David Ruschke’s ‘official’ photo

Summary: The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), led by David Ruschke, continues to function as another ‘layer’ that ensures patent quality by weeding out bad patents and here are some of the latest cases

THE patents and litigation climate is rapidly changing in the US. It’s not just about software patents, but it has a lot to do with them as a lot of litigation emanates from such patents, notably troll litigation.

Just before the days of the holiday (whichever one) we learned about the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which is responsible for invalidating many software patents, being in the midst of this battle:

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board announced on Dec. 2 that it would uphold a patent filed by Securus Technologies, and that the challenge filed by rival company Global Tel*Link (GTL) was invalid. GTL maintains, however, that Securus only won a partial victory.

The patent (U. S. Patent No. 7,494,061 B2) that Securus maintains held up to the challenge from GTL, relates to biometric identity verification monitoring devices used in correctional facilities. According to a summary of the patent, “The term “biometrics” refers to technologies that measure and analyze human characteristics for authentication.”

This patent is a software patent by the sound of it. These are actually the sorts of patents which improperly use terms like “biometrics” to sound as though they’re anything but image analysis, which is my field of research (post-doctoral). It has nothing to do with biology and it’s all typically reducible to mathematics (matrices). Does the appeal board (PTAB) realise this? If not, maybe it’s time to reassess.

Another report, last Updated 6 days ago, is an article about appeals in Korea, published by Jay (Young-June) Yang, Duck Soon CHANG and Seung-Chan EOM from Kim & Chang (patent microcosm). Remember that Korea still blocks software patents (as it should) and we commend this decision, which guards software giants (also hardware giants, not to mention military equipment players) like Samsung and LG — both of which became Microsoft prey for using Linux nearly 9 years ago. We last reported on this 3 months ago (Microsoft wants more 'Linux patent tax' in Korea).

Going back to PTAB, there is a CAFC/PTAB case (CAFC having the authority to object) that MIP explained as follows: “The original Federal Circuit panel decision in the case – written by Judge Reyna and joined by Chief Judge Prost and Judge Stark – was issued on May 25. The court affirmed the Board’s denial of Aqua’s motion to substitute claims 22–24 of a patent concerning automated swimming pool cleaners.”

There is a 9-page PDF in there. As mentioned here some days ago, they are complaining because their patent was granted in error and now they want to change it. Imagine if granted patents were something dynamic you could just amend, edit, expand etc. as you go alone. What a ludicrous thing. Invalidate the patent and if they insist it’s not fair, then they should apply for the patent again (with amended claims).

MIP also explains how to use PTAB to squash bad patents (like software patents) even when it’s not so trivial. “Jim Brogan, Brian Eutermoser and Janna Fischer discuss the ways that the unsuccessful IPR petitioner at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board still can challenge validity in subsequent district court litigation,” MIP wrote.

MIP, to its credit, keeps abreast of PTAB cases (mostly because of Mr. Michael Loney), although it sometimes misinterprets the numbers it puts forth.

In better news about PTAB, here is PTAB having a go at software patents and getting a chance to kill them again. As PatentDocs put it:

Petitioner, iVenture Card Traveler Ltd, filed a Petition seeking to institute a covered business method patent review of all claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,765,128, owned by Smart Destinations, Inc. The Board, applying the standard that requires demonstration that more likely than not Petitioner would prevail with respect to at least one challenged claim, the Board granted Petitioner’s request to institute the CBM review.

We hope that PTAB will continue to do its job improving patent certainty by knocking out a lot of rubbish patents, leaving in tact only those that merit court cases (if any). █

“US Pat RE39231,” wrote a patent attorney, eventually meant that “Apple Must Pat MobileMedia $3M for Infringing this Patent” (MobileMedia is not as real company and we wrote about it before, in relation to MPEG-LA and Larry Horn; we wrote about him in [1, 2]).

How many people out there know that MPEG-LA is a patent troll whose head himself is/was a patent troll? Not many people know this. Horn relies on dishonest lawyers from Proskauer Rose and sues Apple, which itself is part of MPEG-LA (we already took note of how bizarre this is).

Well, “Apple loses ringtone infringement case to Nokia and Sony’s patent troll firm,” according to the headline of this report. To quote: “Apple has been ordered to pony up $3 million in damages by a Delaware judge for infringing the patent of a firm partially owned by Sony and Nokia. The case, which has been running since way back in 2010, saw MobileMedia Ideas originally accuse Apple on 16 counts of patent infringement. Six years and plenty of court activity later, the original claim has been whittled down to just one patent pertaining to iPhone ringer alerts, for which MobileMedia has been awarded a tidy sum of money.”

A patent troll connected to Nokia — a legacy of Microsoft entryism and subsequent passage of patents to trolls like MOSAID — is somewhat of a pattern we’ve seen a lot of recently. Android too is being targeted by these trolls.

“MobileMedia Ideas just won a Delaware trial against Apple over a former Sony patent,” Florian Müller wrote about it. “May file further lawsuit now over iPhone 4S and later.”

Tom O’Reilly from Mobile Media Ideas is advertising for this patent troll. He passed around the press release “MobileMedia Ideas Wins Trial against Apple” and it said:

(CHEVY CHASE, MD, US – 21 September 2016) – MobileMedia Ideas LLC is pleased to announce that the US District Court for the District of Delaware today found MobileMedia Ideas’ “polite-ignore” patent (Re 39,231) for mobile phone call silencing valid and infringed by the iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4 and awarded $3M in damages. The case did not include the iPhone 4S, 5/5C/5S and 6/6 Plus on which there may be further proceedings. The patent was filed in 1994 by Sony Corporation, a pioneer in the development of mobile and other consumer electronics technology, and is now part of the patent portfolio licensed by MobileMedia Ideas.

MobileMedia Ideas President and CEO Larry Horn said, “We thank the jury for its service and hard work. This case could have been avoided by the taking of a license, however. MobileMedia Ideas’ business model is based on offering reasonable licenses to a valuable portfolio of important inventions widely practiced across a broad array of mobile phone and other portable products. We still welcome Apple to respect intellectual property developed by others with the taking of a license.”

MobileMedia Ideas was represented by a team of litigators at Proskauer Rose led by Steve Bauer and Kim Mottley of the Boston office.

In relation to an article/report mentioned here earlier this week, there is now an important update. Coming from the Korea Times, it says that the tax authority is likely to reject Microsoft’s appeal for refund of tax. To quote the opening parts:

The South Korean tax authority is expected to reject an appeal by U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp. to refund 634 billion won ($575.7 million) in a withholding tax, according to the tax authority and industry sources Thursday.

Microsoft filed complaints last month against the National Tax Service (NTS), seeking a refund of the withholding taxes paid by Samsung Electronics Co. to the NTS for using the software giant’s patents.

