Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell Keeps Amassing More Software Patents, Feeding a Rogue System

Shopping for monopolies

Shopping



Summary: Novell has just received yet more software patents and the situation inside the USPTO keeps getting worse as scope of monopolies expands

The CPTN transaction is a case of Novell passing patent monopolies to Microsoft. CPTN remains a barrier even if Novell chooses to pretend this barrier does not exist and for more background on the subject see:



According to this new roundup from Utah, Novell carries on filing patent applications and receiving some (even while the company sells them to some shell). Here are three of the latest:

Method and apparatus for controlling access to portal content from outside, Patent No. 7,890,639, invented by Shawn Matthew Holmstead, of Lehi; Olin Sayre Atkinson, of Orem; Dale Allen Lowry, of Springville; and Christopher Jean Seiler, of Pleasant Grove; assigned to Novell Inc., of Provo.

[...]

Receiver nonrepudiation, Patent No. 7,890,757, invented by Gosukonda Naga Venkata Satva Sudhakar, of Bangalore, India; assigned to Novell Inc., of Provo.

Heterogeneous normalization of data characteristics, Patent No. 7,890,938, invented by Nathan Blaine Jensen, of Spanish Fork; Stephen R. Carter, of Spanish Fork; William Street, of Orem; Michel Shane Simpson, of American Fork; William D. Peterson, of Provo; and Scott Alan Isaacson, of Woodland Hills; assigned to Novell Inc., of Provo.


Will any of these be sold to an entity that is hostile towards Linux, such as the Microsoft-led CPTN? Will AttachMSFT decide to sell them at a later date? And if so, to whom? Their neighbours from Microsoft? Novell ought to know the trouble which is caused by patent trolls; after all, according to this report, Novell is still among the victims:

Lodsys is a Texas limited liability company with its principal place of business in Marshall.

The defendants are Brother International Corp., Canon U.S.A. Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Hulu, Lenovo (United States) Inc., Lexmark International Inc., Motorola Mobility Inc., Novell Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Samsung Electronics America Inc., Samsung Telecommunications America and Trend Micro Inc.



According to this other new report, nanotechnology patents also spread:

According to the report, as of March 2010, 6,000 patents for nanotechnologies had been awarded by the United States Patent and Trademark Office alone. The US government was the “largest patent patron for 2008,” with research and development funded by the Department of Energy, Air Force, National Institutes of Health, Army, Department of Defense, Food and Drug Administration, and National Cancer Institute.


Patents on nanotechnologies may make some people rich, but they will not promote innovation. Quite conversely, patents will impede future work on nanotechnology because barriers are never intended to somehow create even more incentives to innovate. "David Plouffe Gives Preliminary Response Concerning Obstacles To Innovation" says this new post:

The problem is that his suggestions for patent reform do not fix the system, and in some cases make it much worse. In fact, I pointed to numerous studies and research in my response that explained this.


The patent system is harming one field at the time. Patent lawyers allow this to happen and even lobby for it because this is profitable and the same applies to large companies that have a lot of monopolies. What Novell is doing is selfish and detrimental to innovation.

Recent Techrights' Posts

New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
 
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually