Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft and IBM Are the Patent Trolls, They Won't Protect Us From Trolls

Times have changed; Red Hat and Microsoft are now close partners.

Microsoft has no taste



Summary: "Microsoft has no taste" and IBM has no taste, either; they're lying to our collective face together with OIN and the 'Linux' Foundation

IBM has long cross-licensed with Microsoft. This means they won't sue one another over patents. Good for them, eh? Shared monopoly. No wonder Red Hat nowadays promotes Microsoft things almost every day. Now that IBM owns Red Hat (and all of its patents) IBM won't care about Microsoft's ongoing -- even in 2019 -- blackmail of OEMs that ship GNU/Linux.



Now Microsoft and IBM, the biggest purveyors of software patent trolls, tell us they'll protect from what they are, themselves [1-3]. Wow, the audacity! Joined by their front groups, OIN, a false representative to/of Free software, and Linux Foundation, a GitHub outsourcer which compares Microsoft to "a puppy". They use a lawsuit against GNOME (Foundation) to take us astray from abolishing software patents. Both IBM and Microsoft are feeding patent trolls, are blackmailing companies that implement things they themselves never did, and lobby aggressively for software patents in the US.

Related/contextual items from the news:


  1. Open Invention Network teams up with IBM, Linux Foundation, and Microsoft to protect open-source software from patent trolls

    Open-source software -- heck, all software -- has been plagued by patent trolls for decades. The Open Invention Network (OIN), the largest patent non-aggression community in history, is now expanding protection of open-source and Linux by partnering with IBM, the Linux Foundation, and Microsoft to further protect it from Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs), aka patent trolls. This new consortium is doing this by supporting Unified Patents' Open Source Zone with a substantial annual subscription.

    Unified Patents is an international organization of over 200 businesses. Unified Patents takes an aggressive stance against trolls. The name of its game is deterring trolls from attacking its members by making it too expensive for the troll to win. The group does this by examining troll patents and their activities in various technology sectors (Zones). The Open Source Zone is the newest of these Zones.

    United Patents does this in a variety of ways. For example, it runs a public bounty program, where it seeks prior art for troll patents. According to Kevin Jakel, Unified Patents CEO, in a recent interview, "The prize money offered can be as much as $10,000 for anyone that is able to find prior patents on the one being questioned. For example, we recently announced a $10,000 bounty for any prior art relating to network monitoring and sequence integrity."

    In practice, their method works. For instance, with Unified Patent's aid, the ride-sharing company Lyft recently beat a patent troll. In the case, a troll claimed essentially he has created all ride-sharing software. US District Judge Jon S Tigar ruled against the troll, saying, "Given the lack of an algorithm for allocation, RideApp 'has in effect claimed everything that [performs the task] under the sun."



  2. SUSE welcomes cooperation of Open Invention Network, Linux Foundation, IBM and Microsoft in co-funding Unified Patent’s new Open Source Zone

    An eternal truth is that everything has its opposite for good and evil. Patents are no exception. In fact, even the simple word ‘Patent’ evokes much positive and negative emotion in today’s software world – particularly as news continues to circulate around baseless patent lawsuits by non-practicing entities (NPEs). But in news this week there is a bit of positive for a change. The positive news is the announcement of the efforts by Unified Patents to reduce NPE assertion of invalid patents in the open source software zone.



  3. Open Invention Network Joins Forces With IBM, Linux Foundation And Microsoft

    Open Invention Network (OIN) is teaming up with IBM, the Linux Foundation and Microsoft to further protect open source software (OSS) from Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs) leveraging low quality patents, also called patent trolls.

