Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft is Speaking 'for' Small EU-based Businesses to Promote Software Patents

Stocking around



Summary: Microsoft and its front groups pose for the cameras, pretending to be representatives of small European businesses and asking for legalisation of software patents on their behalf

BRUTAL monopolist Microsoft Corporation can never play fairly, can it? This is why we have got to watch what it's doing in Europe right now and also pay attention to who it pays this time around to attack Linux (Microsoft paid SCO on numerous occasions, although not always directly).



Lo and behold as Microsoft AstroTurfing arm, ACT, already interjects itself into the British press:

The failure to reach agreement was met with disappointment by the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT).

"Not reaching an agreement is a terrible setback for European SMEs regardless of their origin. The benefits of having a single patent far outweigh the linguistic concerns being used to block it," said ACT president Jonathan Zuck.

"This merry-go-round is detrimental for our innovation and growth. We hope that discussions for the EU patent are soon back in the lane and not postponed to an uncertain time."

Barnier echoed the disappointment of businesses, but said that an agreement was "impossible" to reach.


Zuck represents a monopoly, not businesses. He has been an AstroTurfer for a long time, having started some sort of a career in acting (which he is obviously still doing, but this time as a lobbyist who lies a lot). The above article is an example of bad reporting from David Neal, who also pretends that Barnier [1, 2, 3] serves business intesrests, based on that other lobbyist who is pretending to speak for businesses. What a catastrophe in the so-called "official" news. This is why we weigh particular blogs like Groklaw as highly as the mainstream press, and especially more highly than the corporate press.

For Zuck and his fellow minions, the job was accomplished (mind shared gained by the bad people whom Microsoft hired to do it), 'injecting' disinformation into the press. Neal just swallowed it without doing sufficient research, just as a lot of 'news' channels such as Fox echo Big Oil lobbyists regarding climate issues.

Anyway, pressing on a bit we find the president of the FFII showing that Microsoft too does the lobbying along with ACT:

Microsoft speaking in the name of European SMEs: "It’s very costly, particularly for small and medium-size enterprises"


The quote is from here and the spokesman is Jan Muehlfeit, the European chairman at Microsoft -- one whom we wrote about in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] (just don't mention that he is a former communist [1, 2]). We commented further on the above article just when the news first trickled in and the the president of the FFII writes to another booster of the European Patent (a fellow countryman).

@VincentVQ Do you know if the Belgian Parliament gave a mandate to the Belgian Presidency to negotiate on patent matters? Any link?


Barnier and the person addressed above (Vincent Van Quickenborne [1, 2, 3, 4]) are like the latest McCreevies, whose role appears to be helping multinationals harm European businesses (not law firms) while shrewdly pretending to help them. Here is a patent lawyers' blog blaming Spain for doing the right thing:

Via a number of sources, including the IPKat's friend Stephanie Bodoni (Bloomberg) comes news that the European Union has [predictably, say some people] failed to find a compromise on a system to make it easier to obtain region-wide patent protection [click here for recent background information], to the great disappointment of internal-market commissioner Michel Barnier.


Neatly enough, patent as "monopoly" seems to have become somewhat of a perceptual norm because the first comment states: "If the cost of transacting business in a foreign country is higher than in your own, then it must be to your advantage to be able to afford to secure a local monopoly, and not just foreign ones."

Carlo Piana, an Italian who is stubborn regarding elimination of software patents, writes:

"Patents on software are a bad idea." "Patents on software are a bad idea." Now repeat that to yourself one thousand times, PLS!


Piana had this tweet retweeted by a lot of people. The Italians too helped derail the European Patent.

Now that Microsoft lobbies for RAND (like the RAND in OOXML) the news about the European Patent is very important. Perhaps Europe will managed to expel the lobbyists and follow India's footsteps.

Axel H. Horns, who is poised to benefit from a system more encumbered by patents, says that the patent-legitimising initiative called "Peer-To-Patent" (how about Peer-NOT-To-Patent?) is possibly reaching the UK.

The Peer-to-Patent project (also known as the Community Patent Review project) is an initiative that seeks reform of the patent system by gathering public input in a structured, productive manner. Peer-to-Patent seeks to improve the quality of issued patents by connecting the USPTO to an open network of experts online.


