Bonum Certa Men Certa

IBM, Google and Microsoft Patent Stockpiles Demonstrate That Today's US Patent System Exists for Billionaires, Not for Inventors

Not your grandfather's patent system and not your grandfather's IBM...

Reuters on tax havens Creating virtual wealth. Remember Bill Gates ranting about the patent system when he was younger and Microsoft was a lot smaller. Now he makes billions out of various patents, including Monsanto's, and he pays virtually no tax.



Summary: Persistent lobbying and a surrender of fast-growing companies to the system which was deformed so as to offer protectionism to the super-rich take their toll and distort the very essence that motivated patent systems in the first place

ACCORDING TO this dubious new chart from IAM, it's not IBM but Google that supposedly leads based on some patent criteria. This is not a cause for celebration but a cause for alarm as over half a decade ago Google was somewhat of a patents antagonist and I spoke to relatively high-level managers at Google about it. Basically, Google erroneously made the choice to waste time and effort on patenting rather than fight an unjust system that had increasingly ganged up against Google.



In some sense, Google has become greedy and sort of defected. It is now actively pursuing patents on software (including patents on driving -- something for which I developed an Android app with help from someone who worked at Google) and no wonder Google does nothing against software patents anymore. That would be hypocritical.

Now, the usual defense (not just from Google) might be that Google never attacks using patents unless attacked first, but then again, that's just what happens in companies when they're on the way up (ascent). As things begin to turn sour/bitter, as is already the case at IBM, the non-technical managers are turning aggressive and even attacking with any software patents at their disposal. They see patent aggression as a sort of 'insurance policy' or a Plan B. Microsoft, as we noted in our previous post, only began doing this a decade ago (to present), around the same time of Windows Vista and the Novell deal.

"If Google starts to nosedive (no company lasts forever, not even with government subsidies) sooner than the expiry (lifetime) of these patents, then there's potential of selling/auctioning patents to patent trolls or attacking directly, as infamously IBM does."Manny Schecter, who is in charge of patents at IBM, does not hide the company's real intentions, lobbying for software patents, and even the lobbyists (people like David Kappos, who came from IBM). He's quite reckless from a marketing point of view. "We should neither deny that the patent system promotes innovation overall and that abuse of it should be properly curbed," he wrote the other day at Twitter. What about the patent abuse by IBM (Schecter's department), which uses software patents against small companies? What does that tell us about OIN?

The FFII's President responded to Schecter with ""promotes innovation" should be replaced by "promotes litigation". Innovation cannot exist without any quantification." As I put it across to both, the patent system was created to incentivise dissemination (publication), not to provide a litigation sledgehammer for billionaires to whack inventors.

Sadly, Google is now part of this whole 'patent cartel', as one might be tempted to call it. Google is not aggressive (at least not yet), but time will tell what happens with these patents. If Google starts to nosedive (no company lasts forever, not even with government subsidies) sooner than the expiry (lifetime) of these patents, then there's potential of selling/auctioning patents to patent trolls or attacking directly, as infamously IBM does.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part V
By Dr. Andy Farnell
Microsoft's Acquisition of Activision (to Fake Revenue Growth by Buying Revenue) Was a Failure
Of course the mass layoffs at Microsoft aren't just a Microsoft thing
Stagnant, Shrinking Businesses and "IBM's Corporate Culture Since the Late 1980s... Over 35 Years."
Recently, IBM was using share price as a talking point, insisting the company was doing OK while tens of thousands were being laid off
SCO's Darl McBride Dead at Age 64
There's hardly any information about it, except we know he reached bankruptcy and 3 years later he died at a relatively young age
 
