Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft/Intellectual Ventures: Still Pairing to Tax the Entire World With Patent Lawsuits and Extortion

The alternative is to run to the Microsoft-offered 'safety': "Microsoft Azure IP Advantage" (monthly fees for perceived 'protection')

Bill and Nathan



Summary: Bill's Microsoft and Nathan's Intellectual Ventures (with 95,000 'IP' 'assets') are still brewing a lot of legal trouble/Armageddon, distributing plenty of patents to various patent trolls which themselves file lawsuits through shells and proxies

MICROSOFT may be evil, but it is not stupid. It is malicious and incompetent, but it's trying hard to hide it. Those who expect Microsoft to just sue the entire world using software patents haven't been paying attention. If Microsoft does these things directly, as it did against TomTom, even Microsoft apologists like Jim Zemlin condemn it. So Microsoft is nowadays doing the same things, albeit indirectly. It's a lot harder after several USPTO reforms, but it's still possible, as we have just shown in our post about Finjan.

"That SCO lawsuit, by the way, is not entirely over. It's still ongoing. It has been 15 years!"Let's just state this upfront very, very clearly: those who expect Microsoft patent attacks to be obvious and transparent are unrealistic or aren't paying attention. Microsoft wants to damage its competition, but it does not want to be publicly seen doing it. In the case of SCO, for instance, Larry Goldfarb (Baystar), the key investor in SCO who had been approached by Microsoft, explicitly said that "Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux."

Bruce Perens, a key Free software luminary, once wrote that "[o]n the same day that CA blasted SCO, Open Source evangelist Eric Raymond revealed a leaked email from SCO's strategic consultant Mike Anderer to their management. The email details how, surprise surprise, Microsoft has arranged virtually all of SCO's financing, hiding behind intermediaries like Baystar Capital."

That SCO lawsuit, by the way, is not entirely over. It's still ongoing. It has been 15 years!

"So after Microsoft armed a lot of patent trolls and blackmailed its rivals directly (or indirectly, typically via these trolls) it gets itself stung a little."It should be no secret that stockpiling patents has been Microsoft's strategy and contingency plan for over a decade. Microsoft was very explicit about this. The company still pursues truly bizarre patents on fictional things or things that the company never made (but the competition did make, usually with Linux on board). Jonathan Greig's new puff piece about a Microsoft patent is one such example. No bendable displays from Microsoft, only from companies that sport Linux, but guess who gets the patents? In addition, Microsoft propaganda sites (they're pretty obvious about their agency, the names of these sites too) try to paint Microsoft as the victim. Here's a new example titled "Microsoft-developed video games involved in patent infingement lawsuit". So after Microsoft armed a lot of patent trolls and blackmailed its rivals directly (or indirectly, typically via these trolls) it gets itself stung a little. Pity Microsoft! To quote "on Microsoft" (a Microsoft marketing site):

Microsoft’s dearth of Xbox One exclusives seems to be lacking in comparison to its competition late into this console generation and according to Gamerant, a patent infringement can be added to the list of theories as to why.

A lawsuit filed by Infernal Technologies and Terminal Reality against Microsoft may be one of the reasons first party exclusives have yet to make their way to the console in any meaningful way.

[...]

Indeed, Terminal Reality and Infernal Technologies claim that Microsoft has known about the infringement long enough to try and concoct an end-around that involved the company filing for similar patents back in 2007. Microsoft’s gambit to seemingly sidestep Terminal Reality’s claims did not pay off as patents 6,362,822 and 7,061,488 were already accounted for and thus resulted in a rejected patent filing for the company.


Another Microsoft-friendly site belatedly wrote about the Raniere case, again painting Microsoft as the victim. To quote:

Raniere v. Microsoft Corp., Nos. 2017-1400, 2017-1401, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 9775 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 18, 2018) (Before Lourie, O’Malley, and Wallach, J.) (Opinion for the court, O’Malley, J.).

The Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s award of attorney’s fees to Appellees Microsoft and AT&T (collectively, “Microsoft”). Raniere sued Microsoft for patent infringement, claiming to be the owner of the asserted patents. However, Raniere previously assigned his rights in the patents to a third party, which dissolved before suit. Raniere argued that the rights had been transferred back to him, but was unable to provide any proof. Microsoft filed a motion to dismiss for lack of standing, and the district court dismissed the case with prejudice.


One might think, based on the above, that Microsoft is the victim, but buried deep inside legal sites is this update (behind paywall) about Microsoft’s patent lawsuit against Corel, which once upon a time developed GNU/Linux, Wine, and competition to Microsoft Office.

Bonnie Eslinger makes it sound as though Microsoft now it wants Corel (a former betrayed 'partner') completely dead:

Microsoft told a California federal judge Thursday that because a jury found Corel willfully infringed its Office software patents, the rival should pay attorneys fees for "deterrence and compensation," while Corel maintained it tried to settle pretrial but Microsoft wanted "their pound of flesh."

Microsoft Corp.’s bid for attorneys fees would give the company a financial slap against Corel Corp. that it didn’t get at trial.


This is direct patent action (aggression) from Microsoft against a much smaller rival. Microsoft uses software patents.

