Bonum Certa Men Certa

With Patent Trolls Like Finjan and Blackbird Tech out There, Microsoft in OIN Does Not Mean Safety

LOT and OIN (DPAs) used by Microsoft to promote "Azure IP Advantage"

LOT Network: A WHOLE LOT OF SOFTWARE PATENTS



Summary: With many patent trolls out there (Microsoft's Intellectual Ventures alone has thousands of them) it's not at all clear how Microsoft can honestly claim to have reached a "truce"; OIN deals with issues which last manifested/publicly revealed themselves a decade ago (Microsoft suing directly, not by proxy)

PUBLISHED behind paywall yesterday (and then promoted in Twitter) was an article titled "More valuable to offer patent licences through LOT and OIN than do it ourselves, says Microsoft IP chief" (based on a Microsoft-friendly and trolls-funded publisher).



We can imagine the gist of it because we covered it based on the tweets while also expressing concerns about the new Deputy Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Even Dennis Crouch noted that "[s]he was also GC at Immersion Corp — by that point the company was really just enforcing its patents on haptic feedback game controllers." By "enforcing" he meant suing. They sue a lot of companies, having already earned themselves a reputation as "patent troll" (some news sites do call them that].

As we explained yesterday, Microsoft still relies on patent trolls to attack companies, enticing them into Microsoft's "protection racket" in Azure ("Azure IP Advantage" [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21]). OIN members would be defenseless.

OIN has just published this press release about expanding the scope of "protection" (from other OIN members), "bringing the total number of protected packages to 2,873," it said.

Here are some key parts:

Open Invention Network (OIN), the largest patent non-aggression community in history, with more than 2,750 community members, announced today that it has increased its patent non-aggression coverage through an update to its definition of the Linux System. The expansion is part of Open Invention Network’s program to regularly revise its Linux System coverage to keep pace with innovation.

“Linux and open source software are thriving, and they continue to transform industries,” said Keith Bergelt, CEO of Open Invention Network. “This Linux System expansion enables OIN to keep pace with open source innovation, promoting patent non-aggression in the core. As open source grows, we will continue to protect Linux and adjacent technologies through strategic software package additions to the Linux System.”

The expansion includes 151 new packages, bringing the total number of protected packages to 2,873. “With this update to the Linux System definition, OIN continues with its well-established process of carefully maintaining a balance between stability and innovative core open source technology,” stated Mirko Boehm, OIN’s director for the Linux System definition. “While the majority of the new additions are widely used and found in most devices, the update includes a number of key open source innovations such as Kubernetes, Apache Cassandra and packages for Automotive Grade Linux.” The 5.5 percent growth over the 2017 coverage reflects OIN’s conservative and consensus-driven Linux System update process.

[...]

Funded by Google, IBM, NEC, Philips, Red Hat, Sony, SUSE and Toyota, OIN has more than 2,750 community members and owns more than 1,300 global patents and applications. The OIN patent license and member cross-licenses are available royalty-free to any party that joins the OIN community.


But OIN cannot defend from trolls. It cannot. At best it can discourage Microsoft from passing yet more patents to patent trolls, but those trolls can get patents from other avenues and OIN can, at best, try to outbid them. According to this press release, within a few days the Microsoft-funded patent troll Finjan can decide which Microsoft rival to sue next, having already sued many of them. What good would OIN membership have been? No good, no use.

A Section 101 challenge (invoking 35 U.S.C. €§ 101, based on Alice/SCOTUS) has meanwhile been noted in relation to a notorious patent troll called Blackbird. It uses software patents for extortion (sometimes Microsoft's rivals) and the case needs to be escalated to the Federal Circuit (expensive) for invalidation that seems likely. To quote:

In the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Plaintiff (Blackbird) sued Defendant (Niantic) alleging infringement of U.S. Patent No. 9,802,127. Niantic filed the present motion to dismiss the case for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6), on the basis that the asserted patent claims are invalid under 35 U.S.C. €§ 101.

The Court followed the two-step approach set forth by Alice to evaluate the section 101 challenge, and ultimately found the claims satisfied step 1 (leaving step 2 unnecessary), and thus, the motion was denied.

The '127 patent is directed to a video game in which user determined location information (e.g. GPS, Google Maps, an entered address or the like) is acquired, and the determined location information of a physical location is mapped to a video game environment so that the user of the video game experiences objects from the user's physical location while playing the video game.


The bottom line is, as we've explained before (even yesterday), OIN does not do anything to eliminate software patents (it does not oppose these!) and it's almost pointless when patent trolls, including Microsoft's own, launch the litigation campaigns. Microsoft has a "clever plan", but Microsoft staff is not allowed to speak.

