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Patents Roundup: Patent Bully Erich Spangenberg Finally Loses, Europe Still Troubled, Microsoft Bullies With Software Patents, Monsanto Uses Earthquakes to Spread Patent Liabilities

Espiritu Santo



Summary: As indicated in the title, separate topics relating to patents are covered here

Erich Spangenber



"PATENT TROLL Tracker" covered this man's activities quite a lot and we too mentioned Erich Spangenberg for his abuse of the patent system for self gain. According to TechDirt, Spangenberg is finally losing.

Two years ago, we wrote about a patent held by Erich Spangenberg, a notorious patent hoarder who is involved in a ton of lawsuits against companies who actually make stuff, attacked with highly questionable patents. The patent in question (5,367,627) basically described an electronic parts catalog, which Spangenberg used to sue tons of companies.

[...]

After all that effort, the Federal Circuit has dumped the original ruling, noting that the "invention" (if you can call it that) was "anticipated" by earlier inventions. But, honestly, if you want to get a deeper sense of just how messed up the patent system is, you should read the full ruling


The system is seemingly becoming even more messed up as time goes on. Patent lawyers have hijacked this system to enrich themselves at the expense of scientists and they gradually increase the scope of patenting.

Patentability of Software



Digital Majority summarises coverage of the G3/08 (EBoA) referral while over in Germany we find software patents being legalised. Someone from the Pirate Party in the UK has published a long response to it.

German software patents are a sad day for software



[...]

Those members who know me well will be aware that one of the main reasons that I originally got involved with the Pirate Party was because of its support for patent reform, and in particular its opposition of software patents. Today is a sad day for software in Europe; the German High Court has now effectively declared software patentable without any meaningful limits. It's especially bad news for Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).

[...]

As a Free Software developer, I'm particularly worried, because Free Software can only work when anyone can use the software and distribute it to others. Due to software patents in the USA, there is a whole bunch of functionality that was — or still is — impossible for Linux distributions to offer "out of the box." These include such basic features as watching DVDs and Internet video, creating and listening to MP3s, and working with JPEG2000 images. In all these examples the patents cover mathematical algorithms for encoding and decoding data. What makes things worse is that FOSS developers are blamed for the lack of these, even though they've written the code and it works perfectly well.


As TechDirt puts it:

So, as we sit and wait in the US for a ruling on Bilski, hoping (but doubting) that it will greatly curtail software patents, Germany is going in the opposite direction.


Yes, over in the US, a high-level decision on the Bilski case could change a lot for software freedom. Here is some new analysis [1, 2, 3].

Trade Secrets



Originally, the patent office was intended to encourage inventors to publish their ideas; well, now it's the opposite as it suppresses and often restricts people who want to practice ideas. Glyn Moody has a new piece criticising today's regime of intellectual monopolies and trade secrets:

Now, some might say that this retreat into the widespread use of trade secrets to protect products is a huge loss to humanity, and a backward step from the current situation where people patent stuff – which, as the word originally meant, implies revealing to the world your secrets.

I think this is nonsense, and part of the romantic propaganda put about by those that use intellectual monopolies to stifle competition. Indeed, what is striking about so many patents today is that they reveal precisely *nothing*: they are either obvious, in which case they don't tell us anything we didn't already know, or else they are make such vague and general claims (even though patents aren't supposed to work like that) as to be useless for practical purposes.


Companies that use Linux play the same game. The question is, should one's own profit come before advancement as a whole? With state support even?

Microsoft



Here we have a company that held back IT for decades. Microsoft even implicitly admitted that it wanted to slow innovation so that it needn't cope with new forms of technology that may be less profitable (or more challenging to monetise, e.g. SaaS).

