Patent Debates After the Apple Debacle

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2012-10-21 16:10:08 UTC
Modified: 2012-10-21 16:10:08 UTC

Couple chats

Summary: A collection of patent news, especially news about software patents and patent trolls which use these

THERE has been a huge number of articles about patents since Apple got a favourable -- albeit corrupt -- ruling.

Apple co-founder Woz disagrees the other co-founder, Steve Jobs, and his potential "thermonuclear" war on Android, wasting Google's time and money, slowing down innovation and progress.

So-called 'legal' folks talk about software patents and FOSS folks like the OSI's head, Simon Phipps, provide actual evidence. For instance:

Recent research supports view that patent troll activity is rising -- costing America a fortune in wasted legal fees and lost jobs

A game widely known in the FOSS community has been hit:

Software patents: this needs to stop. X Plane is an awesome flight simulator, made by an independent developer who injects tons of innovations in his product and he is been patent trolled.

The EFF gets increasingly involved and the press too calls firms "patent trolls" even in headlines (but not the mainstream press). There are around 9,423 patents on the subject of WiFi alone and some trolls exploit this to create thickets. Some even put thickets around the Web:

The New York Times has decided to take on the noble task of battling the scum of the Earth: patent trolls.

Rather that cave into one troll’s ludicrous monetary demand for what essentially is the basis of the internet, the Times’ lawyers have headed for the court room, says the Associated Press. At issue? Hyperlinks in text messages.

Here is another troll which harms the Web. We recently found out that W3C people too had lobbied for FRAND. It's just like RAND, but rather than sounding random it sounds like "friend" and the F stands for "fair". It's a propaganda term for software patents, championed by IBM, Microsoft, and so on. It is like calling war "for peace" and the W3C just embarrasses itself again [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. ⬆

Comments

mcinsand

2012-10-22 16:26:44

Apple has gone farther than any other that I know, Roy, in bolstering your argument for abolishing patents altogether. Rather than being an indication of innovation, patents, especially in design and software, are now merely rewards for successfully gaming a broken system. Maybe Apple can do some good, despite themselves, by helping to solve the patent mess. However, if we are to have any patent system at all, there need to be punishments for companies that file just to see what sticks, rather than filing because they have actually developed something new. If we are to have a patent system, then the responsibility of the inventor to make an effort to only file if the inventor can reasonably assert that the invention is novel and unanticipated. The 'patents' that Apple, MS, and Oracle have used to terrorize the industry are consistently bogus, when examined by people that actually know what is already common and established in the tech industry.

Willfully filing for a bogus patent needs to receive significant jailtime, especially if the bogus patent is not only not an innovation, but it results in litigation. Granted, proving willful stupidity is tough, but negligence is not, especially in cases involving considerable litigation. Companies that file lawsuits on bogus 'innovations' (rounded corners, anyone?) need to face punitive liabilities.

UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part III: Mr. 'Secure Boot' (Shim) and His Fake 'Holiday' (Sending My Wife and I Threatening E-mails on 9/11): despite being on holiday, according to him, he finds time to instruct lawyers to contact my wife
Ron Wyden: Microsoft Should be Held Accountable for Security Breaches (He Has Said This for Years Already, It Never Happens): Negative media coverage isn't a fine and it does nothing to compensate Microsoft's billions of victims
Disable 'Secure Boot' (If It Lets You): it doesn't put you in control
Longtime Red Hat Staff: Maybe Just Disable 'Secure Boot': A refreshing take from Adam Williamson
A Dozen Observations About "UEFI 9/11" Deflections: What we are expected to see, tentatively
The World's Richest Ponzi Scheme (Faking Value Using Net Waste): The higher they go the harder they fall
We Could Dual-Boot Back in the 1990s, Why Has This Become So Difficult?: And prone to breakage
Slopwatch: Google News is Still Promoting Many Fake Articles About "Linux", in Effect Rewarding Misinformation and Plagiarism: things continue to deteriorate
Microsoft Admits the Workers Have Lost Trust (Endless Layoffs, 12-13 Rounds of Layoffs This Year), So Now It's Trotting out Its Peter Bright-Like Media Prop Jordan Novet: What they don't want people to pay attention to right now
Links 11/09/2025: Windows TCO and Russian Drones Invading Poland (EU/NATO): Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/09/2025: xkcd, misfin, and Alhena 5.3.2: Links for the day
Repetition of Last Summer (Microsoft Breaking Dual-Boot Systems): UEFI 9/11 is about to kick in
UEFI 'Secure Boot' Boiling Frogs (Cannot Turn Off 'Secure Boot'): "MSI laptop is locked on Secure Boot and doesn't allow me to turn it off"
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part IV: The 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' and His 'Hideout' Holiday (Retreat From Reality): Let's keep an eye on what matters
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part II: "The SecureBoot Thing Got Out of Hand.": The next few weeks might be... interesting
UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part I: "I Believe This Affects Thousands of Devices... Because Multiple Devices I Checked, Whether Client or Server [...] Affected.": Most people aren't even aware that this is happening or about to happen
The UEFI 9/11 - Part X - An Outline of the Series About Microsoft Sabotaging GNU/Linux (With Ramifications to Unfold Online in Coming Weeks as People Reboot): Today is UEFI 9/11 (9/11/2025)
Culture of silence: Ubisoft harassment convictions, Mozilla, Sylvestre Ledru & Debian make no comment: Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 11/09/2025: "Hey Hi" Ponzi Schemes at Oracle (Unpaid Contracts) and Cindy Cohn is Leaving the EFF: Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/09/2025: Playdate Console, Dichotomy between the Real and the Digital: Links for the day
The Microsoft AstroTurfing and Microsoft-Led Blame-Shifting Tactics Are Ahead of Us: Of course it has nothing to do with security, it's about control, i.e. them controlling everything
Celebrating Assassination is Bad Because It Legitimises Assassination of the People You Like, Too: Condoning or even celebrating political assassinations is bad optics (and taste)
Being Conditioned to Accept Unreliable Computer Systems That Fail With Black Screen of Death (BSoD): Welcome to 2025
New Series: The Coup Against GNU/Linux Has Begun: today, this year in particular, we shall also focus on Secure Boot, which is sold based on a lie and tortures many computer user
New Paper on "BYOVD, but in firmware. Signed UEFI shells, vulnerable modules offer new paths for Secure Boot bypasses.": One might say digital "security theatre"
Links 11/09/2025: Oracle Layoffs, Drunk Pilots in Japan Airlines, US-Korea Tensions Grow: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 10, 2025: IRC logs for Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Xubuntu Site Compromised: Let's hope it is not a security breach
Links 10/09/2025: Retaliation at Facebook and Microsoft Reveals Almost 100 Security Holes: Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/09/2025: Annihilation of Self, The Future Eaters, and Leaving Academia: Links for the day
They Say That People Are Afraid of or Worried About "Hey Hi", But the Worriers Should be the Fools Who Invested in It: At the end of the day nobody should worry more than those who invested their money in this bubble
Harassment evidence: franceinfo's Clara Lainé report on Ubisoft prosecution: Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 10/09/2025: Microsoft Layoffs in "RTO" Clothing and Windows TCO, GitHub TCO: Links for the day
Blaming Everything on China: TikTok works for China. GAFAM works for fascists.
People Get Tired of "Hey Hi" (AI), Unlike the Subservient Money-Obsessed Media That Gets Paid to Pretend This Bubble Still Matters: "crash will be way bigger than dot.com burst in 90s. and that was Internet, actually transformative technology, not this expensive AI toy with direct dependency on the energy input which is not scalable"