When will Microsoft pay the tax it has evaded? Above the law, still? A lot of the above sum comes from Linux-powered devices (we wrote about this many times before).

Those who believe that Microsoft has changed surely aren’t paying attention to what it does through patent trolls, through Nokia (which Microsoft demanded should pass patents to trolls), and in various distant countries like Korea. Microsoft just became a little more covert in its war against Linux. █

Summary: A Supreme Court ruling on patents, its implications for software patent trolls, and how media that is promoting software patents and patent trolls covered it

THE dishonest/self-serving patent lawyers in the US might never openly admit this, but software patents are dying not only in US courts and PTAB but also, increasingly, at the USPTO. This does not necessarily solve the problem of patent trolls because trolls tend to go after small companies that have neither the will nor the budget to invalidate the asserted patents, e.g. by going to court.

“Court rulings like this,” say anti-trolls lobbyists, “make it much more urgent for Congress to pass patent litigation reform legislation this year” (they probably allude to the VENUE Act or the likes of it).

“This does not necessarily solve the problem of patent trolls because trolls tend to go after small companies that have neither the will nor the budget to invalidate the asserted patents, e.g. by going to court.”“Supreme Court Ruling in Halo/Stryker Case Will Lead to More Lawsuits from Patent Trolls, More Forum Shopping by Repeat Plaintiffs,” says the accompanying PDF. “Ruling Gives Small Businesses Less Incentive to Fight Meritless Suits,” says the second line. This is correct as it’s already far too expensive and laborious. The smaller the company, the more likely it is to just pay ‘protection money’ (extortion) because the ratio between the ‘damages’ and the legal costs in a court makes it the ‘correct’ business choice.

Suppose for a moment that patent trolls don’t get granted (or get to buy) the patents they use. The proposed reform legislation does not actually tackle software patents. The subject is not even on the agenda and that’s a problem. As long as software patents can land on the lap of patent trolls, these are guaranteed to be misused. Natalie Rahhal of MIP wrote about the same decision (Halo/Stryker case) as follows: “The Supreme Court decided both Halo Electronics, Inc v Pulse Electronics, Inc, et al and Stryker Corporation, et al v Zimmer, Inc, et al on Monday, in a decision that significantly lowered the bar for the issuance of enhanced damages in a patent infringement case.

“Gene the WatchTroll (or “Watchdog” as he prefers to think of himself) is so upset that judges are doing their job and eliminating software patents (after SCOTUS Justices ruled on the matter) that he shamelessly exploits these latest developments to assert Justices are writing legislation (untrue).”“Enhanced damages are set out by Section 284 of the Patent Act and allow the Court to award a patent owner up to three times the amount of the damages found, if the jury or the court determines that the infringement was wilful.”

Gene the WatchTroll (or “Watchdog” as he prefers to think of himself) is so upset that judges are doing their job and eliminating software patents (after SCOTUS Justices ruled on the matter) that he shamelessly exploits these latest developments to assert Justices are writing legislation (untrue). In our previous post we showed how he had exploited the Halo/Stryker case to accuse Justices of ignorance and here he is saying that §101 (Alice) is “overused”:

It seems as though once the court realized the claimed invention related to software, it pulled out its §101 goggles and ignored any other grounds for patent invalidity. Such an analysis, which pushes decision-making into 101, which is ill-suited to be used as such a brute force instrument, has perplexed and frustrated patent practitioners. Courts, including the Federal Circuit, simply disregard the other sections of the Patent Act in favor of §101, which for them is easier and leads to decision-making without the need of discovery and without presuming the issued patent is valid.

With or without Halo/Stryker, with or without Enfish, §101 still stands and it will continue to demolish software patents by the thousands (those that reach PTAB and the courts anyway). One can be sure that patent lawyers will keep saying “Halo” and “Enfish” any time they wish to defend trolls and software patents. Joff Wild, for a change, says the T word (“Trolls”) in his article about Halo (a case which we first mentioned here last week) and here is his opening paragraph: “There have already been plenty of articles written about the Supreme Court’s decision in Halo v Pulse, which was handed down yesterday. As is usual in cases where they review the work of the Federal Circuit, the court’s justices have decided that its practices are wrong. This time, it’s the approach that the CAFC has towards determining wilful infringement – it’s too rigid and lets too many potentially very badly behaved defendants off the hook. Instead, the Supreme Court has stated, judges should have a lot more discretion in deciding when a defendant’s behaviour has been so egregious that it deserves the sanction of triple damages.”

“With or without Halo/Stryker, with or without Enfish, §101 still stands and it will continue to demolish software patents by the thousands (those that reach PTAB and the courts anyway).”Expect this to be used to discredit §101 and defend patent trolls. Now that Ericsson’s patent trolls (in Europe) are about get ‘scooped up’ IAM celebrates and as another major lawsuit comes to light IAM says: “Earlier this week an entity called Global Equity Management (GEMSA) filed lawsuits against 20 separate operating companies including Spotify, Netflix and Uber over the alleged infringement of two patents. All of the suits were filed in the Eastern District of Texas.”

That’s just a patent troll in the Eastern District of Texas, as usual. “US Pat 6,690,400, Asserted Against Amazon Web Service Users,” Patent Buddy wrote, adding some of his information about the patent. Apparently that’s just fine with Wild and his colleagues, whose employer received money from patent trolls. This EPO‘s mouthpiece, IAM ‘magazine’, still treats the world's largest patent troll (and Microsoft-connected troll) like some kind of heroic entity that people ought to emulate. Last week it continued to groom this patent troll, Intellectual Ventures. They almost do public relations, having spoken directly to the company’s executives last month (the editor in chief did, the trolls denialist).

“It doesn’t seem to bother Congress enough. Why not? Follow the money.”Perhaps the saddest thing in it all is that most voices that weighed in on the latter (and we were able to find) treated a win for patent trolls as some kind of fantastic ruling from SCOTUS, except perhaps TechDirt with this article titled “Supreme Court Just Made It Easier For Patent Trolls”.

To quote TechDirt: “As we’ve noted over the past decade or so, the Supreme Court has been smacking down the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit (CAFC) over and over and over again on issues related to patent law. And on Monday, the Supreme Court did it once again — but this time in a way that actually might not be good.”

The analysis ends with: “At the very least, this seems like an argument for Congress to finally stop sitting around and doing something to fix the patent troll problem.”

It doesn’t seem to bother Congress enough. Why not? Follow the money. Why is IAM so soft on trolls? Again, follow the money.