Now that SaaS is catching on at companies like Salesforce, Microsoft is bullying and suing [1, 2]. TechDirt states: "Microsoft Decides It Can't Compete With Salesforce.com; Sues For Patent Infringement Instead"

Suffice to say, Microsoft boosters like Paul Thurrott defend Microsoft and even add fuel to the fire:

This week, Microsoft sued Salesforce.com, accusing the latter of violating eight of its software patents. This development has raised hackles in certain circles—"Microsoft is reverting to its old ways!" But these people are clueless: Microsoft has been threatening companies with patent lawsuits for years, and my guess is that Salesforce just declined to roll over, as all those Linux companies have. And just so we're clear, it's not "spurious patent litigation" if it works or is held up in court. Let's see what happens before we decide that Microsoft is in the wrong. It's one thing to take a tiny company to court, but Salesforce.com is huge and can defend itself. Microsoft knows that.


It's nice to know that Microsoft boosters are actually fans of Microsoft's racketeering too. They haven't much dignity, which is probably why they promote Microsoft in the first place.

Monsanto



Monsanto is a major abuser of the world's population and Monsanto uses patents on life to coerce and to enforce. We wrote about the subject in posts such as:

  1. With Microsoft Monopoly in Check, Bill Gates Proceeds to Creating More Monopolies
  2. Gates-Backed Company Accused of Monopoly Abuse and Investigated
  3. How the Gates Foundation Privatises Africa
  4. Reader's Article: The Gates Foundation and Genetically-Modified Foods
  5. Monsanto: The Microsoft of Food
  6. Seeds of Doubt in Bill Gates Investments
  7. Gates Foundation Accused of Faking/Fabricating Data to Advance Political Goals
  8. More Dubious Practices from the Gates Foundation
  9. Video Transcript of Vandana Shiva on Insane Patents
  10. Explanation of What Bill Gates' Patent Investments Do to Developing World
  11. Black Friday Film: What the Bill Gates-Backed Monsanto Does to Animals, Farmers, Food, and Patent Systems
  12. Gates Foundation Looking to Destroy Kenya with Intellectual Monopolies
  13. Young Napoleon Comes to Africa and Told Off
  14. Bill Gates Takes His GMO Patent Investments/Experiments to India
  15. Gates/Microsoft Tax Dodge and Agriculture Monopoly Revisited
  16. Beyond the 'Public Relations'
  17. UK Intellectual Monopoly Office (UK-IPO) May be Breaking the Law
  18. “Boycott Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in China”
  19. The Gates Foundation Extends Control Over Communication with Oxfam Relationship
  20. Week of Monsanto


Monsanto and Microsoft have a great deal in common because they use the "drug dealer" mentality to spread their products and make people dependent on those products. Monsanto -- like Microsoft -- is also trying to make money out of a disaster in Haiti (Monsanto is seeding a monopoly in another nation).

Haitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto Hybrid Seeds



"A new earthquake" is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto's seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation's presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.


What Monsanto does here is akin to Microsoft handing out Windows in a nation that already uses GNU/Linux. But to make matters worse, Monsanto is making money out of a disaster, or at least looking to make money in the long term. Monsanto is exploiting Africa and India in the same way with Bill Gates' help (as covered in some of the posts above). What a fine example of misusing patents against impoverished populations. It's even less ethical when it comes to medicine (also covered by patents and prone to addiction).

Recent Techrights' Posts

EPO Examiners Point Out to the Heads of Delegations in the Administrative Council of the EPO That the "AI Policy" of the Office is Illegal
"the Central Staff Committee (CSC) asks the Administrative Council to exert its supervisory role and instruct EPO management to enter into genuine dialogue with the staff representation on the AI Policy, to revise the “Leverage AI” target of 90% AI-automated classification in the SP2028 and to put in place the measures supported by staff in the resolution."
French Cities Dumping Microsoft Because They Recognise Software Freedom, Open Standards, GNU/Linux Autonomy
We hope that more French cities - maybe Paris - will follow Lyon.
LWN is a Voice of GAFAM (Through Linux Foundation, Their Front Group or Occupying Force Inside Linux)
remember who the chief editor works for and who sponsors many of the articles
The 'Case' of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft is a Lot of Copypasta (Maybe Also LLM Slop) From the Matthew Garrett 'Case'
5RB deserves to know and the matter shall be properly reported in due course (when the time is right)
EPO Squeezing the Staff - Part II - Office Breaks Rules, Ignores Courts, Defies Justice
False promises everywhere
IBM - Like Microsoft - is a Dying Company and Perishing Brand ("AI" is a Lie and Decoy)
"Arvind is cutting costs (layoffs, PIPs, forced RTO, etc...) like crazy. IBM offices are closing all over the place in the US."
"Code of Conduct" Invoked When Fedora and Red Hat Users (Since the 1990s) Don't Want to Use Wayland
That is IBM "DEI"
Microsoft Layoffs Next Week: About 10% to be Laid Off in Microsoft Gaming (2 Days Before Independence Day), About 20%+ of XBox Staff
Microsoft is rapidly collapsing
 