"This is direct patent action (aggression) from Microsoft against a much smaller rival. Microsoft uses software patents."What about indirect actions? Enter Dominion Harbor, which received literally thousands of patents from Intellectual Ventures, Microsoft's biggest patent troll. A site of this patent troll (Dominion Harbor) -- a troll that receives patents from Microsoft's troll, Intellectual Ventures -- has just said that "Microsoft Irish unit records $239.5m loss on patent-buying fund write-off" [via] and to quote Charlie Taylor:

Intellectual Ventures (IV), a private partnership that established the fund, is credited with kickstarting the secondary market in patents. The company was co-founded by former Microsoft chief technology officer Nathan Paul Myhrvold and ex-chief architect Edward Jung, in 2000. It has raised more than $7.3 billion in investor capital since it was established with cumulative licensing revenues exceeding $4.3 billion.

IV has acquired 95,000 IP assets over the years and it has nearly 30,000 IP assets in active monetisation programmes.

In addition to the $136.5 million write-off last year, Microsoft Round Island Three Limited, whose principal activity is investment trading, racked up $103.5 million in reorganisation costs in the year to the end of June 2017.


The role of Nathan Myhrvold there is noteworthy and the photo at the top depicts him with Bill Gates (they're still very close friends). Also, just before the weekend we stumbled upon this new report about the TiVo division (Rovi Corporation), which is connected to Microsoft's patent troll Intellectual Ventures [1, 2]. It says that its "patent licensing machine keeps [t]rolling":

This week, TiVo announced that it had come to terms on a new intellectual property licensing deal with TV maker Vizio.

“TiVo’s intellectual property (IP) continues to provide companies around the globe with access to the technologies transforming entertainment for viewers,” said Arvin Patel, executive VP and chief intellectual property officer of TiVo division Rovi Corporation, in a statement touting the deal.


Rovi Corporation is connected -- in the liaising sense -- to Intellectual Ventures and thus to Microsoft. It has been suing or pressuring (e.g. pressing for preliminary injunctions) lots of companies using patents. It's hard to measure how much money flows from where exactly (or where it winds up). One sure thing, however, is that it makes the market a lot more hostile and risky. Microsoft hopes that a high-risk market will drive more companies into its 'embrace', nowadays in the form of “Microsoft Azure IP Advantage”.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Saving the Planet With Honesty, Transparency, and Sharing (Not Only of Computer Code)
GAFAM is destroying the only habitat humans and other animals have and it'll only get worse
Disinformation About Election Outcomes Even Before Any Election Outcomes (or Election/Voting!)
seeding doubt about election outcomes
Against Outsourcing of Sites and E-mail
Software Freedom is great, but it is not enough if you let someone else do it 'for you'
Drew DeVault: People Talking About My Attack Site (Against the Founder of GNU/Linux) is "Spam"
"Spam on sr.ht mailing lists"
"Oppose the Fascist"
what the founder of GNU/Linux said
Halloween, All Saints Day & Swiss citizenship
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
 
