Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents Roundup: TomTom, The 'Bilski Test', Junk Patents, and Ambush

"Truthfulness with me is hardly a virtue. I cannot discriminate between truths that and those that don't need to be told."

--Margot Asquith



TomTom Revisited



IT IS hard treating the TomTom case as though it's old news because ramifications may be serious and Microsoft is already spinning. Jay Lyman, a self-professed proponent of GNU/Linux, is optimistically suggesting that the lawsuit has not negatively affected the adoption of Linux in the embedded space and based on our collection of news stories over the past fortnight, Lyman is probably correct. He wrote:



I don’t necessarily see the same effect from the TomTom suit since, at least publicly, Microsoft is not making the case that it is Linux on the line. I can report that there does not seem to be any slowdown or hesitation in the embrace of Linux for embedded devices. Perhaps that is the reason that Microsoft has chosen to play down any implications for Linux and open source, rather than puff them up as it has done in the past. If Microsoft or anyone else challenges the IP integrity of the Linux OS, it is likely to reinforce the idea that the open source software is legitimate, licensed, covered by copyright, and absolutely appropriate for enterprise, embedded and other commercial uses, at least that’s what history tells us.


SD Times has already gathered some more details about mysterious anomalies that harm Microsoft's case.

Under the original FAT licensing program, pricing was US$0.25 per unit with a cap on total royalties of $250,000 per manufacturer, according to what had been posted on Microsoft’s website from 2003 to July 2006. A Microsoft spokesperson could not explain why they were removed or whether those terms were applicable to the 18 agreements outlined in the lawsuit.


As we showed 2 weeks ago, Microsoft had explicitly promised not to sue over FAT. It therefore fails to keep up with its own licences, let alone just those promises. This is why we believe that Microsoft is fighting a losing battle and it relies heavily on the financial situation of TomTom which is rather frail right now.

“As we showed 2 weeks ago, Microsoft had explicitly promised not to sue over FAT.”Microsoft, like SCO, frequently relies on exhaustion of its opponents (or lingering the uncertainty), so it's a test that merely determines whose pockets are deeper and who can afford more motions. It is very much the same with the European Commission, which Microsoft drives into exhaustion for many years, so by the time compliance is reached -- if that ever happens at all -- the documentation delivered is already irrelevant and outdated.

One reader recently told us that this is "unfortunately the nature of the law. As a lawyer, I can tell you that lawyers don't sit around talking about justice, they talk about whether you can win a motion for summary judgment (a quick way to end cases). Law is very narrow. It is not about justice. It is about whether the law can be used to bludgeon your opponent. [...] It is increasingly becoming true that the party with the greater resources wins. That is why it is so important for TomTom to win this case."

Business law



Software Patents Can Die



Illegitimacy of Microsoft's claims aside, the question about patentability of software post-Bilski [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14] just keeps arising. According to this article about TomTom, In Re Bilski keeps slaughtering software patents.

Due to the Bilski ruling, new software patent evaluation rules have come into existence and just recently IBM lost claim to one of its database query patents. It was rejected because the innovation isn’t “tied to a particular machine”.

The BPAI goes on to justify the rejection by pointing out that the “system” on which the innovation operates is “not recited in terms of hardware or tangible structural elements”, which is to say that the patent is rejected because the elements of the claim are “implemented solely in software or algorithms”.


Moreover, according to Law.com, the opposition to Bernard Bilski's patent is proving invaluable.

Federal Circuit Bars Patent for Business 'Paradigm'



[...]

"A paradigm is basically a way of doing something," Harris said. "I was trying to define a whole new set of claims -- a new style of claims."


At the end of the day, do software patents matter anymore? Are they sufficiently valid to actually endure the 'court test'?

Junk Patents



One of our readers has accumulated examples of new patents that are worth putting here for their hilarity value. As he puts it, Cryptomathic patents user authentication using a central server, Innovid patents in-video brand experience, Worlds.com patents virtual reality, CounterPath patents mobile to IP roaming, laundry viewing over the Internet is patented, reading barcode with camera phone is patented, F-Secure patents updating virus signatures over SMS, Prolexic patents anti-DDOS service, and automatic menu generation too is now a patent.

What on Earth is going on here?

