Bonum Certa Men Certa

Why Paul Allen (Interval Patent Troll) Targets Companies That Do Not Cross-license With (or Pay) Microsoft

Longbow targets



Summary: A patchy pattern is spotted by Techrights -- a pattern wherein companies that are trolled for big cash by Microsoft's co-founder are actually not paying Microsoft for patents

PAUL ALLEN'S case against (almost) the whole industry is an important subject which we will watch closely. Allen is not alone among Microsoft executives who become well-funded patent trolls. Other examples include Nathan Myhrvold and Bill Gates.



Allen's professional transformation into a patent troll has already produced at least one cartoon. "Paul Allen will not be able to attack Microsoft or anyone else with agreements due to his prior contracts with Microsoft so it's basically off limits," explained to us Oiaohm last night (morning time in Australia where he lives).

"[W]hile this is perhaps true," argued FurnaceBoy from Canada, "it should not head off some examination of the incestuous intertwined strategies here."

FurnaceBoy then spells out three letters: "S. C. O."

This is a discussion that came about since one of our readers posted the following comment yesterday, pointing out that (almost) none of the companies which Allen sued cross-licenses with Microsoft and they are all US-based, i.e. susceptible to software patents. The commenter says:

“Paul Allen will not be able to attack Microsoft or anyone else with agreements due to his prior contracts with Microsoft so it's basically off limits”
      --Oiaohm
"IBM have a deal, and it is not sued by Allen. Oracle has a deal because Sun had. Samsung has Microsoft deal.... HP too (they are even managed by Microsofties). VMware is managed by Microsofties, but I don't think it has a patent deal, Red Hat is protected by the OIN and probably Allen don't have a patent that might hit them. Canonical too, and it is too small fish... and Canonical helps Microsoft with Mono.

"HTC has Microsoft deal....

"I think there is some other common denominator we are missing. He didn't sue exactly every Microsoft competitor that is not paying privilege to Microsoft. What else those companies have in common? Maybe the fact they are all into Cloud Computing. Maybe they all use FOSS in some part of their infrastructure, or they depend on Microsoft and still use some competing technology."

Based on another new post from a pro-Linux site ("Apple and open source forced to team up"):

Microsoft is in violation of these patents just the same as the companies that Paul Allen is suing. Interestingly he has not chosen to sue the company that he helped to build. Most of his targets are companies that use open source technology with Apple being one of the few exceptions.


Speaking of Apple, it carries on suing Linux and patenting more and more things (this time stack circuits [1, 2]).

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (SJVN) asks, "What does Paul Allen think he's doing!? Besides keeping patent lawyers employed & trying to make a few more billions?"

David Postman, a spokesman for Allen, said that Interval Research was a "groundbreaking contributor" to the development of the commercial Internet and that the patents are fundamental to the ways leading e-commerce and search companies continue to operate." I say this is nonsense.

I am not a lawyer, but I have used the Web almost since day one and I was using the Internet for more than a decade before the Web ever showed up. I've read these patents and they all scream prior art to me.

I think the patents that Oracle is using against Google are weak, but with our fouled up patent legal system in the U.S. they may hold up. I can't imagine Allen's patents holding up.

That aside, I don't understand why Allen is launching these patent attacks.

[...]

But, as to what Allen is doing ... I don't have a clue. Again, he has more riches than many countries. Microsoft surely didn't want him to do it.

I think Microsoft will be the ones closest to him to suffer. If I were a multi-billion-dollar company, I'd be tempted to use my own patent arsenal on the source of Allen's wealth: Microsoft. Surely he doesn't want that. No one in big business, except patent trolls, would.


TechDirt believes (or thinks out loud) that "Paul Allen's Patent Madness [May Be] Really An Attempt To Show The Madness Of Patents" and "[o]ne of the Allen patent has 129 claims," points out Jan Wildeboer (Red Hat), who shows this software patent. The abstract starts as follows:

The invention facilitates and enhances review of a body of information (that can be represented by a set of audio data, video data, text data or some combination of the three), enabling the body of information to be quickly reviewed to obtain an overview of the content of the body of information and allowing flexibility in the manner in which the body of information is reviewed.


Microsoft Florian, a .NET developer and defender of Microsoft's patent aggression, has been confronting Wildeboer over at Twitter. "He [Florian] supports patent Microsoft patent troll on his blog, that is smoking gun," writes gnufreex. Anyway, here is the exchange from Twitter:

[16:33] [Notice] -TRT to #techrights- [jwildeboer] Once we fought side by side against #swpat, but now it seems Florian has moved to the dark side. http://is.gd/eLFzN

[16:33] [Notice] -TRT to #techrights- [fosspatents [Microsoft Florian]] @jwildeboer No dark side. Those defendants want same patent system as plaintiff, and it's important to interpret eBay vs. MercExchange.

[16:33] [Notice] -TRT to #techrights- [jwildeboer] @FOSSpatents Allen has enough money already, your arument he is looking for "recognition" iis #fail. Why didn't he sue MSFT?

[16:33] [Notice] -TRT to #techrights- [fosspatents] @jwildeboer I connected recognition to not wanting to be called a troll. Re. Microsoft, I don't know. Maybe they did a license deal?