    The group will support Unified Patents’ Open Source Zone with a substantial annual subscription. This expands OIN’s and its partners’ patent non-aggression activities by deterring PAEs from targeting Linux and adjacent OSS technologies relied on by developers, distributors and users.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Law Firms Facing the Consequences for Patently Abusive Litigation on Behalf of Microsoft Employees Who Got Arrested for Strangulation and Had Done Even Worse Things
Having spent 1.5 years bullying me with patronising letters on behalf of Microsofters, last week they got served a massive bill and, in effect, lost the Hearing
LLMs Breaking Everything
Computing and the Net became a playground for scammers and "bros", like people who "invented" fake currencies and also try to tell us that LLMs spewing out things will have some real value
1989: Free Software as "Open" Software (OSI Didn't Coin "Open Source", It Also Predates Linux)
"One man's fight for Free software"
 
The FSF Board and FSF Beard
So the FSF's Board has grown
New Report From the EPO's Staff Representatives in The Hague (LSCTH) Reveals Many Unsolved Issues
Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) wrote to staff just before the weekend
Links 22/06/2025: More Slop Lawsuits (Copyrights) and "America’s Oligarch Problem"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Gigantic Toolchest and Annoying Bots
Links for the day
The Calling
Persist and persevere, justice will come your way
So Far Every BetaNews 'Article' is LLM Slop, So BetaNews is Officially Just a Slopfarm
They just don't seem to value what they have
IBM Rumour: Mass Layoffs (RAs) Lists Being Made for Consulting, With Effect in July 2025
Bogus companies with no viable products and no world-leading (in their field) staff are doomed to perish
Links 21/06/2025: Data Breach With 16 Billion Passwords, Dutch Government Recommends Children Under 15 Stay off TikTok and Instagram
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Notes about Typst (and LaTeX) and Opos
Links for the day
Microsoft's Competition Tactics: Sabotage GNU/Linux Installs, Block Chrome
Edge is dying
The Microsoft OOXML Modus Operandi: Throw 1,000 Pages of Other People's Work for a Judge to Read Ahead of a One-Hour Meeting
No time to discuss this - that's the point
Formalities Officers (FOs) at the EPO Are in Trouble, Reveals Internal Report
We already know, based on an HR pattern we saw at IBM and elsewhere, that reallocating roles can be prerequisite for dismissal and those who do so expect many to resign anyway
The Web is Slop and FUD, Let's Go to Gemini Protocol
Lupa sees self-signed capsules at 92.4%
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 20, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 20, 2025
Links 21/06/2025: Phone Bans for Concerts, Tensions in Taiwan Strait
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Spoilers, Public Yggdrasil Node, Changes to AuraGem Search
Links for the day
"Six years of Gemini!"
From gemini://geminiprotocol.net
Gemini Links 20/06/2025: Summer Updates and Hardware Failures
Links for the day
Links 20/06/2025: Google Shareholder Sues Google and Google Sued for Defamatory Slop ('Hey Hi') Word Salads ('Summaries')
Links for the day
Linux Journal Might Have Become the Latest Slopfarm Targeting "Linux", the Trends Are Concerning for Dying News Sites
They tarnish the Web with junk and then die
On "Learning to Code"
quality may suffer, plus things get bloated
Quick Points Regarding This Week's Court Hearing
it paves the way for us to squash all the SLAPPs from Microsofters
Common Mistake: Believing Social Control Media Will Document Your Writings/Thoughts and Search Engines Like Google Will Help You Find These
Many news sites wrongly assumed that posting directly to Twitter would be acceptable
The Manchester Bees and This Hot Summer
We have had a fantastic week so far this week
Gemini Protocol Enters Its Seventh Year, Growth Has Accelerated!
Maybe in June 20 2026 there will be over 3,500 active capsules?
Mastodon and the Fediverse Have an Issue: Liability for Content (Even in Other Instances) and Costs
self-hosting is the only logical path forward
Why Microsoft and Its 'Hey Hi' (Slop) Frenzy Fail While Sinking in Deep, Growing Debt
Right now, like Twitter around the time it was sold to MElon, "open" "hey hi" is a big pile of debt with a lot to pay for that debt (interest payments)
Europe is Leaving Microsoft, the Press Coverage Isn't Sufficiently Helpful
The news is generally positive, but the press coverage leaves so much to be desired
Slopwatch: Linuxsecurity, BetaNews, and Linux Journal
slippery slope
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 19, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 19, 2025
Gemini Links 20/06/2025: Gemini Protocol Turns 6!
Links for the day