Bonum Certa Men Certa

Software Patents Crisis

Summary: A look back at Professor Moglen's words about Java and last week's talk about software patents; a Microsoft-fueled agitator attacks Apple, Cisco and other Microsoft rivals using patents

TECHRIGHTS has covered software patents for several years, correctly foreseeing them as a major barrier to Free software adoption. A few days ago in LinuxCon Eben Moglen made the case for abolishing software patents, but there were signs of defeatism in his transcripts (no signs of video/audio yet). Moglen did not know at the time that Java too was about to be slapped by Oracle. Here is what he said about Java several years ago.



1.1M





Direct link



Here is one last bit of overage which we found about Moglen's talk (there are more in the previous post).

Eben Moglen, director-counsel and chairman at the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), has long stood at the forefront of the free software revolution. At LinuxCon this week, Moglen delivered a keynote address in which he lauded the movement's many successes, ending with the capacity crowd giving him a standing ovation.

"At the beginning of this conspiracy of ours, we wanted to make it happen that freedom would go inside of everything, and then we could turn it on," Moglen said. "We are making freedom useful to people."


Based on this news, another patent troll/parasite which Microsoft paid to settle is attacking rivals of Microsoft (see background on VirnetX [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14] and compare to Eolas [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] or Uniloc [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], which did exactly the same thing):

After being awarded $200m in a patent-infringement case that it brought against Microsoft, VirnetX has now gone after Apple, Cisco Systems, and others.

In a brief statement announcing the lawsuit, VirnetX accused Apple, Cisco, NEC, and the self-described "leading global enterprise communications provider" Aastra of violating five of its patents, each related to a greater or lesser extent to VPN.


We have come across comments on these cases (e.g. VirnetX, Eolas, Uniloc) which say Microsoft paid them to essentially attack Microsoft rivals (we don't subscribe to this theory though). Groklaw opines that Microsoft paid Acacia by settling a dispute just as SCO was paid directly by Microsoft (for UNIX). Here is Groklaw's latest take on SCO:

SCO Group's Chapter 11 Trustee, Edward Cahn, has now filed the monthly operating reports for June, as well as bills for Ocean Park Advisors for June and July. And take note: there's no hearing in bankruptcy court on Monday. Once again, it's called off.


The new SCO in town seems to be Oracle and we have just prepared some graphics for it (click to zoom, feel free to share):

SCOracle logo

Here is some more coverage about that case, which we wrote about four times yesterday [1, 2, 3, 4].



The patent system is seriously messed up, as this new post from TechDirt helps show:

Bas Grasmayer points us to the claim that the Austrian town of Frauenkirchen has apparently tried to patent the fact that it represents the geographical midpoint of Europe...


Patenting must have boundaries. Otherwise there's a crisis. And that's what we have right now.

“Oracle Corporation opposes the patentability of software. The Company believes that existing copyright law and available trade secret protections, as opposed to patent law, are better suited to protecting computer software developments.”

--Oracle Corporation (years ago)



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Rewriting Things in Rust
How far would you go?
What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
LLM slop disguised as news
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
 
Microsoft's MSN Helps Microsoft Spread Lies About the Layoffs' Scale (Well Over 25,000 People Laid Off This Year)
There seem to be monopolies on lies and on truth
The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
X.Org Server is alive and well
In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
Monopolies and Scalping
Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
"August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
Links for the day
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead
Happy Independence Day to Our American Readers
Maybe tomorrow will be a good opportunity to explain to American people - in terms of concepts, not brands - which tools respect their independence
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Linuxsecurity, and Google News Getting Even Worse (More Slopfarms Added Which Attack Linux With Bruce-Force SPAM)
Google News is part of the same problem
Links 03/07/2025: More Cuts and Cancellations at Microsoft Revealed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: Favourite Child and Launching WikiGem
Links for the day
GNU/Linux is Replacing Microsoft Windows. But We Need to Eradicate Microsoft, It's a Hub of Crime.
I have been writing about Microsoft since the 1990s when I was in school
Mystery Surrounding the PCLinuxOS Sites and PCLinuxOS Magazine
Let's hope this isn't something major
People and Companies Do Learn Some Lessons From Their Mistakes (Stubborn Ones Don't)
Brett Wilson LLP is an example of one that would rather drown in mistakes
Links 03/07/2025: 'Hey Hi' Slop Ridiculed Some More and Microsoft's Layoffs Tally for 2025 Reaches About 29,000 in Just 6 Months (Almost 5,000 Per Month)
Links for the day
Microsoft Staff Harassing Women, Strangling Women, Telling Women to Kill Themselves and Worse? Not a Problem!
Two women have left Brett Wilson LLP
The Slopfarms Are Losing the Plot (and Google is Propping Up Rogue Sites)
Google is part of the attack on the Web, on information, and on technology
New BetaNews Realises There's No Potential or Future in Slopfarms, Prior Editor Wayne Williams is Back
They realise that slop (so-called "AI") cannot replace humans
Claims That Microsoft Looks for Staff That Works More and Gets Paid Less (or Can Only Code by Grabbing Other People's Code, Under the Guise of "AI")
People can form their own opinion
Richard Stallman Was Right About Reasons Not to Use Microsoft
last updated 2017
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: No to Cloudflare and Small Web July
Links for the day