Separately, Wildeboer shows that Patent WatchTroll, a patent lawyer and thus an aggressive proponent of software patents, validates Paul Allen's status as a patent troll. Patent WatchTroll says that "it seems to me that Mr. Allen is attempting to enter the deep, dark world of patent trolls" and "[i]f I were one of the defendants I would file a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim" (the full post can be found here). It also says: [via Wildeboer]

[C]olor me cynical about Interval Research’s decision to sue all major tech players other than Microsoft, the company that Allen co-founded with Gates.


When even a patent lawyer who is strongly for software patents calls Allen a "patent troll" (or refers to him as such), then who could possibly dispute this other than peripheral Microsoft PR bots such as Ed Bought [sic]?

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

What Miguel de Icaza and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar aims, different methods
The 'Corporate Neckbeard' is Not the "Good Guy"
Works for IBM
Microsoft's Nat Friedman Became Unemployed the Same Time the SLAPPs Against Techrights Started Coming From His Friends (Weeks After We Had Exposed Scandals About Him and the Serial Strangler, His Best Friend, Who Got Arrested a Few Days Later)
Nat Friedman is not "Investor, entrepreneur"
Weeding Out Extremism in Our Community
To me it seems like Microsoft Lunduke is rapidly becoming like a "hate preacher" who operates online, breeding an extremist ideology or trying to soften its image
Censorship Versus Fact-Checking and Quality Control
It's not censorship but a matter of quality control
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and TUI Rant
Links for the day
 
Mozilla Firefox Did Not Die, It Got Killed
To me it'll always look like Mozilla got killed by its sponsors, especially Google, which had a conflict of interest as a sponsor
You Need Not Wave a Rainbow Flag This Month to Basically Oppose Arseholes Looking to Disrupt and Divide the Community
Don't fall for it
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Dan Neidle, Whom Brett Wilson LLP SLAPPed (on Behalf of Corrupt Rich Tax Evaders), Still Fighting the Good Fight
Neidle fights for the poor people
Wayland Should Start by Dumping Its Very Ugly Logo
Wayland wins the "ugliest logo" award every year
Stop Focusing on Hair Colours, Focus on Corporate Agenda
If someone commits a crime, it does not matter if his or her hair was mostly white or there was no hair or a wig or whatever
Links 07/07/2025: Science, Conflicts, and a Fictional K-pop Group
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: Being a Luddite and Announcement of Gotify
Links for the day
Links 07/07/2025: XBox Effectively 'Dead', DMCA Subpoena Versus Registrar
Links for the day
The Nasty Smear (and Stereotype) of "Neckbeard" or "Greybeard" is Ageism
This is the sort of stuff they might try to volley at critics of Wayland
Why Many of Us Use X Server and Will Continue to Use It For Many Years to Come
Don't make this about politics
Brett Wilson LLP Uses Threats to Demand Changes to Pages or Removal of Pages Without Even Revealing Which Staff Member Does That (Sometimes People From Another Firm!)
This has been in the public for years
Dan Neidle Said "It Really Then Became a Job of Tormenting" Lawyers Like Brett Wilson LLP (Who Threatened Him for Exposing Crimes, Just Like They Threatened My Wife a Few Months Later)
he and his wife decided to take on the evil people and their evil lawyers
Large Language Models (LLMs) Externalise Their Cost to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
"The forty-sixth Free Software Bulletin is now available online!"
Reinforcing the Allegations Some More, Bryan Lunduke Digs His Own Grave
In his latest episodes he merely repeats his own lies, which I debunked using evidence right from his own mouth
Global Warming and Free Software as a Force of Mitigation
we'll need to think about Software Freedom, not just brands like "Linux"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 06, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 06, 2025
[Video] "Copyleft Isn't a Bug."
"Copyleft isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. GNU GPL forced the world to treat code like a public good."
Being in Social Control Media Means Exposing Oneself to Heckling
Richard Stallman does not (either himself or directly) post to any social control media
Links 06/07/2025: Airlines Perils, Scams, and Breaches
Links for the day
Two Risks to Companies: The Microsoft Culture and the Microsoft Tools
Novell was killed by a form of "social engineering" by Microsoft
It's Hard to Trust People Who Worked - Not Only Those Who Still Work - at Microsoft
Bryan Lunduke is just what people would call an "arsehole of a person"
For the Second Time, Bryan Lunduke From Microsoft is Siccing Racist Trolls and Vandals at Me
You're only reinforcing the point we made yesterday
Links 06/07/2025: End to End Encryption at Risk, Reuters Twitter ("X") Account Withheld in India
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
Links for the day
Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
Links for the day
PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
let's just be patient
Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
IBM is Not Your Master
IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.
“Twibel” Actions Against Comedians (and Why It's a Truly Low Blow)
they try to make up in quantities for a lack of merit or quality
Linux Foundation Apparently Flirting With Slop (Marketing by LLM-Generated SPAM)
The Web is in a really bad state!
COVID-19 Sped Up Site Improvements in Techrights
A few months later we created our very own IRC network
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: Negative Questions and 'Touching Grass' (Going Outside)
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Dalai Lama Succession as 90th Birthday Approaches, 40 deg C in China
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Hungary and US Defecting to Russia, "Google's Hotseat Hypocrisy"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: 4th of July 2025 and "Zig Roadmap 2026"
Links for the day
How to Combat the Exploitation and Abuse by Microsoft GitHub
Not to mention corruption and crimes against women
Bryan Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People
"[Lunduke] is actually sending his audience to attack people."
Even The Right Wing is Rejecting Bryan Lunduke
no wonder he became so irrelevant and marginal
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
Rewriting Things in Rust
How far would you go?
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."
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