We could say a lot more about IAM’s sheer bias. Consider its latest coverage from Asia. IAM, as usual, misses the point. LG and Samsung are absolutely massive companies (almost part of the nation itself, including the military in fact); they are the exception, not the norm, when it comes to the number of patents. IAM says “Korean companies own some of the world’s largest patent portfolios, including of course the single biggest stockpile of US grants – by some margin – which belongs to Samsung Electronics.” But IAM does not mention that this is pretty much limited to just two companies. Regarding Japan, which has a lot more than just two or three giant technology companies, IAM suggests some kind of patent liquidation. Notice how they ascribe or use the word “asset” to refer to a patent (the A in IAM is “asset”), as if it’s some kind of physical object. Euphemisms are everywhere at IAM. It’s lobbying disguised as news. █

LINUX and GNU are taking over the mobile world. Not only the Google-run Android (US-centric) is capitalising on GNU (founded in US) and Linux (centered in Portland). This is an international effort to capitalise on Free software, challenging proprietary systems like Blackberry’s and Apple’s, not only Android, which has been exceptionally surveillance-friendly.

The England-based Canonical (London-based offices) has Ubuntu for mobile devices, the Finland-based Jolla (former Nokia staff) has a promising operating system that’s a huge success in Finland and is very liberal even in the hardware sense [1], Korean giant Samsung is working on Tizen with new backers [2,3] (although none has pledged actual devices [4]), so Samsung is not focused just on Android, and LG (the other Korean giant) pushes WebOS [5]. Then there is Geeksphone, which incorporates Firefox OS but only alongside Android [6].

All these efforts ought to remind us that Linux and GNU are international endeavours that increase sharing, choice, diversity, etc. It’s not all about Android and there is no “monopoly” here, as some Microsoft- and Apple-friendly ‘journalists’ have been trying to insinuate recently. There are Android-derived alternatives such as CyanogenMod, and Google is not shunning them [7] unless they cause security risks [8]. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Mobile Customization Gets Boost with Jolla’s The Other Half

   The dream of customizing mobile devices with 3D printed modules took another step forward this week when Jolla opened sales of its promised “The Other Half” customizable backplates for Jolla smartphones. The Finnish company has even posted an SDK to let developers construct their own 3D printed backplate designs for the phone, which runs the Linux-based Sailfish OS.

2. ZTE, Sprint, SoftBank join open source Tizen OS development

3. Tizen adds members, teases UI

   Tizen has always been the presumed heavyweight among the new crop of mobile Linux operating systems, yet it has increasingly seemed more like a wispy shadow. Now, despite growing signs that Samsung’s first Tizen phones may not ship until late 2014, and doubts whether the company will put much effort behind the OS now that it has made peace with Google, the Tizen marketing push has cranked up for the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. This week, the Tizen Association industry group that supports the Linux Foundation hosted Tizen project, announced 15 new members for its partner program.

4. Tizen teasing continues as new members join but none pledge devices

5. LG pushes WebOS into digital signage

   LG is launching a new line of “all-in-one” digital signage systems that run the Linux-based WebOS, including new HTML middleware for app development.

6. Geeksphone’s dual-boot Android Firefox OS device coming next week

   Spanish smartphone maker Geeksphone has revealed more details on its forthcoming dual-boot Android and Firefox OS device.

7. CyanogenMOD developer demos Android Mirroring to Chromecast

   Well, Google had warned not to use preview SDK to write apps as it was in initial phase. Dutta has an AllCast app which allows one to stream quite a lot of local content to Chromecast. Now since Google has released the SDK and opened Chromecast to 3rd party developers there are immense possibilities – and Dutta is back. He has teased users with an app which can mirror the Android screen on Chromecast cast.

8. Google to banish mobe-makers using old Androids: report

   Android Police is claiming to have received a copy of a Google memo, stating that Google Mobile Services certification will no longer be available to any device submitted by an operator running anything less than Android 4.2.

Summary: WebOS turns out to have patents as ‘part of the platform’

WebOS, which Apple had threatened with patents about 4 years ago (before it became Open Source, shot itself in the foot. It has been sold to LG, which pays Microsoft for Linux, in order to produce smart TVs; but as one of our reader correctly notes, part of the transaction of source code includes patents (yes, for code). So here is yet another example of Linux-powered TVs that Microsoft will probably profit from. We gave other examples before. Extortion pays off.

Now, it’s not unusual for phone platforms to get patents on software (RIM got them as well this month), but for a platform which claims to be free/Open Source this is a bit of a heresy. Avoid WebOS/LG. █

Summary: Techrights’ fight against ‘Linux tax’ from Microsoft is getting a lot more attention this Friday

“BOYCOTT NOVELL” was all about stopping Microsoft tax on GNU/Linux. More people are beginning to wake us and realise that our cause was all along on target, as several distributions of GNU/Linux which paid Microsoft for this ‘privilege’ simply went extinct (Xandros' price was $50 for Microsoft patents). Our goal was to ensure that people/companies do not become dependent on Microsoft-taxed distributions, as that would simply serve Microsoft’s goal of making GNU/Linux its own cash cow. SUSE, Turbolinux, and Linspire were also part of this problem and all those companies went into the ashtray of history. There are more such companies, but they sell hardware, not purely software.

Everyone appears to have just ‘discovered’ that “HTC Pays Microsoft $5 Per Android Phone” and there is already a lot of coverage about it. Quoting The Register:

Buy an HTC smartphone and $5 of what you spent on it goes to Microsoft – even if you’ve just bought an Android device.

So says Citi analyst Walter Pritchard in a note sent out to investors today, according to Business Insider.

Microsoft announced the royalty payment deal – the result of a legal settlement – last year, but the amount the software giant receives was not made public. MS has alleged Android infringes its intellectual property, and has other smartphone vendors in its sights.

Pritchard reckons Microsoft is pursuing other Android handset makers for a royalty of $7.50-12.50 per device. HTC clearly got of relatively lightly by settling Microsoft’s claims out of court.

[...]

Microsoft can’t be too forceful. If can’t afford to overly annoy those vendors who’re also selling phones based on its Windows Phone OS – they might just drop it, in a huff. Or they may trade lower royalties for a stronger commitment to WinPho – something Microsoft needs far more than even a few hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty payments.

Saumsung, LG, and Kyocera Mita also pay Microsoft for Android. There might be more such companies, perhaps not prominent ones though. Faced with a price tag, people act surprised about it even though our site has highlighted this issue since 2007 when Samsung signed the first such deal and in order to discourage similar deals we called for a boycott. The bottom line is, we do have a problem here, but it is not a new problem. We even found one anti-Linux propagandist writing: “This is just fraud. I really like HTC phones with their Sense interface but I have a Galaxy S II on order and I will not buy any HTC phone again while they give in to Microsoft’s blackmail.”

According to other news from today, Lodsys wants to go after Android developers. “Patent holding company Lodsys caused a stir recently when it demanded money from iOS developers using in-app payments,” says this report, “something it holds a patent for. Now it appears that Android developers could be next in line for a stern email from the firm.

