Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents Roundup: Hype, Critics, and Threat to Linux/Android

Laptop



Summary: A FOSS-centric look at patent news from the past week or so

THE patent frenzy we find in the media (associating R&D with "patents") shows no signs of abatement but many signs of resentment from the public. With patent-pending 'inventions' like search marketing stuff and stuff for "faster web" or network access we rapidly approach the age of mega-lawsuits over patents. This is not an industry of technology but an industry of deterrence and litigation.



"This is not an industry of technology but an industry of deterrence and litigation."In the case of Motorola, Microsoft the patent extortionist is trying to play the victim card, as we explained before (Apple does the same). At the same time, Apple is attacking Motorola with a lawsuit which Microsoft booster and Linux basher Tony Bradley uses to create fear of Android. He is quoting/citing Microsoft lobbyist Florian Müller, who is leading to damaging headlines in the British press such as "Apple could force Moto to destroy phones" (among others).

This Microsoft lobby is promoting FRAND and so does Apple (Nokia has joined as well), which is being a total hypocrite because Apple does a lot worse than FRAND. And to quote this new criticism with nice pictures:



This system promises an ugly future in which mobile communications are slow (as it would be uneconomical to participate in FRAND communications standard development), there interfaces will be clunky (a company will be limited to a handful of UI elements for fear of infringement), and product quality will be decreased to offset an inevitable slew of licensing fees.


In an article titled "Patently Absurd – The Latest in the War to Stifle Innovation", the author correctly states that "[i]t’s become the go-to strategy for languishing tech companies: When out-innovated, claim patent infringement."

The author continues: "One patented “technology,” for example, is for “generating meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device.” Does easily getting people together at a specified date and time from a smartphone seem ingenious to you? Of course not, it’s what we obviously want our phones to be capable of – without enforced limitation by the patent system."

"It's all about monopolists expanding their field of influence."In Germany, Apple faces another setback as its legal aggression backfires. Other cases where smartphones get retarded by patents include this new one: "In the cases of both Comerica and Southwest, the infringement supposedly occurs in the use of the smartphone software to communicate with other technology systems that the companies operate, the lawsuits allege."

Here's more. It should be rather clear by now that there is no benefit here to customers. It's all about monopolists expanding their field of influence. The system is also good for litigation startups, pointless for the rest of the startups, contrary to the claims presented here. It is well established that startups do not have the resources to deal with patents, so a sort of rebuttal comes from Timothy Lee, who writes in Slate. He says more in Forbes:

When talking about the smartphone patent wars, it’s important to recognize that, as Stanford’s Mark Lemley pointed out a few years ago, almost all software companies ignore their competitors’ patents. There are two basic reasons for this. First, there are so many software patents, and they have such unclear boundaries, that finding and negotiating the rights to necessary patents is essentially impossible. And second, patent law awards triple damages in cases of willful infringement. So if a company finds a patent, tries to work around it, and is later ruled to have infringed the patent, it’s on the hook for three times the damages it would have faced it if had never found the patent in the first place.


A troll called BackWeb, which we wrote about before, is back at the scene and it makes money for doing nothing, having just settled with IBM. BackWeb is not a startup, it is a symptom of the farce that the patent system has become.

Who really benefits in this case? It is time to reform the system for reasons that Everything is a Remix recently explained very succinctly. Or as this one article put it:

Filmmaker Kirby Ferguson recently finished Everything is a Remix, a four-part video series illustrating the interconnectedness of our creations and how current laws and norms miss this essential truth. Some viewers protested that the series ended without offering much in the way of prescriptive ideas. Here, he takes up that challenge, offering his thoughts on intellectual property reforms and best practices with the interests of remixers and creators in mind.


Android is still under attack from Oracle [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] even though the patents prove to be worthless:

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a ruling rejecting Oracle's patent of the Java language. The "final office action" by USPTO was one of several related rulings the agency issued relating to the popular programming language. The rulings came in response to a joint filing by Oracle and Google, which have been battling over the use of a modified form used in the Android mobile operating system.


As put by the British press:

Oracle must decide whether to wait for USPTO before trial in Android lawsuit



[...]

Oracle's handling of its Android patent infringement claims has been little more than a farce and on the face of it, the firm has managed to engineer a situation that is worse than when it started. Not only have its repeated attempts to estimate damages suggested that the firm doesn't have a clue about what its Java patents might be worth, or why, but also it is looking increasingly likely that several of its patents are going to be invalidated by the USPTO.


More here:

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a ruling rejecting Oracle's patent of the Java language. The "final office action" by USPTO was one of several related rulings the agency issued relating to the popular programming language. The rulings came in response to a joint filing by Oracle and Google, which have been battling over the use of a modified form used in the Android mobile operating system.


We recently wrote about Facebook and Yahoo, just after Facebook had been getting its own taste of the patent system. It was only some days ago that Yahoo! attacked and demanded payments for patents (patents boosters wrote about it too) so "Yahoo [is] now using its patents to extort money from Facebook and others," put it some folks, perhaps realising that Yahoo! could one day be used like Microsoft uses Nokia -- to attack competition. TechDirt has an interesting take on this subject, among others that involve Facebook.

Nintendo, to its credit, refuses as a matter of principle to succumb to patent trolls:

Rick Flamm, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of Legal & General Counsel, has spoken out against "patent trolls" after winning a third litigation case this year.


Here's more on that.

