Patent Abuse Identified, Patent Abuse Comes Under Fire, Patent Storm Ended, and Patents That Kill
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2007-10-03 23:33:58 UTC
Modified: 2007-10-03 23:33:58 UTC
Poor patents hurt the poor
Returning to our series of posts which highlight the problem with poor patents, here are some news.
Slashdot has identified a rather disturbing patent from IBM. This patent has prior art written all over it and if only you could count the number of applications that use checkboxes, would you realise the scope of impact.
What do you call it when you drag a pointer over a checkbox to select or deselect it depending on its original state? Answer: US Patent 7,278,116. On Tuesday, the USPTO awarded IBM a patent for Mode Switching for Ad Hoc Checkbox Selection, aka Making an 'X'.
The European Commission launched on Monday formal antitrust proceedings against U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm after complaints that its patent licensing for third-generation mobile telephones broke competition rules.
Another case that we recently mentioned used WLAN as an example of cases where patents hurt progress. Fortunately, that issue may have just been resolved.
A roadblock that reportedly could have held up a key wireless LAN standard seems to have been cleared now that an Australian research group has responded to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) standards body.
Microsoft already fired about 5,000-6,000 workers this year by our estimates; that's not counting resignations compelled through pressure (i.e. pushed, did not jump) and contractors
Maybe this is very innocent, but they seem to have taken a solid, stable program from a high-profile Frenchman and looked for ways to marry it with GitHub, i.e. Microsoft/NSA
