White House Fights Back and Against Patent System Reform

It just doesn't seem to end. Drug companies and other patent trolls wish to restore the old rules.

A new US law which would reduce the damages to be paid out for patent infringement has been passed by one half of the US legislature. The proposed law was backed by large technology firms and banks but opposed by smaller tech companies and drug companies.

And here is a fine new example of how abuse materialsies.

Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T, Spring, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Viacom, Real, Napster...

....Samsung, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Sandisk sued

A company sued a heap of companies for allegedly infringing patents that cover music management systems.

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Microsoft, for example, is alleged to have used this technology not only in Zune, but in WMP for Windows, Vista and the Xbox 360.

That must be the consequence of permitting software to be patented. According to this new article on women in technology, which by no means makes any statement about gender, things just get worse. Who needs all this paperwork that documents ownership of algorithmic notions?

Qualcomm, which faces an embargo (bad for the consumer), seems to have gotten a selective relief, but how did we all get there in the first place?

Only AT&T, T-Mobile USA, Motorola, Samsung, LG, Kyocera and Sanyo Fisher will be allowed to ignore the ban.

More Intrusive Advertisment Patents from Microsoft

Yesterday we mentioned a few mind-boggling patents from Microsoft. Some consumer-hostile and obtrusive methods for delivery of information continue to be patented. Here is the latest.

Microsoft has just published a patent application for advertising triggered by sequences of user actions, which describes how to interrupt game playing, music listening, and photo viewing with pop-up ads ('the components may be integrated directly into the operating system').

Here is another older one, which was not mentioned yesterday.

Microsoft has patented the idea of inserting fresh advertisements into old recordings on personal video recorders, to ensure you see today's ads even if you're watching a recording from last week.