TechDirt explains the obvious observation that the patent system has been rigged to favour patent maximalism:

When the numbers came out showing that 2011 represented yet another record year for patents granted, it was such a non-surprise that I didn't even bother mentioning it. The number of patents granted just keeps going up. And yes, there were two small dips during the past decade, but they corresponded with the rare situations in which the Supreme Court finally took an interest in some element of patent law and pushed back on the Federal Circuit (the appeals court that handles all patent issues) and the USPTO. We've discussed at length in the past, the problems of having a single appeals court that solely focuses on patent issues, because you lose the diversity of opinions (made worse at times when some of the judges on the panel have been former patent attorneys -- or, most famously, when a judge at the court was the same former patent attorney who wrote the last major update to patent law...).


When people like Dennis Crouch are prominent among those who write on patents, no wonder there is so much promotion of yet more patents. This whole system needs a rethink, an overhaul, or abandonment. We're merely trying to summarise and show the trends here, not so much from a sceptical or critical point of view; the articles increasingly speak for themselves because disdain for the patent system is mainstream. Now we need action.

Recent Techrights' Posts

One Person's Take on Jef Spaleta, the New Fedora Project Leader
"With a little searching, I wonder what else may be found regarding Microsoft."
LLM Slop Has Virtually Killed unixmen.com and Many Other Sites
There's no longer any incentive to write real articles in there
Taking a Moral Stand Against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) and the Worst Offenders/Facilitators
Any other stance would sidle with moral depravity or moral hazard
France: Apple and Microsoft Down, GNU/Linux Up to New Record Levels
How will tariffs against France impact things in the coming months?
 
In Iraq, Windows 3.1 (Percent)
There's also zero
Links 06/04/2025: Flood, Cool Gemini Capsule, and Long Form
Links for the day
Links 06/04/2025: Science, Politics, and Pricier Goods
Links for the day
Sharp Declines for Microsoft Windows in Bangladesh (Pop. ~175,000,000), Big Gains for GNU/Linux
Microsoft Windows has been having a really hard time in poor countries
Links 06/04/2025: Fake Reviews, Privatisation Heists, and "AI" as Smokescreen for Impoverishing Humans
Links for the day
Links 06/04/2025: Many New Acts of Repression and Elements of Financial Depression
Links for the day
In Qatar GNU/Linux Rose From Under 1% to Over 4% in Two Years (or Over 5% If Counting ChromeOS)
It's a big improvement compared to what we saw last year
LLM Scrapers Are a Nuisance, But They're Also a Reminder It's Time to Make Your Site Static
Perhaps the best protection is the ability to endure surges
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 05, 2025
Links 06/04/2025: Attacks on Education, Fake Patents, and Fake (Illegal) Patent Courts
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: What Was Reported to the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA)
We hope to finish this whole lot within a week, then move on to election, lobbying etc.
Links 05/04/2025: Tariffs Backfiring, YouTuber Arrested, X/Twitter Set to be Fined
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/04/2025: Offline is For Everyone, Copyright Colonialism, and More
Links for the day
Links 05/04/2025: TikTok Unsold (Still), Royal Society is Dead
Links for the day
Techrights Will Spend the Next Few Years Writing a Lot About Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)
It's a growing problem
The State of EPO Staff's Health in Rijswijk or The Hague
We're going to cover the EPO some more later in the month
NVIDIA Corp Lost 36% of Its "Value" Since Cheeto Inauguration, But "Gen Hey Hi" (GenAI) is Totally Not a Bubble
Selling loads of unneeded hardware based on hysterical hype; like selling shovels during a Gold Rush
GNU/Linux Growing in East Asia, Windows by Default No More?
GNU/Linux is now on the shelf
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux 'Articles' From Linux-Hostile LLMs
It is almost always negative things and nobody can be held responsible for it except the charlatans prompting the LLMs
Links 05/04/2025: Fentanylware (TikTok) "Sale Looks Highly Imminent" (US), Stock Market Drowning in Panic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/04/2025: Moving Plants, No to Smartwatches, RAID Hygiene
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 04, 2025
Techrights Has Dealt With More Potent SLAPPs Than Violent Microsofters Begging to Hide What They Did to Women
I became accustomed to SLAPPs
Links 04/04/2025: Fury in South Korea, Flight MH370 Remains Mystery
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Anger and Raspberry Pi CM4
Links for the day
Links 04/04/2025: LLM Slop Bubble Bursting and Korea Music Copyright Association Bans Slop 'Music'
Links for the day
Traf-O-Data, the Company That Jeffrey Epstein's BFF (Bill Gates) (Co)Founded 53 Years and Went Out of Business Due to Heavy Losses
Who will die first, Bill or Microsoft?
Why Microsoft's Shares Sank Almost 20% in Recent Months (the Bubble is Imploding)
verified press reports from the past 24 hours
A Note on SimilarWeb
Or why SimilarWeb is meaningless for more than 99% of the sites on the Web
GNU/Linux Rises to Almost 5% in Algeria While Windows Sinks to All-Time Low
GNU/Linux grew tenfold
Where to Get More Gags
A valued reader recommended that to us
Links 04/04/2025: Tech Stock (Inc. GAFAM) Fall, Google Pretends to Do End-to-End Encrypted Emails (With Google in Control)
Links for the day
IBM Said to be Shutting Down Offices or Sites in the United States
the press can no longer avoid admitting that IBM moves many jobs to India
To Participate in Fedora Diversity You Must Use Proprietary Software
Not for the first time either
LLM Slop as Attack Vector on the Reputation of Linux
The attacks on Linux have escalated to information warfare
Yandex About to Be Three Times Bigger Than Microsoft (Bing) in Asia
That's about 60% of the world's population
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Decoupling Updates, Elaho as Gemini Client
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 03, 2025