wrote about similar actions pressing for unbundling in France.

Some of the many reports about the new lawsuit in Italy stress that there is international relevance:

The Italian consumer watchdog is suing Microsoft over the “Windows Tax” – the near impossibility of an ordinary user getting a refund if they decide to delete Microsoft’s software from a new computer or laptop.

The class action case says Microsoft makes it too difficult for people who buy a computer with Microsoft software on it to remove that software and get their money back. Most users do not realise that starting the software means you have accepted the end user licence.

Carlo Piana, a lawyer who helps defend software freedom, is personally involved in it and there’s stressing that “it’s a class action, PPL can join (later)”

“OK,” writes Piana, “now it’s public. I’ve served a class action against MSFT for bundling & refusal to reimbourse Windows, for ADUC” (he links to an article in Italian) and there is also a “blog post on ADUC class action against Microsoft #MSFT,” starting with this introduction:

Aduc, an Italian Consumers association, has served on Microsoft Italia (the local branch of Microsoft Corp) a class action complaining that the company consistently refuses to reimburse users the price of ubiquitous windows licenses, bundled with OEM (Original Equipement Manufacturers) computers. I am part of a much larger legal team that has produced it and I can briefly illustrate what it is about.

Italy has adopted a regulation (Art. 140 bis of the Italian Consumers Code) that allows consumers individually (not consumers associations, which is strange) to file class actions, through ordinary proceedings, open to be joined at a later time. A class action is a case which is arguably identical to a class of users and which is likely to protect the interest of this class. Unfortunately, the Italian version has been adopted with very odd provisions that limit the effectiveness of it, as one can read in this document by Aduc (in Italian).

Here are some more links on this matter (some are from Microsoft blogs, thus they are biased):

The case, which was filed in Milan by the Associazione per i Diritti degli Utenti e Consumatori (ADUC), and picked up by The Register earlier today, points to Microsoft’s end user license agreement (EULA)–as outlined in various copies of Windows–noting that once users turn their computer on and begin to use it, they are no longer able to return the software for a refund.

Microsoft booster Peter Bright adds this: (special thanks to Girts for some of these pointers)

This is not the first time ADUC has taken to the courts over Windows preinstalls. In 2007, the group successfully sued HP after it failed to abide by the terms of the Microsoft End User License Agreement, which explicitly permits a user to refuse to accept the terms and receive a full refund.

Meanwhile we learn about some new actions in Portugal, where Microsoft wants government policies to help stifle Free software (in France, the lawmakers recently had created Apple/Android tax, which is based on copyright). Microsoft is going down, but not without a fight. █

According to Nokia Update:

Apple sues Nokia in London over touch-screen scroll patent

This bit of news is accompanied by news about Apple patenting something for a mouse to “include a multi-touch display”: [via]

Apple has shown interest in adding a display to its multi-touch Magic Mouse, adding interactivity and functionality to the wireless mouse for its Mac line of computers.

“We’ve always been shameless about stealing great ideas,” said Steve Jobs as shamelessly as always. Is Apple getting a monopoly on something innovative here? Gordon (from TechBytes) wrote: “from the company that brought you the mouse for people with one finger, or mittens on http://bit.ly/fIoaj3 new complex mouse patents” █