Bonum Certa Men Certa

Monopoly Abuser Feels the Wrath of Intellectual Monopolies

What goes around comes around

Major developments are being reported at the moment on the Alcatel-Lucent/Microsoft saga [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Alcatel-Lucent is an example of a struggling -- if not dying -- company that reaches out to its portfolio for survival ("defensive" no more [1, 2]). Well, it may have just hoovered up half a billion dollars off of Microsoft for what's evidently junk patents.



A U.S. District Court judge in Los Angeles has ruled that Microsoft Corp. will have to pay Alcatel-Lucent more than $500 million for infringing on two patents.

One patent covers how software users to fill out forms. The other is related to the use of a stylus on a tablet computer.


Will Microsoft cough out that amount without appealing? Will people use this as an opportunity to slam the system? Will Microsoft challenge the patents for their stupidity? There will probably be a lot more coverage of this at the beginning of next week.

Meanwhile, for contrast, here is a short article about ways in which the GPL can mitigate the impact of patent trolls.

Why would a patent troll agree to this? Don Marti explains how the GPL strengthened Red Hat's bargaining position. In a normal patent licensing negotiation, the patent troll would demand a per-user license fee that would be passed along to the vendor's customers. But the GPL specifically prohibits Red Hat from doing this; if Red Hat agreed to pay per-user royalties, it would be in violation of the GPL and would lose the right to distribute the software at all.


Below you can find a short description of the power struggle and what's at stake. [via Digital Majority]

Who will win the "cold war" brewing between commercial software companies and open-source advocates over software patents?


Software developers prefer to rely just on copyrights, based on surveys which were conducted in the past. It's often a struggle between greed and practicality. Sometimes it's a case of science versus investors and lawyers, who profit if the system goes belly-up (more lawsuits mean more money).

The threat of McCreevy and his so-called 'harmonisation' scheme is revisited now by IAM Magazine. [via Digital Majority]

Essentially, these talks are about harmonising substantive patent law, including areas such as priority of invention, the grace period, the definition of prior art and loss of right provisions. However, I wonder whether Brimelow – who always considers her words very carefully – is hinting that other things may now be on the agenda. It is interesting that when she spoke to me about this, and also in the BBC interview, she talked about users of the patent system raising the issue of mutual recognition. In that way, any talks on the subject can be seen as being responsive and not as policy-makers going out on a limb.

[...]

And, who knows, after the In re Bilski case is finally resolved at either the CAFC or the Supreme Court, Europe and the US may even be a little closer with regard to the controversial areas of business methods and software patents.


Lastly, a poor (too broad) patent that was mentioned here before, gets the attention of IAM Magazine as well. [via Digital Majority]

Since 2006 Ocean Tomo auctions have raised over $70 million for sellers. Its first European sale "“ held in London in June 2007 "“ established a world record for a single patent sold at open auction when an internet shopping patent was bought for $4,865,550.

"In collaboration with IAM magazine, we have planned the most informative, important and exciting event for the IP community this year," says James Malackowski, President and CEO of Ocean Tomo. "I am looking forward to the opportunity to learn from and network with the IP pioneers and thought leaders who will be attending."


This sick orgy of Intellectual Monopolies is ridiculous of course. The 'brilliant' idea of internet shopping is not only owned but ownership of it is being passed as well. The value of it? Millions. What is the worth of the one-click shopping patent? Or the double-click? Can't everyone see that the system has gone insane?

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
 
Either The Register MS Divests From FOSS Coverage or Liam Proven is on Long Holiday
Publishers perish when their audience loses trust in them
Microsoft Cancelling Another Datacentre is a Sign of Financial Trouble and Lack of Growth
The debt continues to grow
Gemini Links 11/10/2025: An Evening at the Fair and Fast Fourier Friday
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 10, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 10, 2025
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