05.14.12
Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Oracle, Patents at 11:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The case against Android notwithstanding, the highest European court rules that APIs cannot be covered by copyrights
WHILE developing for Android, one must get accustomed to API changes and harness the subtle differences between Android versions, not just different device types with a wide variety of hardware specifications. But the API is what unifies everything and enables many programs to run on many devices, bringing value (and users) to the platform. Oracle, headed by a close friend of Apple’s spiritual leader, decided not only to attack Android with software patents but it also took a blow at the API level. In Europe, a new ruling from the highest court disqualifies Oracle’s strategy. To quote: “The European Court of Justice ruled this morning that the functionality of a computer program and the programming language it is written in cannot be protected by copyright.”
Here is another take on it:
The European Court of Justice ruled on Wednesday that application programming interfaces (APIs) and other functional characteristics of computer software are not eligible for copyright protection. Users have the right to examine computer software in order to clone its functionality—and vendors cannot override these user rights with a license agreement, the court said.
Over in the US, however, the ruling is more complicated:
The jury deliberating over Oracle Corp.’s claims that Google Inc. infringed copyrights protecting Oracle’s Java technology reached a mixed decision Monday, which could leave Google on the hook for only a relatively minimal amount of damages.
No royalties should be paid based on European principles, but in the US it’s another story. Oracle is just trying to cause damage to Android and developers should speak out against it. In my personal blog I’ve begun writing about Android development. █
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05.12.12
Posted in Microsoft, Patents at 9:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: An accumulation of news about software patents, patent parasites, and patent trolls
THE parasites who are patent lawyers continue to give misguided (but self-serving) advice. They wants programmers to think that patent applications — not automatically-acquired copyrights — are needed for funding from VCs and the likes of them.
Companies like MOSAID make a living (for some lawyers) by litigation alone. Having recently gotten some patents from Microsoft and Nokia, MOSAID may soon be suing companies that already pay Microsoft for Android. B&N complained about MOSAID, but Microsoft paid B&N a considerably expensive/meaningful bribe for its silence. Meanwhile, as this report reveals, Nokia patents are being used against Android companies with a weak patent portfolio:
Nokia just announced that it’s suing HTC, RIM, and Viewsonic for patent infringement in the US and Germany. All told, there are 45 patent in the various lawsuits, covering what Nokia says are proprietary technologies — i.e., not industry standards. Specifically, Nokia’s patents cover hardware features like antennas, radios, and power management, as well as software features like multitasking, navigation, app stores, retrieving email attachments on mobile, “conversational” message display, dynamic menus, and certain types of data encryption.
HTC and Viewsonic — unlike Motorola and Samsung — haven’t many patents. So it is clear who will be harmed the most by such a system.
“Software patents [are] destroying business of SMEs in Germany,” says OPENTIA and it has become rather obvious that all this patent nonsense is just serving giants and their lawyers. Vivek Wadhwa, a critic of software patents (who regrets applying for some in the past), alleges that patent trolls are destroying jobs. As he put it in the Washington Post:
Where are the jobs? Ask the patent trolls.
President Obama has been touting patents as a way to create jobs and increase U.S. competitiveness. “These are jobs and businesses of the future just waiting to be created,” he said of patent applications last September, “somewhere in that stack of applications could be the next technological breakthrough, the next miracle drug, the next idea that will launch the next Fortune 500 company.”
The President is mistaken—at least when it comes to the patent system as it relates to software patents. These patents—and the patent system—aren’t creating innovation, they are inhibiting it and, by extension, job creation. Why? Because the breakthroughs aren’t in the patents, they are in the way ideas are commercialized and marketed. Because of flaws in the patent system and government leaders’ misunderstandings, there is an arms race of sorts happening in the tech industry that is sapping billions out of the economy and crushing technology startups. This system is enriching patent trolls—companies that buy patents in order to extort money from innovators. These trolls are like a modern day mafia. Given this, I argue software patents need to be eliminated or curtailed.
In order to re-ignite the economy several steps have to be taken other than regulation. Some obviously bad ideas like software patents, for example, must go. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Patents at 8:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: News updates about Android/Google defence in the face of aggression and market distortion from Microsoft and from Oracle
THE wide range of bribe types includes gentle bribe [1, 2, 3, 4] and lobbying.
