Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Spreads Intellectual Monopoly Law in Europe and Arab States; EFF Takes on Acacia

Summary: The Community patent keeps marching, Jean-Philippe Courtois lobbies for the Lisbon Treaty, and Microsoft brings intellectual monopolies to The League of Arab States

THE FFII has been warning for well over a year now that unification was means for legalising software patents in Europe. Fingers were pointing at Commissioner McCreevy, who constantly brings up the Community patent [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Axel H. Horns has this update about the Community patent, which remains a big threat to Free software in this continent.



It should not be overlooked that the entire project of an enhanced patent system in Europe is currently set on hold because of the pending referral for the Unified Patent Litigation System to the ECJ.


One of the pivotal figures in Microsoft's lobbying for software patents in Europe is Jean-Philippe Courtois, who also personally participated in blocking migrations to GNU/Linux by dumping [1, 2, 3, 4]. “Linux is obviously a key competitor,” Courtois once wrote to his colleagues. Watch him now as he lobbies for the terrible Lisbon Treaty, which is about "innovation and competitiveness" (being code names for patents).

BUSINESS GROUPS: THE MICROSOFT executive who runs the software company’s business outside of the US and Canada is the latest high-profile business leader to come out in favour of passing the Lisbon Treaty.

Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International, said it was “very important” not just for Ireland but for Europe as a whole that the treaty is ratified.

“We have a shift of power between China, Brazil, the Indias of the world and the US,” said Mr Courtois. “Europe needs to step up both economically speaking and politically speaking. That treaty has to be clearly embodied and move on with all the citizens in Europe.”


The above article from the Irish Times ought to show why Microsoft is the problem. It wasn't long ago that we wrote about what Microsoft does in Ireland [1, 2], including the creation of "Microsoft IP Ventures" over there (not to be confused with Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures [1, 2]). Microsoft is now doing to The League of Arab States something quite similar:

The League of Arab States, Microsoft Corp. and Khasawneh & Associates (a member of KSLG) today announced the launch of the Arab Intellectual Property Centre, an online portal which will provide a central hub for best practice sharing and legal resources on intellectual property in the Arab region.


Shortly after Microsoft got caught marketing anti-GNU/Linux patents to patent trolls [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] we find that the EFF gets its way against Acacia.

Ten claims from the Acacia Research Streaming Media Patent have been invalidated by the U.S.District Court for the Northern District of California. The Court invalidated the remaining claims that had been asserted in the litigation, after several others had been dropped from the suit by Acacia. EFF was not involved in the case, which was brought by Acacia against leading satellite and cable companies, Echostar, DirectTV, Time Warner Cable and CSC Holdings, Inc. Similar claims in related patents will also be invalid under the Court's analysis.


As a reminder, Acacia is patent troll that sued GNU/Linux vendors shortly after adding Microsoft seniors to its staff. That's why we follow people's actions and professional history so closely.

Acacia logo



Recent Techrights' Posts

A Week After a Worldwide Windows Outage Microsoft is 'Bricking' Windows All On Its Own, Cannot Blame Others Anymore
A look back at a week of lousy press coverage, Microsoft deceit, and lessons to be learned
 
Links 26/07/2024: Tesco Cutbacks and Fake Patent Courts
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2024: Grimy Residue of the 'AI' Bubble and Tensions Around Alaska
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2024: More Computers and Tilde Hosting
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2024: "AI" Hype Debunked and Elon Musk's "X" Already Spreads Political Disinformation
Links for the day
"Why you boss is insatiably horny for firing you and replacing you with software."
Ask McDonalds how this "AI" nonsense with IBM worked out for them
No Olympics
We really need to focus on real news
Nobody Holds the GNOME Foundation Accountable (Not Even IRS), It's Governed by Lawyers, Not Geeks, and Headed by a Shaman Crank
GNOME is a deeply oppressive institutions that eats its own
[Meme] The 'Modern' Web and 'Linux' Foundation Reinforcing Monopolies and Cementing centralisation
They don't care about the users and issuing a few bytes with random characters costs them next to nothing. It gives them control over billions of human beings.
'Boiling the Frog' or How Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) is Being Abandoned at Short Notice by Let's Encrypt
This isn't a lack of foresight but planned obsolescence
When the LLM Bubble Implodes Completely Microsoft Will be 'Finished'
Excuses like, "it's not ready yet" or "we'll fix it" won't pass muster
"An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs"
The lesson of this story is, if you do evil things, bad things will come your way. So don't do evil things.
When Wikileaks Was Still Primarily a Wiki
less than 14 years ago the international media based its war journalism on what Wikileaks had published
The Free Software Foundation Speaks Out Against Microsoft
the problem is bigger than Microsoft and in the long run - seeing Microsoft's demise - we'll need to emphasise Software Freedom
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 25, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, July 25, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Links 26/07/2024: E-mail on OpenBSD and Emacs Fun
Links for the day
Links 25/07/2024: Talks of Increased Pension Age and Biden Explains Dropping Out
Links for the day
Links 25/07/2024: Paul Watson, Kernel Bug, and Taskwarrior
Links for the day
[Meme] Microsoft's "Dinobabies" Not Amused
a slur that comes from Microsoft's friends at IBM
Flashback: Microsoft Enslaves Black People (Modern Slavery) for Profit, or Even for Losses (Still Sinking in Debt Due to LLMs' Failure)
"Paid Kenyan Workers Less Than $2 Per Hour"
From Lion to Lamb: Microsoft Fell From 100% to 13% in Somalia (Lowest Since 2017)
If even one media outlet told you in 2010 that Microsoft would fall from 100% (of Web requests) to about 1 in 8 Web requests, you'd probably struggle to believe it
Microsoft Windows Became Rare in Antarctica
Antarctica's Web stats still near 0% for Windows
Links 25/07/2024: YouTube's Financial Problem (Even After Mass Layoffs), Journalists Bemoan Bogus YouTube Takedown Demands
Links for the day
Gemini Now 70 Capsules Short of 4,000 and Let's Encrypt Sinks Below 100 (Capsules) as Self-Signed Leaps to 91%
The "gopher with encryption" protocol is getting more widely used and more independent from GAFAM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 24, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Techrights Statement on YouTube
YouTube is a dying platform
[Video] Julian Assange on the Right to Know
Publishing facts is spun as "espionage" by the US government and "treason" by the Russian government, to give two notable examples
Links 25/07/2024: Tesla's 45% Profit Drop, Humble Games Employees All Laid Off
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/07/2024: Losing Grip and collapseOS
Links for the day
LWN (Earlier This Week) is GAFAM Openwashing Amplified
Such propaganda and openwashing make one wonder...
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Blog: Microsoft Operatives Promoting Proprietary Software for Microsoft
This is corruption
Libre-SOC Insiders Explain How Libre-SOC and Funding for Libre-SOC (From NLNet) Got 'Hijacked' or Seized
One worked alongside my colleagues and I in 2011
Why We're Revealing the Ugly Story of What Happened at Libre-SOC
Aside from the fact that some details are public already
Removing the Lid Off of 'Cancel Culture' (in Tech) and Shutting It Down by Illuminating the Tactics and Key Perpetrators
Corporate militants disguised as "good manners"
FSF, Which Pioneered GNU/Linux Development, Needs 32 More New Members in 2.5 Days
To meet the goal of a roughly month-long campaign
Lupa Statistics, Based on Crawling Geminispace, Will Soon Exceed Scope of 4,000 Capsules
Capsules or unique capsules or online capsules are in the thousands and growing
Links 24/07/2024: Many New Attacks on Journalists, "Private Companies Own The Law"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/07/2024: Face à Gaïa, Emacs Timers for Weekly Event, Chromebook Survives Water Torture
Links for the day
Why Virtually All the Wikileaks Copycats, Forks, and Rivals Basically Perished
Cryptome is like the "grandpa" of them all
A Total Lack of Transparency: Open and Free Technology Community (OFTC) Fails to Explain Why Over 60% of Users Are Gone (Since a Week Ago)
IRC giants have fallen
In the United Kingdom Google Search Rises to All-Time High, Microsoft Fell Nearly 1.5% Since the LLM Hype Began
Microsoft is going to need actual products or it will gradually vanish from the market
Trying to Put Out the Fire at Microsoft
Microsoft is drowning in debt while laying off loads of staff, hoping it can turn things around
GNU/Linux Growing at Vista 11's Expense
it's tempting to deduce many people who got PCs with Vista 11 preinstalled are deleting it, only to replace it with GNU/Linux
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 23, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 23, 2024