Facebook's Debt Has Soared to All-Time High of Nearly 50 Billion Dollars
But the corporate media pretends all is well (while mass layoffs continue and slop takes over the social control media)
Geminispace Makes It Past 4,200 Capsules on November 1st
At last!
Links 01/11/2024: Election Interferences by X/Twitter/Musk, Strava as Espionage Tool
Links for the day
The October 2024 Web Server Survey Shows a Further Collapse for Microsoft in the Servers Market
Microsoft experienced the next largest loss of 699,464 sites (-3.45%)
Gemini Links 01/11/2024: TLS Sucks, twytere.com Announced
Links for the day
Links 01/11/2024: Few Things Are Cheaper Than This Antenna and "Nothing Lasts Forever"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 31, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, October 31, 2024
R.T.O. is Another Name (or Acronym) for Voluntary Layoffs
Amazon is trying to get many workers to leave on their own
Links 01/11/2024: World News, Political Catchup
Links for the day
[Meme] Probably the Worst Possible Time to Get Information From Social Control Media
Musk does not want to prevent disinformation from spreading and the same is true for Facebook and TikTok; they have their own interests
Update on Litigation Against the European Patent Office (EPO) at the ILO Administrative Tribunal (ILOAT)
Rewards and compensation for staff have long fallen, resulting in many experienced colleagues leaving and causing further declines in quality and compliance
Gemini Links 31/10/2024: NNCP, Declutter the Web, Cost of Community
Links for the day
Links 31/10/2024: Supermicro Plummets 33%, Block and Dropbox Mass Layoffs
Links for the day
Links 31/10/2024: Environmental Anxiety, Profound Changes in Hardware Market
Links for the day
Links 30/10/2024: TSMC Concerns and North Koreans in Ukraine War
Links for the day
Facebook is for Zombies
Social control media is for fools
Microsoft Now Has $235,290,000,000 in Liabilities, They Grow Over Time in Spite of Mass Layoffs (So Expect More Layoffs)
expect more mass layoffs
Links 31/10/2024: DST Woes, War Updates, Amazon RTO Backlash
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/10/2024: Attention Economy and Gemlogs
Links for the day
Happy Halloween
October is nearly over
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 30, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 30, 2024
For the Record: Linux is Controlled by the United States of America
"This is going to make many question the openness and inclusivity of the work done by Linux Foundation"
Microsoft: XBox Hardware Revenues Down About 30% (Ignore the Buzzwords and Activision Activity Dressed Up as "XBox")
For context, in a previous quarter XBox hardware sales were down by about 50%
Cooking the Books With "Cloud" And "AI" Was Not Enough to Fool Microsoft Investors
"Microsoft Shares Drop on Disappointing Azure Growth Forecast"
[Meme] It Irritates Them That FSF Still Promotes Software Freedom
"An open letter in support of Richard M. Stallman"
At the End, Facts Typically Win, Liars Walk Away
very recent Stallman talk
Gemini Links 30/10/2024: Mind-Seeing and Heart-Knowing, Views on Perspective
Links for the day
IBM Has Collapsed This Past Week, thelayoff.com Deletes Rumours of Mass Layoffs in the United States
Visa is having a crisis right now
Links 30/10/2024: Extreme Surveillance in Schools, More Openwashing by OSI
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/10/2024: Death Notes, Mindfulness, and More
Links for the day
The Role of Publishers on the World Wide Web (and Gemini Protocol, Among Other Digital Transmission Protocols)
social control media is a cesspool that spreads disinformation and hate, in turn fuelling wars and conflict
More Than a Week Has Passed, DeVault Has Declined to Deny Serious Accusations Against Him
The whole "Stallman Report" thing backfired very spectacularly
IBM's Silent Mass Layoffs to Last Another Month, Rumour That Another Wave is Happening Right Now
A special Halloween for some families
W3Schools Says "Statistics Are Important Information", But Abandons Them After More Than 20 Years
No update for over half a year
Preserving Information
Those who seek destruction of information tend to be evil people, whose evildoing they strive to delete
Volkswagen Cheated Us and Created Cars We Didn't Ask For
just like "smartphones", they don't last very long and they diminish in value very fast
"All Systems Operational"
We can now devote more time to writing articles and maybe some time soon making more videos
[Meme] Good Books Don't Give You "Likes"
But they give you information
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 29, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 29, 2024
[Meme] Microsoft's CoC Downtime
"Your system is down"
Manchester United 'Sacks' Microsoft?
United's relationship with Microsoft hasn't (or won't) last long
[Meme] 16 Years to Hire a Black Person (in the US)
After having close to 1,000 employees
StatCounter's Shortcomings and More
So while GNU/Linux and Android continue to grow at Windows' expense there will be other operating systems growing. They're not controlled by GAFAM (e.g. Google, Apple, Microsoft).