Bonum Certa Men Certa

After the Demise of Microsoft's FAT Patent

Street protests over patents in Germany

EPO backlash



Summary: Nokia is becoming more like a patent troll while Microsoft perhaps loses its ability to do so

RUPERT Murdoch's press tells us that a "German court ruled Friday that Finnish handset maker Nokia Corp. has infringed a patent belonging to German patents licensing company IPCom GmbH & Co." [via]



The term "patents licensing company" means "patent troll". It's a euphemism. Having said that, with the likes of MOSAID getting Nokia's patents and the press reporting that Nokia plans to 'monetise' its patents (i.e. sue and extort), Nokia will become almost the same thing as IPCom and Microsoft. They cannot sell phones, so as their sales dwindle they will just try to make money by bullying those who found success, notably Google. Well, actually, that is already happening, even though Microsoft has not managed to bamboozle any company into a Linux/Android patent deal since the FAT patent came under fire. It's Microsoft's #1 weapon against Linux, based on what we learned from the OIN's CEO.

As we argued at one time, the demise of the FAT patent does not help end the problem at its root. Microsoft is busy buying a lot of patents in hope of finding something that can be used against Linux/Android and withstand any court's scrutiny (Microsoft does not favour the German court). Over at British papers, the protest continues against software patents:

Don't let software patents stop us standing on the shoulders of giants



Put aside the old chestnut of people copying the latest Lady Gaga album or The Hunger Games (whether movie or book) without permission. There's plenty of fighting over that, replete with collateral damage from proposals such as the US's Sopa bill, but the lines for détente on straight-out copying are drawn: there's been uptake of all-you-can-eat subscriptions through services such as Spotify or Netflix, and pay-per-item stores such as the iTunes store.

No, the deepest and most pressing problem of intellectual property online is derivative use. What we build is made possible by the work of others who precede us. "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants," wrote Isaac Newton, in a modest moment. Indeed, Newton's very quote can be traced back to others at least as far as the 12th century. When we create, we in fact rest upon a succession of shoulders of varying sizes.

In today's digital environment, the linkages between past and present work are more readily laid bare. Quotes morph as they are retweeted, while often leaving a trail of bread crumbs back to Tweet Zero. YouTube videos include soundtracks and images from other videos – enough that copyright-minded robots can detect the fingerprints of those earlier works and throw up a red flag against a new use.


Microsoft really needs software patents because they are the last thing Microsoft can use to stop FOSS/Linux/Android and open standards.

Recent Techrights' Posts

There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
What many IRC users lost sight of
Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
Drug Addiction is a Real Problem, It Destroys Families
a rather sensitive matter
 
Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
perpetrators of harassment
For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
"Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
From a Microsoft media operative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
Integrity matters
"Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year
Links 08/06/2025: Security Lapses, CISA Cuts, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: Mime Types and Geminisphere Introduction
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: Slop Companies Retain All Private Data, More Books Banned in the US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: "A Monk's Guide to Happiness" and "Wireless Earbuds"
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: More Rumours of Mass Layoffs in Microsoft's XBox Division, New COVID Variant
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IV: Political Scrutiny and Errors/Inconsistencies in Official Documents
When such organisations receive scrutiny they start focusing on cover-up and muzzling of facts (or crushing people who say the truth)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 06, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 06, 2025
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, Planet Ubuntu, Anti-Linux FUD, and Microsoft SPAM
It's not easy to altogether avoid take articles these days
Gemini Links 06/06/2025: "MBA Tear" and Slop ('AI') as Plagiarism
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2025: "Convicted Felon and MElon Trade Insults" and Europe Snubbed by US Again
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2025: Microsoft XBox Bracing For More Mass Layoffs, Climate Disaster, Fake 'Money' Tokens From US President
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/06/2025: Vanishing Cultures and MElon Implosion
Links for the day
Extortion is a Crime, Even If You're Based in Another Continent and Work for Microsoft
reported to British authorities
We're in 6/6 Now, Almost Halfway in 2025
2025 was probably the best year for us
South Americans Are Saying Goodbye to Microsoft
We're hardly even "Cherry-Picking" or conveniently singling out one South American nation
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part III: Data Protection Failures, Just Like at the European Patent Office (EPO)
Just less than a decade ago we showed that the EPO had illegally shared staff data with third parties
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 05, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 05, 2025