Not every bribe is being referred to as such; this is the art of buying influence short of classical bribery. Sometimes it is being painted with the “just politics” or “just business” brush.
“Sometimes it is being painted with the “just politics” or “just business” brush.”We recently alluded to the Barnes & Noble deal, about which Jay Lyman writes: “with the deal in place, Barnes & Noble is no longer putting pressure on Microsoft to explain exactly where it asserted IP rights over Android.”
This is a trick that Microsoft pulled before. It’s like buying terror, paying the reluctant victim some money to stop fighting against extortion and thus paving the way to more of it. As the same source put it, “Microsoft has bought a share of Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader business.”
Nice way to pass a bribe — “buying a share”. Barnes & Noble was important in this battle for Android freedom (gratis) and Microsoft has just neutralised it. It may make “business sense” for both sides to make such a transaction, but it’s akin to a bribe that helps Microsoft further distort the market.
As SJVN put it:
So, did Microsoft do the deal just because they realized that if their anti-Android patents would be ruled to be FUD? No, but it did have a heck of a lot to do with it. As Alison Frankel, senior writer at The American Lawyer, commented, “Microsoft paid B&N, the patent defendant, a sum of money that exceeded the marketplace value of its investment. How often does a patent plaintiff pay the defendant in a settlement? Especially when that defendant is on the ropes and urgently searching for a strategic investor?”
I know the answer to that one: Never.
Yes, but it’s a bribe. The “b” word oughtn’t be a taboo.
On another front, APIs in Android are leading to copyright madness. “Irrespective of my opinion on the subject,” writes one analyst, “what will the impact be should APIs prove copyrightable? It is likely to be extensive, cascading and a lesson in unintended consequences. Even parties with no intention of asserting their intellectual property rights concerning APIs – think authors of permissively licensed programming languages, as one example – will presumably be required to commit to non-enforcement, contractually. And obviously those parties wishing to realize another revenue stream, limit competition or both will ramp up legal actions around unlicensed usage of the APIs in question. It’s difficult to fully predict the downstream effects, but given the accelerating servicification of the world, a decision in favor of copyrightable APIs is likely to be at least as damaging as the patent system is today.”
Here is what Simon Phipps wrote while the Microsoft boosters used it against Android. Joe Mullin said that headaches loom, whereas the FSF issued this statement and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols mocked the case, calling it a “Dead lawsuit walking”:
Oracle’s case is as dead now as when it began. Like SCO with its insane attacks against IBM and Linux, Oracle doesn’t have a leg to stand on in its Google litigation.
Later on SJVN remarked on this whole copyright nonsense and the Against Monopoly Web site used it to show how outdated copyright law is becoming. To quote:
The courts continue to get to make copyright and patent law. The latest involves Oracle which is suing Google over Oracle’s Application Programming Interface (API) as well as other lesser elements.
It has become more apparent that copyrights law — not just patent law — is an impediment to software freedom and programming in general. Tech dinosaurs use those antiquated laws to hold back progress. █
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05.11.12
Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents at 10:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Barnes and Noble (B&N) gives up, but Motorola continues to challenge Microsoft extortion
THE other day we got told that B&N had settled with Microsoft, which attacked B&N under the ‘protection’ of an NDA (hiding extortion). While hiring lobbyists who distort media coverage Microsoft also decided to attack Motorola and then paid lobbyists to try to portray itself as a victim (while Motorola is being portrayed as the aggressor). This was truly appalling. Tim shows that Motorola’s lawsuit was reactionary and further he notes: “Now whilst it’s tempting to say Microsoft (after its own patent aggression) is getting just what it deserves, it does highlight the bigger picture of why the only winners in these insidious patent cases are the large corporations & lawyers. The person suffering will be the consumer who has choice removed, prices increased to accommodate these dirty tricks.”
Motorola is still fighting against Microsoft’s Android extortion and Tim notes that:
I’ve often written about the Microsoft kiss of death, where it appears that Microsoft has a figurative reverse Midas touch. Instead of turning items to gold, they go the way of the Dodo. The most recent example of this has to be for me, Nokia and now its Barnes and Noble who have signed up with the Redmond company who seems of late to be trying to buy its way into markets of late with patent claims and “deals” obviously under the shroud of an NDA.