The president of the FFII has responded to this by writing:

UKPTO to push for more resistant software patents via the Peer to Patent Program: http://ur1.ca/2c2fx


Whose agenda does Peer-To-Patent serve anyway? IBM's maybe? IBM is the one injecting money into Peer-To-Patent this year, not surprisingly (there was a disclosure in recent weeks and we covered it at the time). This is not the right approach to be taking, certainly not in Europe.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft Lunduke Belongs in 4Chan
Assuming Microsoft Lunduke is aware of the full context, he is now trolling not one but two decent organisations
In Europe and in India Richard Stallman Need Not Duck Anymore, People Trying to Cancel His Talk Have No Sway
the last time a talk by Dr. Stallman got canceled was about a year ago
Back From a Short Break
We can now resume and try to stick to the usual pace
Links 17/02/2025: LLMs Failing and Patreon Support Becoming a Burden to Bloggers
Links for the day
Links 17/02/2025: Blogroll Conundrum; Research, Scientists Under Siege
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 16, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, February 16, 2025
Links 16/02/2025: Nostalgia for Physical Media and the US Government Actively Promotes Pro-Kremlin Politicians in the EU
Links for the day
Gemini Links 16/02/2025:Life, Cynicism, and languages
Links for the day
Links 16/02/2025: Oligarchs "Collect Your Data and Control Your World", Global Temperatures Shoot Up
Links for the day
Promoting Microsoft Windows With LLM Slop
What is the policy at BetaNews regarding LLM slop?
Alex Oliva, the Potential 'Successor' of RMS, Has a New Web Site
More freedom for Alex Oliva
Links 16/02/2025: "Microsoft Is Laying Off Employees" and Internal Dissent Brewing at Facebook Over Regime Complicity
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 15, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 15, 2025
Links 15/02/2025: Harms to Health, Public Domain, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: On Autistic People, AuraGem Over HTTPS
Links for the day
The Cyber Show (C|S) Speaks of the "Rise of the Nerd Reich."
This 'Valentine Episode' is quite good
Azure is Turning 17 This Year, Still Losing Money and Staff
Hallmark of pyramid schemes, deriving "value" out of things that do not really exist?
Strong Momentum for the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as Winter Approaches Its End in Boston or in the Northern Hemisphere
FSF's founder, Richard Stallman, gives another talk in Italy in 9 days from now
The 'Drunken Plagiarists' Are Harming Journalism About GNU/Linux
They lessen the incentive to do real journalism abut GNU/Linux
Female Nazis and racist Swiss women
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman on RISC-V and Free Hardware
Invidious is under attack by Google
Links 15/02/2025: Erasing of American Science and Tesla SLAPPing Critics
Links for the day
IDG 'Reviews' of GNU/Linux Now Contain LLM Slop
It's typically ads or commercials... or sometimes spin disguised as news
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: Spectacles and "Before Sunset", Moving Domains Out of the US
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Only $17,482 Million Left, "Cash on Hand" Sank 40 Billion Dollars in 2 Years
Microsoft runs low on money in the bank
YouTube Layoffs Mean That YouTube is Still Losing a Lot of Money (Net Income or Profit Almost Definitely Negative)
In more recent years Google defunded many vloggers
In Gopher and Gemini Protocol People Abandon Services Based in the United States
There's no resistance whatsoever
Python and Microsoft: Pandas Should Have Known OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Microsoft Excel Are Different and Competing Things
now we're meant to think that in order to open ODF files we need some functions with "Excel" in their name
Not Only Windows, Surface, and "Hey Hi" PCs; Microsoft's Hardware Ventures Are a Dumpster Fire; HoloLens Mixed Reality Hardware Now Axed Altogether and Staff is Miserable
Microsoft is in a terrible state
Certificate Authority (CA) Let's Encrypt Now Down to TEN (0.3% of the Whole) in Geminispace
The number of capsules that use Let's Encrypt is, according to Lupa, about to fall to single-digit figures
Links 15/02/2025: University Price Hikes and Copyright Action Against Slop Companies
Links for the day
Slopwatch: All Those New 'Articles' Are Fake and Crafted by Chatbots (LLM Slop)
Google News is promoting these as "Linux" news; they're not even made by humans
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 14, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 14, 2025