How Voting Does Not Work
You cannot vote from an "app"
Links 05/11/2024: Bluesky and Enshittification, Pugad Baboy, and Lots of Disinformation Flooding the Web
Links for the day
[Meme] Sweaty Under the Belly
"OK, my critics are 'spam'"
Microsoft Bribing Canonical (to Stop Competing) and Bribing Users to Shun the Competition
Canonical is worth shunning
[Meme] The 2024 'Info Bros'
And prehistoric googling
Computers Getting Worse (for the User) Over Time
This is like Windows-ism coming to "Linux" through the hardware
[Meme] How NOT to Vote
Another form of (mostly-unspoken-of) election interference
An LLM Inside a 'Search' Engine Means That Companies Tell You What They Want, Not What Web Pages to Visit
The future of 'googling' things might be as unreliable as using Social Control Media as a source of information
Google's Debt Has Increased and 'Cash on Hand' Fell by 22.27% This Past Year
These are the numbers that the corporate media intentionally leaves out
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 04, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 04, 2024
There's a Reason Why Techrights is Turning 18 and Tux Machines Will Turn 20.5 Next Month
I started advocating GNU/Linux when I was a teenager
Techrights Has a Long History of Fighting to Expose 'Team Mono' or Microsofters Inside GNOME
Never downplay the malice of Microsoft and its operatives
Gemini Links 05/11/2024: Halloween Over, Intention and Implementation, Bookmark Syncing
Links for the day
Microsoft Lost Nearly Half of Its 'Cash Reserves' This Past Year
Is Microsoft (MSFT) the next Intel (INTC)?
The Year Isn't Over Yet, There Will be More Waves of Microsoft Layoffs
Nowadays Microsoft just tries to conflate/equate its energy waste with "value"
The Corporate Media Blasted Bitcoin for Destroying the Planet and Must Do the Same to Incite the Public Against the 'Great Rigging of Wall Street' (Under the Guise of "AI", the Latest Gold Rush)
"AI" is the next "metaverse" (trailing by a few months)
[Video] Richard Stallman is Back to Halo and Gown (in Peru) With 2+ Hours of a Public Talk
The globetrotting Richard Stallman gave many talks at the end of last month
Going Strong Against the Wind
the abuse serves to emphasise or affirm the importance of what we do
Links 04/11/2024: Squashing More Software Patents and Taiwan at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/11/2024: Typing vs Writing and a Smol (Net) Pub
Links for the day
Links 04/11/2024: LibreOffice Had Adopted PeerTube, "Hey Hi" Hype is a Threat to the Energy Grids (Worse Than Fake-Coins)
Links for the day
[Meme] Social Control Telescreens With Microphone
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Shout-out to Christine From FOSSForce
Who noticed our short story
Not Boycotting Apple (Yet)?
"Apple Forces The Signing Of Applications In MacOS Sequoia 15.1"
statCounter This Month: Android Has Nearly Become Twice as Big as Windows
If it happened, it would be an unprecedented milestone
Why Technical Sites Need Not Make Political Recommendations or Endorsements
Except perhaps when it's for some purely technical role, e.g. FCC chief
[Meme] Apple Freedom
Freedom is... the ability to purchase as many 'i' things as you want
Apple's MacOS Shows Us the Vision of Computing That GAFAM Has for Us (Digital Prisons)
Freedom means "we the people" should be in control, not people being controlled by corporations (contemporary slaveowners)
"Active" as in One URL, One Emoji, and 4 Words in One Week
Diversity community in Fedora
Apple Vision Pro Has Failed, Just Like "Metaverse"
Vision Pro lacks software
Things That Can Improve Election Integrity
the first two relate to "tech"
Rigging Elections is Difficult, Cheating a Little is Not
Avoid social control media, it is the biggest rigger of all
"People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"
On throwing stones in a glass house
Our Stance on Electronic (or Digital) Voting Machines
The simple activity of voting and counting ballots does not require thousands of complex machines with hundreds of millions of transistors and hundreds of millions of lines of code
Microsoft and "Retrospective Re-writing of History..."
in YouTube anyone can make stuff up (as one goes along)
This Coming Week
Go exercise your right to vote
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 03, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, November 03, 2024
Reddit is (Still) Lying and Faking
Don't fall for this phony idea that the above sites are grassroots or edgy; they're not
GNU/Linux Users Are Not Cheaters
The bottom line is, most cheaters use Windows
Links 04/11/2024: FCC, Broadband Industry Spar Over Net Neutrality; Software Patent Squashed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/11/2024: Official MyGemini.Space Announcement
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/11/2024: Election Thoughts, Plagiarism, and LLM Slop
Links for the day
Links 03/11/2024: Deere 'Right to Repair' (RoR) and "Threads Bans Anyone For Mentioning Hitler"
Links for the day
[Video] "El Movimiento del Software Libre y el Sistema Operativo GNU" by Richard M. Stallman
The footage is a bit jittery (taken with a phone apparently, and there's no tripod available), but the sound is OK and the words (in Spanish) are comprehensible
Android at New Highs (47%), Windows at New Lows (24%), Suggests Latest Data From statCounter
So the market share of Android is about double that of Windows
[Video] Richard Stallman's Talk in Spanish (in Peru Last Week)
Alternative URLs too
The Media Focuses on the Wrong Scandal
The real scandal at MIT was Gates
Gemini Links 03/11/2024: Fantasy Life Day and Worship
Links for the day
[Meme] Write Us Drivers and GTFO!
When you realise sanctioning BRICS devs goes against the community
Decommissioning Copper Lines Makes Us Less Safe
We've essentially degraded the robustness or reliability of critical systems
Life of an Addicted Lolicon Who Can Also Code
Personal blog as an open diary
[Meme] Reporting Crime is Not a Crime
Obviously!
Manchester Party for Techrights
If you choose to come, of course we'll cover the cost of the food and treats (but not travel)
Privacy is Not a Crime (in Places Where It is a Crime the Regime is Typically Very Rogue)
Also, criminals lack "privacy rights" to hide their crimes from the public
GNU/Linux "Market Share" in Lebanon More Than Doubled in a Few Months
Maybe it's a reaction to something? Assassination in Haret Hreik was in July.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 02, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, November 02, 2024
Nearly 40 Years Without Security Incidents
People who use Windows have come to sort of "accept" that security incidents are part of life or "normal"
[Meme] The Streisand Effect
Simon says, don't bother trying to suppress facts
Streisand Effect at IBM?
Trying to silence your workers isn't the best approach. It only makes colleagues even more curious.
Microsoft is a Gift That Keeps Giving (Future Stories to Techrights)
Microsoft has been trying to silence me using dirty tricks for nearly 20 years
Elon Musk Has Trashed Twitter for Ideological Reasons (and Propping Up Trump in Exchange for Financial and Political Favours Once in Public Office)
In case you didn't leave Twitter already, consider the fact that Twitter's (or "X"... whatever!) future is uncertain
Wall Street Has Demoted Intel, Seeing There May be No Future to Intel
Intel's loss isn't a loss to us
Free Software Licence Compliance is About Security Too
Linux as de facto proprietary off-the-shelf platform