Brett Wilson LLP Accepts That the Serial Strangler From Microsoft Filed a Case That Also Implicates My Wife (Everything is Connected): They used to pretend that there were two separate cases
10 Reasons to Disable (or Enable) UEFI Secure Boot: Tomorrow the "trusted corporation" Microsoft will see a certificate expire
Gemini Links 10/09/2025: Hospital and Large Feeds: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 09, 2025: IRC logs for Tuesday, September 09, 2025
The Bluewashing of Red Hat is Being Completed, Many Staff Understand They'll be Made Redundant: Jim AllowHurst (Whitehurst) is meanwhile promoting Microsoft's agenda from within other companies
Throwing Away "Old" Computers (Mozilla and Other Climate Deniers): Mozilla is not leftist
statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Exceeding 10% in Bulgaria This Month: What can Microsoft still do to stop GNU/Linux?
Dark Patterns: Microsoft saying "security" is like a Convicted Felon in the White House saying "law and order".
It's Almost Fall (Autumn): To "Facebook prison" you are bound
Bruce Schneier About "Secure Boot": Bruce Schneier isn't a fan of "Secure Boot"
Links 09/09/2025: Microsoft Mass Layoffs Again and "RTO" (Timed Like It Serves as a Distraction From the Mass Layoffs): Links for the day
RMS Told Microsoft to Stop 'Secure Boot' (He Even Went There to Say That), But They Didn't Listen: Dr. Stallman (RMS) assumed that speaking to sociopaths would work
What Richard Stallman Told Me About 'Secure' Boot in 2012: "if the user doesn't control the keys, then it's a kind of shackle"
Those Who Helped Microsoft Weaponise "Secure Boot" Against GNU/Linux and BSDs Are Fleeing: Microsofters doing what they do best: they evade accountability
Simple is Better, Simplicity is Power: That is "the advantage of having commodity GNU/Linux systems," an associate notes
Much Ado About Nonsense: Microsoft Lunduke is still all dramatisation and sensationalism
Current Events in France: It needs to dump Microsoft and other GAFAM (US) giants, move to Free software
Further Media Cut-downs: media reporting about the media being cut
Links 09/09/2025: US-Korea Tensions and Meta Whistleblowers: Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/09/2025: Moon Eclipse and ROOPHLOCH Reports: Links for the day
Links 09/09/2025: “Torrents of Hate” and Political Crisis in France: Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/09/2025: "Dedigitizing" and Forgejo on FreeBSD: Links for the day
Google News (Not Just Google Search) Lets Itself by Gamed by One Slopfarm - to the Point Almost Half of "Linux" News is Bot-Produced Plagiarism (LLM Slop With Slop Images): That says a lot about what Google thinks of quality, even in Google News
Bill Gates-Funded Media Inadvertently Refutes the Microsoft Lie That in 2025 Microsoft Had Just Two Waves of Layoffs: There were about 12 rounds of layoffs so far in 2025
Official SUSE Blog Still Uses LLM Slop (Bots) to Make Fake Articles (Marketing): The company is all about sound bites
Companies Realise That Slop Doesn't Work as Advertised, Accordingly Dump It: "Hype dims as a country-wide survey of US corporations shows a sudden drop-off in AI use among firms with more than 250 employees."
Microsoft-Funded Lawsuits Against Critics of UEFI 'Secure Boot': Remember that no company (or law firm) ever survives collaborations with Microsoft
From theregister.co.uk to theregister.com (US) to The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives) and theregister.ai: The best way to break this racket (or cycle of hype and harm) is to break the chains of funding
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Culture of Censorship Necessitates More Speech: The OSI bans dissent or people who merely point out that the OSI is abusive
How to Reach Us Discreetly (Other Than Encrypted E-mail): We're still managing to maintain a 100% source protection record. We soon turn 19.
LLMs Are Vastly Worse Than a Waste of Energy and the Externalities Are Huge: Worse than just higher power bills for everybody
LLMs Versus Search (Not Replacing Search But Engaging in DDoS Attacks Against Web Sites That Permit Searching): The state of the Web isn't just bad; it's utterly terrible
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 08, 2025: IRC logs for Monday, September 08, 2025
It's Only the Second Week of September and Already Two Waves of Layoffs at Microsoft, Slopfarms and Microsoft-Funded Sites Spin It as "AI Investments" Rather Than Commercial Failure: A very large third one expected next week
The UEFI 9/11 - Part IX - Shunning Old Computers (in 2023 the Certificate Was Updated/Overridden, Underlying Aim May Be Herding/Forcing People to Get TPM and Other 'Novel' Restrictions): the "upgrade treadmill"

Patent Debates After the Apple Debacle

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