“Android Community has spotted one developer who is claiming to have received a request for payment in relation to integrating in-app payments into an Android app. If true, it could stir up another hornet’s nest of anger in the development community.”

“Saumsung, LG, and Kyocera Mita also pay Microsoft for Android.”This is actually not news and we alluded to it before. Apple, unlike Google, is a patent aggressor, so it is not the same situation for Android and Apple’s hypeOS. Interestingly enough, Microsoft’s ally Nokia is also giving a hard time to Apple. How long before Microsoft uses Nokia to sue Android distributors too? Nokia has given hints about it. Microsoft’s strategy is to tax Linux from as many directions as possible. It’s blackmail [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], so regulators should step in to intervene. █

“That’s extortion and we should call it what it is. To say, as Ballmer did, that there is undisclosed balance sheet liability, that’s just extortion and we should refuse to get drawn into that game.”

–Mark Shuttleworth

Vista Phony 7 is a poor product. One British review says that “Windows Phone 7 can’t yet hold a candle to iOS or Android for polish or content.” In response to this, a reader of ours wrote in Identi.ca: “Good, at least one Microsoft product doesn’t hold a candle. Tired to hear Linux doesn’t hold candles…”

Here are some more reviews of the platform, bearing headlines like “Early Reviews Peg Windows Phone 7 As Still Lagging Behind iOS”; “Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Is OK, but Has Holes, Reviews Say”; “Top 5 things I dislike about Windows Phone 7″; “Windows Phone 7: Microsoft’s Disaster”; “Microsoft Windows 7 phone: Poor cousin of iPhone for the money conscious Indian market?” and “Confessions of an iPhone User: Why I Don’t Like Windows Phone 7″,. Watch the MSNBC spin and mind Dell’s delays [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], which we interpret as Dell putting this under a low priority amidst other problems it has given Microsoft:

A batch of court documents The New York Times pressed to unseal has more details about a flood of faulty computers the company sold in 2003 to 2005.

Dell also develops some devices with Android, preinstalls GNU/Linux on servers, and sells PCs with Ubuntu on them.

For those who believe that only Dell is a Microsoft partner that gets cold feet, well… how about LG? As Microsoft’s Bright booster puts it, based on this new report, “LG [is] disappointed by Windows Phone 7 launch” (more reasons for Dell to call the whole thing off).

LG has gone on record saying that Windows Phone 7 hasn’t performed as well as it thought it would, following the launch of the mobile OS in October.

“From an industry perspective we had a high expectation, but from a consumer point of view the visibility is less than we expected”, James Choi, marketing strategy and planning team director of LG Electronics global told Pocket-lint in a one-to-one interview.

In light of many problems that may or may not have culminated in Vista Phony 7′s failure, more and more people call for Steve Ballmer’s resignation/ousting and the latest such call comes from ZDNet’s main blog:

At the time, I wrote that it may be time to yank Microsoft off of the keynote stage. But maybe it’s not Microsoft that needs to go. Maybe it’s Ballmer.

Times are getting interesting now that Windows becomes rather extinct in the mobile arena, which is one of the fastest-growing markets. █

Summary: Software patents proponents share their wealth while companies that bring free/libre software to the market get sued

PATENT TROLL Acacia has been agitating Linux for almost exactly three years now and a few days ago it made a settlement announcement regarding Red Hat [1, 2, 3]. Microsoft paid Acacia some months ago and it’s paying it again based on Murdoch’s press and Mary Jo Foley who writes:

Sometimes it’s cheaper to head off a potential problem than fight — a stance the old Microsoft regime would repudiate, but one that the current one increasingly has been pursuing.

On October 7, Microsoft licensed 74 patents for an undisclosed amount with Acacia Research Corp. and Access Co. Ltd, the Japanese company that acquired PalmSource, the maker of the Palm operating system, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Notice the role of ACCESS in there. André Rebentisch from the FFII warned us last year about the patent pools ACCESS or LiMo were getting into. The company was pro-software patents and patent trolls are now using similar tactics to merely extort competitors. It’s a good thing that ALP is dead given the damage its staff was causing to software freedom. “Microsoft pays Acacia,” I pointed out to Glyn Moody, adding that “Groklaw perceives that as Microsoft rewarding those ex-Softies who work in Acacia and sue Red Hat et al.” Moody did not rule out the possibility of it being a factor.

“Acacia has been good to Microsoft as it helped generate Linux FUD for several years, just like SCO did.”Isn’t it fascinating how money can change hands through settlements? Microsoft did not even challenge this, it immediately paid. Acacia has been good to Microsoft as it helped generate Linux FUD for several years, just like SCO did.

In other news, now that Microsoft extorts Android, LG (with a Microsoft patent deal covering Linux) drops some of its Android plans and just a couple of days later initiates a Microsoft co-operation. A reader of ours from Latvia sent us this link. It turns out that some of those companies which signed Linux patent deals with Microsoft were actually quietly sued but settled before this was made publicly known. Melco is reportedly one of those. That’s just racketeering [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and it’s where Microsoft seems to be going. █

Summary: More new televisions run Linux, but not the type which is free because Microsoft unjustifiably gets paid

THE KOREAN televisions industry is still at it. Both LG and Samsung pay Microsoft for Linux, also in their televisions. LG claims to be running “open source” right now (“Open source Plex media center to run on LG TVs”) and Samsung uses Android in HDTVs, based on this news article which says nothing about the Microsoft tax.

HDTVs are the next consumer electronic battlefield and Samsung is apparently testing out Android on its sets in order to step up their offering in response to the latest from Sony, Apple and others. Currently, Samsung is the world’s leader in HDTVs sold but there’s a shake-up looming and Samsung no doubt wants to retain its title. Android may or may not be the answer.

Many television sets of Sony runs Linux, but these do not pay Microsoft for ‘permission’ to do so. Samsung is only starting to learn about complying with Free software licences (new code release [1, 2, 3]), but it never learned about Free software being incompatible with patents, simply based on practices. Pressuring Samsung regarding GPL violations proved fruitful (they formally published code because a Techrights member pressed them), so Samsung ought to be pressured to also stop paying Microsoft for Linux (Microsoft presented no evidence to justify it). This cause and this goal can be achieved, but customers need to pressure them. █

Summary: Microsoft dependencies, Ballnux in Korea, and the ill effects of software patents there

Korea claims to be trying to get rid of Microsoft monopoly that’s reinforced by ActiveX in government and banking Web sites. This is an important issue, which the nation has complained about for years (and Microsoft was also found guilty by the courts there several times). Another problem Korea is having may have something to do with Samsung and LG, the Korean giants which not only pay Microsoft for Linux but also help spread Windows DRM. We believe that Samsung and LG pay Microsoft for Linux also because the law in Korea allows patenting of mathematics, which puts software companies at greater risk.