Days ago B&N censored Linux Format. George Hostler, one of our readers, wrote: “no wonder, aren’t they now a Microsoft company?” We saw Microsoft doing the same thing with HTC and others — pretending the victim is actually a friend and making this pretence part of the settlement. In the case of LG and others, Microsoft promotion too is part of the settlement, even if just by lip service. Blackmail for behavioural impact is inexcusable.
Due to Google’s imminent ownership, Motorola — unlike B&N — will not defect or surrender. It will fight against Microsoft to the end, just like Google fights against Oracle. A lot is at stake in the Motorola case. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Java, Oracle, Patents at 10:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Almost two years since the launch of Oracle’s case over Java/Dalvik this whole argument carries on
THE CONFLICT over Dalvik meets conflict within Sun’s former management and one former head makes his views clear; Android is not infringing on patents/copyrights. The local press (California) further adds that this case shows the flaws of the patent system as a whole. To quote:
The big news out of the Oracle versus Google showdown on Monday was that one of Oracle’s patents was brought back from the dead, put back into play after the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office reversed its earlier rejection.
But let’s be clear: One zombie patent isn’t the remarkable thing in this case. The remarkable thing is that, when the dust settles, five of the seven patents Oracle claimed that Google violated will likely be overturned because Google forced the patent office to take a second look.
Developers of Android applications (of whom I will soon be one) suffer a great deal from software patents, but to giant corporations and their lawyers this is not a problem at all. All they want patents for is everything but innovation or competition. Throughout this coming month we’ll re-attempt to catch up with older patent news (personal life got in the way). There’s still a pileup of old news that’s important and relevant to us. █
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04.24.12
Posted in Google, Patents at 3:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Google continues to fight against Oracle, but at the same time Google helps the USPTO, which is the root of the problem
TWITTER DID the reasonable thing (given the circumstances) and based on the will of engineers, Google might follow suit one day, even though the problem, as shown before, is that Google hired a lot of lawyers, to whom more patent mess is simply a work preference.
“It’s never good riddance at Google, not when patent lawyers have their own selfish interests inside the company.”The source of this whole problem is the USPTO. It’s never good riddance at Google, not when patent lawyers have their own selfish interests inside the company. Although Google decided to get get rid of one product (Patent Search Homepage) it is evident that Google is just shuffling a little bit while taking the same mess to the EPO. To quote: “We’re redirecting the old Patent Search homepage to google.com to make sure everyone is getting the best possible experience for their patent searches. Over the past few months, we’ve been making updates and improvements to the Patent Search functionality on google.com—not only are you able to search the same set of U.S. patents with the same advanced search options, the new experience loads twice as fast as the old Patent Search homepage, contributes to a unified search experience across Google, and sports Google Doodles as well. The team looks forward to including patents from other countries soon, and will be rolling out additional features to Patent Search on google.com in the future.”
In other words, Google is still helping the same system which is punishing Android and Linux. In some sense, Google does even more evil by extending that patent system aide to more countries, for profit, as usual. Ken Hess, who has been baiting Android in his blog, says that “Google should have found a Java alternative. But software should not be patented”. Groklaw continues helping Google [1, 2, 3, 4] while “Oracle’s Copyright Case v Google Takes a Big Hit”, but one must not forget Google’s reluctance to squash patents as a whole. Google should strike at the root by ending the USPTO’s participation, not just for Android but for software as a whole. Google is said to be spending a record amount of money on lobbying (see today’s news), but what ever happened to an ambition to eliminate software patents? If Google wants to do good — not just do “no evil” — then it will actually use its lobbying power for good causes. One might blame the Hubris at Google, the company which, as Fernando Cassia puts its, “knows better” than those mere peons who “play” in its online “playground”. To quote: “Many people who thought they could get away with running the old GMail user interface despite contant nagging to “switch to the new look” have quickly discovered that the almighty Google has decided it knows better, and proceeded to force everyone to the new. UX designers are ‘humbled’, but not for long…
“…Google has decided it knows better, and proceeded to force everyone to the new.”