Keeping Things Accessible
Gemini Protocol seems to be growing
Technical People Need Technical Lawyers
Technical Litigants in Person (LIPs) have many real and concrete advantages
10,000+ Articles in About 20 Months (and How We Got Here)
More bloat does not beget efficiency and "bells and whistles" tend to have a hidden cost
Links 26/06/2025: Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC) Failing Scandinavia, K-Pop Agencies Abuse People
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/06/2025: AuraGem Twitch Proxy is Back and UI Sluggishness
Links for the day
Links 26/06/2025: Noise Pollution Considered High in Europe, Mass Layoffs Next Week in Microsoft Confirmed, Very Large in Scale and Scope
Links for the day
No, I Don't Want Your Latest XYZ, ThankYouVeryMuch...
Wayland is finally ready?
China Keeps Breaking Into Microsoft Systems, So for True Sovereignty, Nations Wary of China Need to Dump Microsoft
Looking at data from Taiwan (not China) and Maharlika (not Philippines, the king is dead and Spain is out), there are encouraging signs
Linux Journal Wants Ads on Its LLM Slop or Ads as 'Articles'
it's basically another BetaNews
How to Kill a Monopoly
in 10 simple steps
Mozambique: GNU/Linux Rose From 0.5% Last Year to 3% This Year
what (or how) statCounter is measuring
Next Month Marks 11 Years Since Our In-Depth EPO Coverage
The same is happening to Microsoft right now
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Campaigns Against Vista 11, Adds 4 New Associate Members Per Day
If more people understood the underlying principles, more of them would flock to Free software overnight
Canonical Seems to Have Culled Some Sources of LLM Slop From Planet Ubuntu
It's like "junk food", it's not information
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 25, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 25, 2025
On "Weak Claims"
For the record, they sent me unjustified threats, repeatedly tried injunctions (censorship)
EPO Squeezing the Staff - Part I - Burnout and Family Health
more exceptional circumstances
This Month's Mail (MX) Server Survey Shows Microsoft at 0.20% "Market Share"
We need to remind people that desktops and laptops decline (in proportion to other client devices) and at the "back end" GNU/Linux is already dominant and has long been dominant
Links 26/06/2025: Filespooler Guide and Learning to Code
Links for the day
Why Techrights Cannot be Vilified (and Instead It Gets SLAPPed Repeatedly by Microsoft People)
Attack dogs are all "bark"; because they have no actual "bite"
Austrian GNU/Linux Usage Up to About 5% as More of Europe Abandons Microsoft
Since inauguration day the Austrian people have adopted more and more of GNU/Linux
Why the "Wayland People" and "Rust People" Will Lose Hearts and Minds (Same Reasons)
Wayland pushers are fast becoming like "Rust People"
5,600 Pages/Articles Per Year
So far this year we've kept all the promises
BetaNews Beginning to Show What Its True Goals Are
The 'new' BetaNews won't be about journalism. It's trying to sell things.
Microsoft Has Lost "The War"
We'll soon see the 9th or 10th wave of Microsoft layoffs in 2025 alone
Slopwatch: A Wreck and a Dreck, "Flooding the Zone With Dreck" or Flooding the Web With Junk
"Slopwatch" continues today because we have many new examples
Links 25/06/2025: Thwarting More Software Patents, Overlap Grows Between EPO Corruption and Illegal Kangaroo Patent Courts in EU
Links for the day
Links 25/06/2025: Elon Musk’s Lawyers Caught Lying, WhatsApp Faces More Bans
Links for the day
Wayland Pushers Lose the Argument, Use LLM Slop and Chatbots to Make Up Arguments for IBM
Another new low and low blow
Brian Fagioli Created Another Slopfarm Targeting "Linux" After BetaNews Became a Slopfarm of Phantom Accounts and Pseudonyms
Mr. Fagioli even had slop about a dead Torvalds (hypothetical) as clickbait
Wayland is Perfect, Nobody Can Escape Its Perfection! (Or Not)
Do not form on opinion on Wayland based on politics
What is "MATA"?
Think of it as GAFAM or "Meta"