Yesterday we found the following news about Samsung and LG. It helps show how Ballnux — not Linux — spreads through Korea (allowing Microsoft to get rich at the expense of Linux/Android) and the last link shows that Samsung is still in Microsoft’s pocket.

• Samsung Galaxy Tab, in the wild and teasing CDMA

• Samsung Announces 1 Million Galaxy S Handset Sold in US

• Samsung’s Android-Based Galaxy S Eclipses 1M Shipments

  Samsung Electronics this week confirmed that it has shipped more than 1 million of its Galaxy S smartphones since the line debuted in mid-July, an impressive debut that indicates Android-based devices pose a serious threat to both Apple and Research In Motion in the hotly contested and extremely profitable smartphone market.

• KT released the first Korean Android Tablet. The Identity Pad.

  KT released the first Korean Android Tablet. The Identity Pad.

  The “Identity TAB” is ,according to KT, the Korean first real Android Tablet. Powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, the Identity TAB comes with a 7” Multitouch screen, 8GB only of internal memory, DMB TV Tuner, Gyro-Sensor, 3Mpix Camera Module, Wi-Fi, and SD Card reader.

• LG Pulls Back Curtain on “Optimus Pad”

• Exclusive: First Official Pictures T-Mobile G2

  We did it again, same as we were the first ones of obtaining the official pictures of the Samsung Vibrant, now we give you the first official pictures of the T-Mobile G2.

• Samsung N150 Plus Netbook

  Fourth, What a LOAD OF RUBBISH is on this poor netbook! The first and most obvious thing was the Norton Internet Security, which wanted me to activate whatever “Free Trial Period” was available. Abort that, and then uninstall it. Unfortunately that doesn’t get rid of Norton Online Backup, so that has to be uninstalled separately. Then the Google Toolbar, and at least half a dozen Windows Live packages and “helpers”, and Skype, including the Skype Toolbar. Then came the biggest gripe of all…

  Fifth, there should be a special place in HELL reserved for whoever decided to put Phoenix FailSafe on this thing. It’s bad enough to put a ton of crap on it, most of which is “limited trial” versions (FailSafe is a 30-day trial), but in this case it appears to be impossible to uninstall it. I’ve looked in the Control Panel / Uninstall a Program, I’ve looked in the Start menu, I’ve even looked directly in the FailSafe folder under Program Files. No uninstall. I’ve searched the web, and found that the only way to remove it seems to be to go to the FailSafe web site and REGISTER, and then ask to download the uninstaller. REGISTER, just to be able to uninstall it? I hope you all burn in HELL…

  Last, but not least, it also came with Microsoft Office 2010 Starter preinstalled. Although this is also complete rubbish, I find it rather fitting that a brain-dead version of Windows 7 comes with a brain-dead version of Office. Nothing but Word and Excel, apparently limited in the amount of screen space it can use, and with adverts running on the screen all the time. The only good thing about it is that there is an uninstall program…

How much does Samsung want to betray Linux? A lot of people would point out that there is Linux in these devices (tablets and phones) but not that it’s Microsoft cashing in and setting bad precedence. █

Summary: Another new set of examples where the USPTO hijacks other countries’ policies and threatens businesses overseas using the ITC

EARLIER THIS YEAR we showed how lobbyists from 'NZ'ICT et al. were taking over the patent system in New Zealand. Similar tricks are being used in Europe (“device” as means of legalising software patents) and there is also UPLS [1, 2, 3], which has the potential to export the USPTO guidelines (permitting software patents) to the European Union. It’s a sort of US imperialism, in the sense that laws which empower the United States are forced upon other countries. The UPLS recently faced some “legal setback”, confirms IDG. They will probably just dress that up as something else, maybe just rename it once again.

The European Court of Justice looks set to derail plans for a common patent system across the European Union. The court’s Advocate General believes that a centralized patent is “incompatible with the treaties” that created the E.U., according to a leaked document.

USPTO imperialism through back room deals is not out of the ordinary and in Russia there seems to be advancement for this plot at the moment:

The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and its equivalent in Russia are launching a one-year pilot program on Sept. 1 to fast-track each other’s approved patent applications.

Such “Patent Prosecution Highway Programs” allow patent offices to use each other’s work to help process applications more quickly.

That would potentially facilitate some mergers in the future. Might the EPO implement something similar? East Asia, notably Japan and Korea, has already been hit by the disease which is software patents, with victims or accomplices such as LG, which pays Microsoft for Linux. LG has just been hit by a patent infringement investigation and possible embargo by the US:

NOT EVEN A HAIR’S BREADTH away from being embroiled in a price fixing investigation, LG is being investigated for alleged patent infringement.

It’s the US International Trade Commission (ITC) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], imposing US rules on Asian companies (the ITC is like the USPTO’s ‘enforcement agency’, imposing sanctions such as embargoes). Don’t nations get tired of being bossed around by a nation overseas, whose patent office has gone out of control and now nurtures patent trolls in industrial quantities? █

Summary: Microsoft and de Icaza are still trying to make Android rely on .NET and it’s not surprising given that Microsoft is unable to produce decent phones (or phone platform) of its own

WE HAVE posted literally dozens of times about Microsoft imposing a patent tax on phones running Linux. This only applies to phones from Samsung, LG, HTC, and Kyocera Mita (Asian companies where software patents have some legitimacy).

To Microsoft, getting paid for most Android phones that are shipped is not enough. Microsoft also wishes to control the software which runs on these Linux-powered phones and MonoDroid is one option for achieving this [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16].

“Microsoft also wishes to control the software which runs on these Linux-powered phones and MonoDroid is one option for achieving this.”According to news which reached Slashdot some hours ago, Microsoft is now promoting this route, offering even more endorsement to Mono. “Miguel de Icaza is not concerned about legal challenges by Microsoft over .Net implementations, and even recommends that Google switch from using Java,” says the summary from Slashdot. Earlier this month we showed that Microsoft MVP de Icaza was twisting and lying about the Java lawsuit [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], as we last noted two days ago.

So, why is Microsoft so desperate to make Android Microsoft dependent? Well, it’s because their own phones are failing and market share is falling. Microsoft’s mobile reality is gloomy. Vista Phone 7 [sic] won’t change much, definitely not with its reliance on Silverlight. OpenBytes expects Microsoft to throw yet another $400 million (or more) down the drain:

Cast your mind back to some of the Microsoft adverts of the past. Lets reminisce with a wry smile at the shoe commercials that were supposed to be funny. Let’s remember the Windows 7 party adverts that were so wooden, that they made an episode of Home & Away look like a cinematic masterpiece. Then we had the “Kin” the f’Kin (sic) phone that must have hurt Microsoft badly when not only did the advertising fail to impress, but the phone itself was dumped shortly after (allegedly after pushing only a few more than 500 units).

