Summary: Bill "monopoly" Gates is still collecting new monopolies and his friends who attack Linux/Android with patents are at it as well; Kroes comments on the EU as a safeguard from trolls

Microsoft's co-founders are both patent trolls. One has a patent troll called Searete (Bill Gates) and the other one's patent troll is called Interval (Paul Allen). In addition, Bill Gates bankrolled the world's biggest patent troll, Intellectual Ventures (headed by Microsoft's former CTO). These trolls are very much loathed for their actions (including extortion against Linux), but one person, Microsoft booster Todd Bishop, has been whitewashing their characters for several years. He is boasting about more patents (monopolies) from patenting maximalist Bill Gates (see the comments in Slashdot) in this week's news. Maybe it's time for him to move on and stop this reputation laundering of sociopaths. These are the same people who taunted the industry and extorted much of it over the years. Former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz starts warning about patent lawsuits (Microsoft proponents amplify his words) and according to other reports, RIM's patents might soon be up for sale as well. "Research In Motion," says this report, "should consider seeking a buyer or spinning off its patents to boost investor returns after a slump in its stock price, investor Jaguar Financial Corp. of Toronto said Tuesday." Microsoft, its cartel (which includes Apple), or one of its trolls might be going after these patents. Microsoft's interest in RIM goes back as far as 2008.

Currently, developers can avoid much of the hassle by staying outside the US and not selling anything there. Neelie Kroes has just blogged the following about Europe (her blog is composed by her speechwriter too): “we have a less litigious and costly patent system, an issue currently troubling many US companies.”

See the responses to it in the comments, including one from the FFII's president who argues:

Europe has right now plans to make the patent system more litigious, notably via specialized patent courts, a central patent court and EU-wide damages. There are risks to make things worse, since it might be more attractive for patent holders to file lawsuits in Europe then in the US, due to the bigger market size.

It's better this way, too. Kroes could use some more feedback from non-lawyers. From an economic point of view, Europe has little of nothing to gain from patents in general. Nokia's patents have just been passed to a patent troll in Canada. ⬆