Moral Duty for "Linux Sites" to Speak Out Against LLM Slop
My wife has long complained about "Linux bloggers" keeping quiet and thus passive about a growing problem: slop
In Recent Hours Google News Promoted at Least 3 Slopfarms That Relayed Linux Foundation Propaganda Made by Bots or LLM "Bullshit Generators" (as Dr. Stallman Dubbed Them)
Google is circling down the drain and Google News too is hopeless
Linux Journal is a Slopfarm, It's Experimenting With LLM 'Authors'
Is Slashdot next?
WebProNews is a Slopfarm
Please avoid linking to WebProNews
Microsoft LinkedIn is Dying and Many More Layoffs Are on the Way
LinkedIn is just a failed acquisition of Microsoft. It causes losses and debt.
Gemini Links 25/06/2025: Combinatorial Music and Self Hosting
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Coming Back to Europe This Autumn to Give More Talks
His last talk in Europe attracted about 400-450 people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 24, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Social Control Media, Technology & Catholicism: Synod on Synodality review and feedback
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
How Many More Women Will Managers at Microsoft Strangle and Tell to Kill Themselves (or Try to Kill)?
The world needs to know what happened
The New BetaNews: 7 New 'Articles', All of Them LLM Slop
BetaNews is basically defunct. Nobody writes there anymore.
Another "Told You So!": XBox Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Many Recent Reports Were Chaff and Spin), Many Other Divisions Affected
With mass layoffs at Microsoft the world would be much better
statCounter Estimates Only 1 in 300 Iranians Would Use Microsoft for Search
Iranians don't quite trust Microsoft
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: ftpd on FreeBSD and Online Small Web Magazine
Links for the day
Google News Does Great Harm by Promoting Slopfarms as Legitimate News Sites
Slopfarms are sites which are 100% LLM slop
Links 24/06/2025: Trouble at "Open" "AI" and ‘Siarhei is Free’
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: Stimulants and Subscription Costs for DRM
Links for the day
When the Microsoft Aggressors Rely on Several Law Firms ('Attack Dogs', 'Guns for Hire'), Not Just One, Lawyering Up Against Techrights (Acting on Behalf of Americans Against UK Publishers)
From serving customers at some restaurant he has moved on to bullying people with demand letters
Links 24/06/2025: OpenAI [sic] May Soon Die (Too Much Debt) and Social Control Media Accused of Being Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda Amplifier
Links for the day
Nirbheek Chauhan in Planet GNOME Explains Why Wayland Pushers Are Losing
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
Polygamy, from Catholic Synod on Synodality to Social Control Media & Debian CyberPolygamy
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Only a Third of or 1 in 3 Web-Connected Devices is a Desktop or Laptop, According to statCounter
we can expect Android to widen its lead
The Days Are Getting Shorter, the First Half of 2025 is Almost Over
We're gratified to see significant increase in traffic and also positive feedback on the work we do
Turning GNU/Linux Into a Political Football
X (not the site) is Free software
X Server Still Works for Many People
A lot of people will grow suspicious of Wayland boosters/pushers if they persist and insist on using these tactics
Exactly a Week Ago "BetaNews Staff" Said "Betanews Is Growing Alongside You". Since Then Every Article (All by "Camila Nogueira") Has Been LLM Slop.
BetaNews is basically a slopfarm
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 23, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 23, 2025
The "Tarzan Effect" in Compilers and Software
What happens when you forcibly make things 'work', either by hacks or by disregarding warnings (like those that compilers tend to issue)?
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: Mass Tourism, Hair Love, and Google Gemini as a Googlebomb
Links for the day