It appears Microsoft just can’t relate to people with many products or its advertising in my view. For example, it’s very easy to tout success with Windows 7, when as my recent article touched on, you get no choice over what comes pre-loaded on your machine when you enter a store. I could tout millions of deployments of my operating system if I was able to preload it on all the machines at a retailer.

That aside though, its been reported that Microsoft is to stuff 400 million dollars in the war chest to pimp their next experiment (Windows Mobile 7) and it will be investors (I would assume) who are thinking that with this figure, plus the giveaway of phones to Microsoft employee’s should prove very costly if Win Mob goes the way of the Kin. After all, Windows 7 Mobile is said by some to be its “next of Kin”

Microsoft will no longer mention the “K” word (“KIN”). It’s just too embarrassing and synonymous with “epic fail” or with underage sex. █

Summary: Asian companies sell many phones with Linux in them, but Microsoft is extorting all of them

T

he following new article names Samsung, HTC, and LG as “makers of Android-based smartphones,” but it doesn’t say that these are the main three which pay Microsoft for Android (not Motorola and Sony Ericsson for example). To quote:

Samsung, HTC, LG and other makers of Android-based smartphones keep highlighting the fact that there is a vast sea of free applications written for Android that are available to their consumers now.

As Katonda correctly points out:

How much of the Linux penetration was affected when Microsoft came out with ‘baseless’ accusations that Linux infringes on its patents (I did a long story back then for LINUX For You magazine). Microsoft never showed the numbers. All they got was to ‘force’ some Linux companies to sign cross licensing deal with them and extort some money from Linux.

And right now we have Novell trying to shove Mono not just into desktops (Ubuntu Geek promotes a bad idea like Novell’s Banshee, which is uncovered by the MCP) but also into Android [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 , 16]. They try to make things worse. As for those who are using OpenSUSE (it contains more Mono than just about any other distribution, at least in the GNOME side), there is this useful new suggestion about moving to KDE 4.5. It contains no Mono at all. █

“I saw that internally inside Microsoft many times when I was told to stay away from supporting Mono in public. They reserve the right to sue”

–Robert Scoble, former Microsoft evangelist

LAST NIGHT we wrote about Microsoft's demise (leading to increased patent aggression) and this morning we wrote about the Europe-based ForgeRock joining the Open Invention Network (OIN). As expected, ForgeRock joined OIN for protection from lawsuits, even though evidence is still lacking that OIN deflects lawsuits from Microsoft et al. with possible exceptions [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. A few hours ago, Simon Phipps from ForgeRock confirmed that they joined for defence purposes and he added: “we have no patents and don’t intend to get any.”

“[W]e have no patents and don’t intend to get any.”
      –Simon Phipps, ForgeRockIt is good news that OIN offers a place to companies without software patents. What’s the catch though? How much do they need to pay to join this pool? Canonical is in a similar situation as it recently joined OIN [1, 2], despite the fact that it’s located in Europe and thus has less trouble with software patents (with one exception as “Microsoft has already approached Canonical pressuring them to sign up to a patent deal,” said a recent report).

The reality of the matter is that Microsoft has managed to extort companies like LG using alleged patent violations in Linux. It still affects Android. An ideal solution to this problem would be elimination of software patents, but LG is located in Korea, where software patents are arguably legal. Over in Europe it’s an entirely different story. The FFII’s president, who is Belgian, has just shared the following audio [Ogg] which he describes as: “FFII France at the RMLL meeting 2010, interview of Rene Mages about software patents” (maybe our French-speaking readers can transcribe and translate parts of it).

FFII’s president has also warned that based on this page, the “IP Summit in Brussels [will have] plenty of pro-software patent companies and proponents of a central patent court” on which he expands by linking to this article (in French) about ACTA. He says that the “Commission is pushing for patents in ACTA in order to create a legal base for the Community Patent [...] ISPs will be responsible of patent infringements of their users if patents are in ACTA, says PCimpact, EU [is] pushing for it” (full or partial translation of the article would again be handy). █

–LinuxToday Managing Editor

Summary: Novell is acting as though it is Microsoft’s committer in circles where Microsoft is rightly distrusted and OpenSUSE still ought to escape

THE controversial Mono framework is probably Novell’s main ‘contribution’ to GNU/Linux. It is now being developed with contributions from Microsoft employees, not just Novell employees. We already know the danger of Microsoft’s software patents. LG, for example, pays Microsoft for each device it ships which contains Linux. Apparently this will include Android tablets too. HTC has a similar problem and as a leading distributor of Android (car dock may be coming in September) the Microsoft tax matters, and not just because it feeds Microsoft but also because it makes Linux more expensive.

HTC appears to have put surprising effort into rendering a lifelike torch for its Flashlight app, while app sharing (seen after the break) is a neat addition — and don’t worry, devs, it only works on items that aren’t copy protected.

It would be nice if HTC also shipped phones without an operating system and then let customers download Android for them. This way Microsoft would not be paid for Android.

Anyway, making Android ‘tainted’ by default would be a more convenient thing for Microsoft, wouldn’t it? So Microsoft’s booster Gavin Clarke is now advertising MonoDroid [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14], which he says Novell is still pushing forward along with plugins for Microsoft’s Visual Studio.

he Novell-backed MonoTouch project is about to start beta tests of a version of its open-source implementation of Microsoft’s framework for use on Google’s Linux operating system for devices.

Final product for MonoDroid is expected in the fall, Novell Mono product manager Joseph Hill told The Reg – around the time of the next installment in Microsoft’s Windows phone story: Windows Phone 7, due in October.

[...]

Novell, meanwhile, is today expected to announce availability of an updated version of its Mono Tools plug in to Microsoft’s Visual Studio IDE.

It’s becoming harder to know the difference between Microsoft and Novell. They might as well share offices.

Novell also helped Microsoft put its code inside Linux, despite the fact that it was for proprietary software, was discriminatory towards GNU/Linux, and was even a GPL violation. Microsoft MVPs and other Microsoft boosters like Marius Oiaga are the only ones we found promoting this thing in recent days.

Linux Integration Services v2.1 for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V R2 is a set of drivers that enable synthetic device support in supported Linux virtual machines under Hyper-V.

Meanwhile, OpenSUSE is pushing Microsoft patent bait into GNU/Linux through OpenSUSE. I have been communicating with OpenSUSE managers (they contacted me, I didn’t contact them), but since they get a wage from Novell they always defend Novell’s side and refuse to see that Novell sold OpenSUSE down the river when it signed its 2006 patent deal with Microsoft. Novell offered no safety to OpenSUSE, especially if it is used commercially.

