Summary: Timeline of Microsoft's patent plotting
WE KINDLY ask readers to weigh in and fill the gaps (missing milestone events). Here is what we already know.
1991: Bill Gates
explicitly says that he dislikes patents.
1998: Microsoft
is said to have lost $18 billion (source: The Economist) because the business model did not scale well. The company had some savings, but the company's direction was not clear (
still isn't) and it may already be in debt [
1,
2,
3,
4,
5]. More recently, the company pressured the American government to print more money and pass it over to private hands, namely corporations in distress [
1,
2,
3].
1999:
The Gates Foundation is created to serve
as a tax haven and bank account for investments of interest. Like
many other charities of its kind, it is conveniently disguised as philanthropy while acting as a vehicle that advances personal agenda. Gates personally invests in patents trolls too (see below).
2000: Gates speaks/spoke to his colleague -- Nathan Myhrvold -- about addressing the problems with software profitability and related conundrums. Patents came up as a solution. Myhrvold
told the press last year that he had come up with
Intellectual Ventures (IV) after negotiations with Gates and it's clear that this
founder dislikes GNU/Linux. Gates personally invests in IV, which already
extracts revenue from patents (so does Microsoft).
2004 Asian governments
decide to move to GNU/Linux, so Microsoft threatens to sue them over patents.
2005:
A software patents directive in Europe gets tossed despite heavy lobbying from Microsoft, which
continues that lobbying effort to this date.
2006: Microsoft signs a comprehensive patent deal that directly aligns itself against GNU/Linux. Novell is the first company to subscribe to this.
2007: Microsoft
threatens to sue Linux vendors and already blackmails some (without disclosures made), based on
admissions in the press.
2008: Gates turns out to have its own patent harvesting/trolling firm [
1,
2]. There is
more than one participant in this.
2009: After
a long period of betting on patents, Microsoft
brags about receiving its 10,000th patent.
2009: Microsoft
sues a company over patents in Linux and
admits to 'taxing' other companies using the same patents.
That's just the short story about patents at Microsoft -- a story which needs a lot of work before competition, so readers' help is needed. There are
worse patterns of behaviour which
some people would characterise as organised crime by a
"political movement".
⬆
"Sadly, many of these brilliant people have been blinded by the stock price and unable to see that Microsoft is also the key architect of the greatest financial pyramid scheme this century.
--
Bill Parish
Comments
David Gerard
2009-03-09 16:03:53