–Fernando Cassia“Nine months ago when the GMail New Look was being introduced, Jason Cornwell, UX designer for GMail said in his Twitter account that he was “humbled” by the response from users. If we take the dictionary´s definition of the word we get “Made low; abased; rendered meek and submissive; penitent”. Hmmm, in other words, it looks like an “Epic fail” to me. So, they learned from past mistakes, right? Wrong.”
GMail also suffered downtimes recently, proving to people that Fog Computing means computing you can’t rely on. Google is trying to convince governments to walk into this trap (downtime and handover of citizen data to a private company), which makes its lobbying not at all benign. To earn more respect from the public Google will need to start showing that it antagonises — not supports — the patent offices around the world. █
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04.21.12
Posted in Google, Patents at 8:17 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Twitter’s latest move (making patents self-destruct upon offensive use) inspires many across the Web, including senior people at Google
TWITTER received some good karma for its latest patent moves. As one person said in Twitter, “By and large, we software developers don’t like software patents. Given that, twitter’s patent agreement is a recruiting tool, period.”
“Google’s Matt Cutts responded to Twitter’s move in an encouraging way. “Here is a VC’s response to the patent pledge from Twitter. It’s the story of a VC who invested in a company (with a patent) that went bankrupt and then their patent was used to sue 2 other companies he invested in. Another lesson about the absurdity of patents, right?
Google’s Matt Cutts responded to Twitter’s move in an encouraging way. “The more I read about Twitter’s “defensive uses only” patent agreement,” he says, “the more I like it.” So can Google follow suit? How about Red Hat? Cutts, who somewhat of a Google celebrity, links to the New York Times blog, which can be found here. Suffice to say, patents boosters are offended by this decision from Twitter. Less for them (the parasites), more for technologists. █
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Posted in Patents at 8:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The likes of Patent Watchdog
Summary: News and remarks about the element in high technology which contributes nothing at all yet pockets big profits
Every now and then we find some sites that promote software patents. A Web site called “The Software Intellectual Property Report” tells us that “A Northern District of California court has rejected an argument that “a method of executing an instruction” was not patent eligible subject matter. Nazomi Communications, Inc. v. Samsung Telecommunications, Inc., No. C-10-05545 (N.D. Cal. March 21, 2012). The representative claim, reproduced below, recited a method by which a Java interpreter could more efficiently access byte codes.”
Another post says that the “USPTO Issues Preliminary Mayo Guidelines”, but it is clear that the USPTO is all in favour of more patents on just about everything conceivable. “It’s Time To Re-Establish That If A Patent Blocks Progress, It’s Unconstitutional,” alleges Masnick, but sadly, in reality, it is lobbyists (corporate proxies) who determine public policy. Among those who employ many lobbyists there is Intellectual Ventures, the world’s biggest patent troll, which according to the site of patent boosters makes a lot of money without making a single product:
• Intuit and Verizon have paid $120 million and $350 million respectively to IV in order to have access to its patent portfolio and, of course, to curtail the threat of legal action. According to a 2008 10-k filing, Verizon agreed to pay $100 million to IV in a non-exclusive licensing deal, while the company also invested $250 million “to become a member in a limited liability company” giving it rights to “certain intellectual property” in return for an annual licence fee. As the article notes, Verizon was not among the mobile carriers sued for patent infringement by IV in February. Looking at the amount Verizon has paid out, if IV prevails in its action against Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile, the odds must be that it will be looking at a very big pay-day and some very useful on-going licensing revenues.
All those costs are in turn passed to the public. It’s like all of us are subsidising patent trolls which contribute nothing to anyone.
“It’s like all of us are subsidising patent trolls which contribute nothing to anyone.”Meanwhile we learn that “the company that claims it invented the mobile Internet sells software businesses to focus on patents” and to quote the article: “Nasdaq-listed Openwave Systems, which claims it invented the mobile Internet, this morning announced that it has sold its software products businesses to investment firm Marlin Equity Partners so it can ‘focus on its intellectual property’.”
Here we are in a world which facilitates parasites and rewards them for nothing at all. The wasteful element which is patent lawyers needs to be eliminated/starved if we wish to drive prices down and innovate a lot more peacefully as scientists. Jobs would be created — real jobs — if patent lawyers were put out of work. █
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