At any rate, OpenSUSE continues to be a technically solid distribution. The Linux Format people have always liked OpenSUSE and they still do. So does this person, whose new review says:

After eight months of development, the OpenSUSE 11.3 release in mid July was followed by an avalanche of excitement surrounding the new upgrades and enhancements. The OpenSUSE 11.3 DVD includes the best of the KDE 4.4.4, GNOME 2.30.1 and XFCE 4.6.2 desktop environments. Also included for the first time is an LXDE flavor which could be the first true lightweight version of OpenSUSE plus a preview of the radically different GNOME 3.0 desktop. Also take note of the great new features OpenSUSE has included. Stuff like the Btrfs filesystem available in the installer, improvements to zypper package manager, netbook support, smartphone syncing, and backup/file sharing capabilities in the cloud with Spideroak.

[...]

After over a week of using OpenSUSE 11.3 in KDE, GNOME, and LXDE releases I got a pretty good feel for how the distro met my needs.

According to another person, “some of the changes are for the worse” in OpenSUSE 11.3.

The openSUSE guys decided to drop SCPM from 11.3.

“Instead” there is network manager.

Whoever made that decision has no idea at all about what scpm is, and what you can do with it…

With new community leadership OpenSUSE can hopefully distance itself from Novell. It probably needs to. Everyone needs to. █

Summary: Proposed solutions, impending cases, and another new case where patents go so terribly wrong that even people needlessly die

TODAY we look at 3 types of news from the past 3 days or so. Software patents are being covered too, but everyone is still waiting for In Re Bilski to be concluded.

USPTO and Patent Conundrums

Today (May 26^th), the USPTO has this workshop which is intended to “explore the intersection of patent policy and competition policy”. How about tackling the problem of patent pools, which make up thickets and abusive cartels?

Three separate companies are steadily recruiting intellectual property holders into patent pools for LTE (Long-Term Evolution) technology, initiatives intended to get more manufacturers building gear for the fast network.

Patent pools are only suitable for large companies — those that exclude new entrants. The only small entities to benefit from this system are the NPEs (trolls). Samsung and LG, the two Korean giants which pay Microsoft for Linux, are complaining about patent trolls right now.

Representatives say South Korean electronics makers are becoming targets from “patent trolls” as increased competition between manufacturers makes room to seek more money in legal suits.

Did Microsoft, which Salesforce’s CEO Benioff compares to a patent troll, sign those Linux patent deals with Samsung and LG only after threats of litigation? We might never know.

In Re Bilski

Brad Feld writes about “innovating against software patents” and receives support from Groklaw.

Last week, Microsoft sued Salesforce.com claiming infringement of 9 software patents. This comes shortly after Nokia sued Apple who sued Nokia over software patents, and after Apple sued HTC who sued Apple over software patents.

As an example of the ridiculous nature of software patents, Microsoft’s claims cover user interface features, including a “system and method for providing and displaying a Web page having an embedded menu” and a “method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display.”

This explosion of litigation based on the patenting of software cannot be brushed-off as large corporations doing what they do, as almost every start-up software company is at some point being shaken down by software patent holders. It’s a massive tax on and retardant of innovation.

From Pamela Jones:

I have a request from End Software Patents’ Ciarán O’Riordan. He’d like your help.

He says VC good guy Brad Feld is interested in in mailing out copies of the film Patent Absurdity (Full title: Patent Absurdity: How software patents broke the system) to 200 people — politicians, influential people in companies, policy setters at standards groups, and whoever will be influential in the debate the breaks out post-Bilski — and he’d like to have some help from you coming up with a list of who best to send to.

This system in the United States (USPTO) needs a change and it needs it urgently. Glyn Moody writes about the German ruling on software patents [1, 2, 3, 4] and points out that “some argue there were similar ones in early 90s” (so maybe it’s not as bad as some people imagined). It is mostly the USPTO which ‘exports’ those bad laws to the rest of the world. The problem ought to be squashed in the US and in Japan.

Patents on Life

Red Hat’s new Web site writes about how the GPL can inspire a solution to the increasingly-serious injustice which is patenting of living things [1, 2].

The Economist is right on top of the story of the first fully synthetic life-form. For those of you who may have missed the announcement last week, Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith, the two American biologists who unravelled the first DNA sequence of a living organism (a bacterium) in 1995, have pushed the envelope again, demonstrating the first successful boot-up of a synthetic bacterium. Editors at the Economist argue that the only sensible way to protect ourselves from such creations is to require that the DNA sequences be open source. It is a profound insight.

[...]

But now he’s back, and he’s built the one thing that sits as an exception to the Gene Patent exclusions: a wholly synthetic lifeform. Does Ventner really want to advance science (which he has done), or is he searching, like Charles Muntz, villain of the PIXAR movie UP, for his ultimate, exclusive patent on life?

What happens when patent law kills patients? [via]

When a child dies of brain disease at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Philip H. Schwartz meets with the parents, explains his research and asks them to donate their child’s brain to his quest for a cure.

“These are not easy conversations to have,” he said. “There are expectations by parents that if they allow us to do that to their child, it will serve a useful purpose.”

But for three years, the cells derived from many of those children’s brains have been suspended in limbo, frozen in Thermos bottles. The nonprofit Southern California hospital has shut down the research, intimidated by a patent claim from the Palo Alto biotech company StemCells. The company’s co-founder is esteemed Stanford stem cell scientist Dr. Irving Weissman, one of the world’s most passionate advocates for giving scientists access to a field entangled by politics, ethics — and now money.

Against Monopoly asks, “Who Owns You?” █

Summary: Microsoft — like Novell — is hibernating a little and relies on Novell and LG to promote its products, having jointly signed patent deals that harm GNU/Linux and turn them into slaves/subsidiaries

MICROSOFT and Novell have a lot in common, not just in terms of projects. Both companies are failing to evolve for tomorrow’s world of IT, where mobility and Internet reign supreme; they both rest of their legacy and dread the future. Novell's future is very uncertain because it is up for sale and we find almost no news about this company anymore. It’s so seriously profound that we stopped the weekly summation of links about Novell, instead moving to a different format. There just wasn’t enough news (we call it "Novell news drought").

Things are not improving for Novell. One of the more widely used distributions of GNU/Linux is dropping F-Spot from different variants [1, 2]. Sooner or later, Novell’s and Microsoft’s dream of world domination with Mono and other useless clones of Microsoft’s patents-saturated stack is going to go up in flames along with Novell.

When we also look at impending doom that Novell is reported to be rushing towards, the future for the “gift to the world” is all rather in doubt.

“[G]ift to the world” is a token for Mono. On goes this post: ‘Except that arguably the leading Linux distro has stated its to remove one of them? Other distro’s are not including Mono either and in fact I think its fair to say there’s a lot of bad feeling around the whole subject. Is this the Mono “enthusiasm” they mean? Again, I’ll let you decide. Where will the “gift to the world” be without Novell sponsorship?”‘

“Microsoft’s ties with Novell are likely to ensure that projects inside Novell which are beneficial to Microsoft will not die any time soon.”Well, Microsoft pays Novell, so Mono sponsorship (in one form or another) can still be funneled into Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza and his fellow Ximian coders (who use a monkey as their mascot, go figure).