Patent Ambush (or Patents in Standards)



Rambus' patent trap inside a standard [1, 2, 3, 4] is highly relevant to us because Microsoft patent traps like OOXML and C#, which are wrapped with something called "standard" (never mind if sheer crime was devised to achieve the status), are a danger to Free software.

According to this early report, Rambus is getting its way with a patent ambush and this can cost Hynix as much as $0.4 billion. Yes, all of this money just for patents, which were sneakily concealed inside a standard while it was innocently being adopted by many.

Hynix has agreed to pay royalties of up to 4.25 per cent for the use of Rambus patents in devices sold between the 31st of January 2009 and the 18th of April 2010.


Ars Technica has some more details about this story.

MPEG-2 may not be a case of an ambush, but as we showed last week, Lenovo is being hurt quite badly by it. MPEG-2 is a real issue for Free software because it has spread widely and it requires patents to be used. According to CNET, Apple potentially poisons Web standards with patents, we well.

On March 5 Apple dropped a small bombshell on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards body, excluding one of its patents from the W3C Royalty-Free License commitment of the W3C Patent Policy for Widgets 1.0. The patent in question covers automatic updates to a client computer in a networked operating environment.


The author is an advocate of Apple, so he tries to convince the readers that Apple is a friend of open source when in reality it is a a big foe of open source and freedom in general. Well, fortunately, Apple suffers just like Microsoft and it shows.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Techrights' Statement on Code of Censorship (CoC) and Kent Overstreet: This Was the Real Purpose of Censorship Agreements All Along
Bombing people is OK (if you sponsor the key organisations), opposing bombings is not (a CoC in a nutshell)
 
Links 24/11/2024: More IMF Bailouts and Net Client Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/11/2024: Being a Student and Digital Downsizing
Links for the day
[Meme] The Most Liberal Company
"Insurrection? What insurrection?"
apple.com Traffic Down Over 7%, Says One Spyware Firm; Apple's Liabilities Increased Over 6% to $308,030,000,000
Apple is also about 120 billion dollars in debt
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 23, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, November 23, 2024
[Meme] GAFAMfox
Mozilla Firefox in a state of extreme distress
Google Can Kill Mozilla Any Time It Wants
That gives Google far too much power over its rival... There are already many sites that refuse to work with Firefox or explicitly say Firefox isn't supported
Free (as in Freedom) Software Helps Tackle the Software Liability Issue, It Lets Users Exercise Greater Control Over Programs
Microsofters have been trying to ban or exclude Free software
In the US, Patent Laws Are Up for Sale
This problem is a lot bigger than just patents
ESET Finds Rootkits, Does Not Explain How They Get Installed, Media Says It Means "Previously Unknown Linux Backdoors" (Useful Distraction From CALEA and CALEA2)
FUD watch
Techdirt Loses Its Objectivity in Pursuit of Money
The more concerning aspects are coverage of GAFAM and Microsoft in particular
Links 23/11/2024: Press Sold to Vultures, New LLM Blunders
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: "Relationship with Oneself" and Yretek.com is Back
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: "Real World" Cracked and UK Online Safety Act is Law
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: Celebrating Proprietary Bluesky (False Choice, Same Issues) and Software Patents Squashed
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 22, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, November 22, 2024
Gemini Links 23/11/2024: 150 Day Streak in Duolingo and ICBMs
Links for the day
Links 22/11/2024: Dynamic Pricing Practice and Monopoly Abuses
Links for the day
Topics We Lacked Time to Cover
Due to a Microsoft event (an annual malware fest for lobbying and marketing purposes) there was also a lot of Microsoft propaganda
Microsofters Try to Defund the Free Software Foundation (by Attacking Its Founder This Week) and They Tell People to Instead Give Money to Microsoft Front Groups
Microsoft people try to outspend their critics and harass them
[Meme] EPO for the Kids' Future (or Lack of It)
Patents can last two decades and grow with (or catch up with) the kids
EPO Education: Workers Resort to Legal Actions (Many Cases) Against the Administration
At the moment the casualties of EPO corruption include the EPO's own staff
Gemini Links 22/11/2024: ChromeOS, Search Engines, Regular Expressions
Links for the day
This Month is the 11th Month of This Year With Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (So Far It's Happening Every Month This Year, More Announced Hours Ago)
Now they even admit it
Links 22/11/2024: Software Patents Squashed, Russia Starts Using ICBMs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 21, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, November 21, 2024