Recent Techrights' Posts

New US Editor for The Register is a Microsoft Booster
"Avram Piltch has served as US editor for The Register since July 2025."
Reda Demanded That FSF Removes Its Founder, Now Reda Works Directly for Microsoft
A sellout and a traitor, first working for GAFAM, now Microsoft
PCLinuxOS is Raising Money to Support Development After Fire Incident at the Host
PCLinuxOS has not had announcements lately
Over 3 Months Later Brett Wilson LLP Still Unable to Recruit a Media Lawyer?
"Immediate start", but not found... still unfilled
Microsoft is Trying to "Pull a Nokia" on GNU/Linux as Desktop/Laptop Platform
We all remember that rather well, don't we?
Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
 
[Meme] Hard to Be a Better Person?
Sooner or later they'll realise that for each pound I spend they need to spend about 1,000 times more
The LLM Con Artists Are Highly Destructive
Who will ever be held accountable for this scam?
Too Bribed by Microsoft to Move to Free Software?
Microsoft lies and Microsoft bribery (in politics)
Microsoft Hiring European Politicians is Another Form of Bribery; There Should be a European Investigation
When Microsoft bribed people in Europe for OOXML (there's no denying this!) a European government delegate said that Microsoft operated like a cult
Speed of the Site Should be Better Now
The "bot attacks" impact the speed of the sister site too
Getting More From AnalogNowhere
Recently we used many images from AnalogNowhere
Microsoft, Microsofters and 'Secure' Boot Shills Already Storming the LWN Report About Expiring Certificate, Shooting the Messenger
LWN has clearly stuck a nerve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Disable "Secure" Boot Today (the Only Better Time to Do So Was Yesterday)
Don't trust anything Red Hat tells you about security
Links 23/07/2025: Windows Killed Company After 150+ Years, US Government Mimics Russia's Attacks on the Media
Links for the day
Freedom Generally Wins at the End, History Shows (But It's Constantly Attacked, Too)
At the moment people realise "Linux" (e.g. Android) isn't enough to guarantee any freedoms
“Inhumane” and “Disgusting” Mass Layoff Execution, According to Microsoft Staff
The workers are looking for other places to work
Misinformation is Not Intelligence
It's low-grade plagiarism and it fails to show any signs of intelligence
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Slogan for Its 40th Anniversary
The freedoms are what's most important
LLM Slopfarms gbhackers.com, "Cyber Press" and CyberSecurityNews Are Drowning Google News (and Shame on Google for Feeding and Facilitating Them)
All are run by the same people
Links 23/07/2025: Droplets GUI Patent Monopoly Challenge, Nokia Leverages Illegal Patent Court Against Rivals
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Community in Geminispace and Challenges With Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: Thinkpad and Pinephone
Links for the day
Links 22/07/2025: "Blog Restart" and Microsoft Clobbered by “ToolShell"
Links for the day
Global Warming and Global GAFAM Energy-Wasting
Burn more money (borrowed, loans), then hope the waste will somehow translate into profit?
No Compliance With the European Patent Convention (EPC) at the European Patent Office (EPO)
It's about preventing competition against this autocracy
Blue-Collar Trolls vs White-Collar Trolls
Examples of white-collar trolls
Apple Vision Pro Failed So Badly That Its Sales Are About 2,000 Times Smaller Than iPhone Sales
What's left for Apple to offer other than hype?
To Millions of People "Year of the Linux Desktop" Was Some Time in the 1990s (Bootable GNU/Linux as a Complete Operating System is Over 33 in Age)
In some sense, "year of the Linux desktop" was 33 years ago
Make No Assumptions (or Demands) About the Screen Resolution Used by Other People
There are usability aspects, aside from accessibility aspects
Why Wayland (and XWayland) Won't Solve the Key Problem It Proclaims to be Tackling (the Same Is True for Rust)
The problem isn't Wayland per se but the false promises and efforts to force everybody to move to it whilst insulting or demonising everyone who won't play along
They Don't Tell Us that 'Digitalisation' (Now Sold as "Hey Hi") Just Means Customers Become Unpaid Staff and Are Made Accountable
People are being conditioned to associate technology with something undesirable, at times even unbearable
Diplomatic Immunity Should Not Exist for Anybody
The EPO in its current form gradually 'normalises' the end of European democracy
Brett Wilson LLP Stopped Sending Me Papers When I Showed It had Sent Me Over 5 Kilograms of Legal Papers
A week ago we lodged our third lawsuit
Microsoft Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns Became the New Normal at Microsoft
Microsoft mass layoffs became a topic of everyday media coverage since May
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Has Layoffs and Microsoft Gaming/Entertainment Division Has an Uncertain Future
it's good to see all those horrible things crashing and burning
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 21, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 21, 2025
FSF "Raised Almost $139,000 During This Summer Campaign"
"Thank you for making a stand against dystopia!"
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: VPS Exploited and Fear of View
Links for the day