Microsoft’s ties with Novell are likely to ensure that projects inside Novell which are beneficial to Microsoft will not die any time soon. They might be relocated, but never abandoned unless all GNU/Linux users shun them, in which case the apologists will give up and do something more useful (to Microsoft).

There are other patent partners who sold out to Microsoft, decided to pay Microsoft for Linux, and then helped Microsoft in additional ways. Samsung has begun helping Microsoft DRM a little more aggressively and LG — another Korean company that sold GNU/Linux down the river — is now teaming up with Microsoft to promote the embattled Xbox 360. Here is some news coverage from days ago:

• LG and Microsoft Team Up For 3D
• LG and Microsoft in Xbox 360 based 3D gaming deal
• Microsoft and LG bring 3D gaming to Xbox 360
• LG and Microsoft announce South Korean partnership
• Microsoft Confirms LG Partnership; 3D ‘Will Continue To Evolve’
• Microsoft and LG partner on 3D gaming
• Microsoft Teams with LG Electronics for Stereo 3D Games on Xbox 360.
• LG, Microsoft Team Up to Market 3D TVs & Games
• Microsoft and LG partnership introduces 3D gaming to Xbox 360
• Microsoft Confirms LG Partnership; 3D ‘Will Continue To Evolve’

Does this seem like a company which is said to have embraced Linux? Surely not. It sells Ballnux and it helps Microsoft make money from Android. Those who look for an Android phone should avoid Samsung, LG, Kyocera Mita, and HTC.

“Those who look for an Android phone should avoid Samsung, LG, Kyocera Mita, and HTC.”Looking at Xbox 360 for a while, there has been no other significant news for Xbox 360, except the fact that the consoles/games business is slowing down (and Microsoft has already lost billions in there). Microsoft paid $75,000,000 to break an exclusivity deal, which harms customers anyway and this product in general seems to rely on contributions from the outside (unless it’s Datel, in which case Microsoft is blocking and suing [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]).

The real news about Microsoft is that there is hardly any news at all. The past week has been a very, very slow & scarce week, with apparently just one headline — and one headline alone — about “Zune”, no news headlines found this week with the word “Bing” in them, and only one about “Silverlight” (we use Google News for reference here). That’s pretty bad.

On the Web browsers front, we mostly learn that Microsoft is losing and losing every month. The vocation of Explorer and Windows might as well be similar despite or because the two are tightly linked to each other. From the Financial Express:

It’s no secret that Internet Explorer’s (IE’s) share of the browser market has been declining steadily for years, but when it dropped by over 10% in the past 10 months to below 60% for the first time in its history, everybody took notice. While IE remains the single most used browser in the world, most experts believe that this is not a lead that it can maintain for long.

[...]

As monopolies often do, this had the unfortunate effect of virtually ensuring that Microsoft didn’t really bother putting out a good product. IE was famously buggy, had numerous security flaws and vulnerabilities, and was a system resource hog. And, when you think about it, Microsoft had to work really hard to push a product that was completely free. It was so bad; they couldn’t even give it away.

Only 4 headlines (or clusters thereof) about Vista 7 were found in one week. That’s just embarrassing as that’s approximately one in two days, only half a year after the launch of this muchly-hyped product. Has Microsoft run out of the huge marketing budget for it? Just 4 items including advertisements from Mary Jo Foley is not much at all. Vista is history and the the biggest news for Windows seems to be the death of XP Service Pack 2. Here is some coverage:

• Microsoft to stop security updates for Windows XP Service Pack 2
• Microsoft Will Soon Discontinue Security Support For Windows XP Service Pack 2
• Microsoft to end support for Windows 2000, XP SP2 on July 13
• Microsoft abandons XP SP2
• Microsoft to End XP SP2 Support
• Microsofts Ends Support for Windows XP SP2 and 2000
• Windows XP Service Pack 2 Support Ends Soon

The pro-Microsoft monopoly blogs seem happy to suggest that “Microsoft [is] pushing XP users to upgrade” (because one of Microsoft’s liars for hire from Forrester Research chooses to wave this claim around the Internet and pressure companies to buy Vista 7).

“Is it news or is it just more PR disguised as news (like an estimated 60% of so-called ‘news’)?”The latter article explains that businesses will be better off using another Web browser (not Internet Explorer) or another operating system which is also offering respect and security to the user. Daniel Nations at least has the brains to analyse this properly.

In the previous post we wrote about how Microsoft controls segments of the press, so we were not shocked to find more Microsoft spin from the unofficial ‘Microsoft press’, which is supporting and covering up Microsoft’s position on silent patches, which we last mentioned some days ago. Shame on them. Is it news or is it just more PR disguised as news (like an estimated 60% of so-called ‘news’)? It comes from the network of “Redmond”-labeled sites that are deeper in Microsoft’s pocket than even NBC is (or ever was).

Microsoft’s bad behaviour in Malaysia, where we frequently see the press (the English version of it at least) used as a marketing vehicle for dumping of proprietary software in a country with richer and broader use of Free software, is at it again. Why don’t they properly cover BizSpark [1, 2, 3, 4] and explain that it’s a lock-in trap? Why don’t they ignore mere PR? █

Summary: New case in Ohio state shows Microsoft-connected lawyers pushing for Google antitrust; new details emerge in SCO’s Microsoft-backed push for ‘Linux tax’

A FEW months ago Microsoft confirmed that it was behind the push for anti-Google antitrust (complaints through third parties). This is not something that Microsoft is denying. This is why the following antitrust lawsuit is interesting (full filing therein). The lawyers have connections with Microsoft.

Back in February, we highlighted a rather odd antitrust lawsuit brought against Google by a small company. Google had originally brought a lawsuit against the company in the Ohio state court system for failure to pay its advertising bills, and the company suddenly came back with a group of big name (expensive) lawyers (who just happen to have a connection with Microsoft), claiming antitrust violations against Google.

A favourite old case of Microsoft (versus Linux, by proxy) is the SCO case. New evidence surfaces in this case after Caldera.com’s removal of robots.txt (for permission to spiders/indexers). In the words of Groklaw:

In the old days, it seemed every time Groklaw linked to evidence on one of those Caldera pages, it went to the great 404 in the sky within a day or two. Now, it will be possible to fix all those links. I wish they’d sell the sco.com domain name next. Maybe then we could get the complete historical picture.

As we pointed out 3 years ago, Novell too had changed its Web site quite a lot after the Microsoft deal. It essentially removed or modified pages that were hostile towards Microsoft.

Speaking of lawsuits and ‘Linux tax’, watch who is being sued for patent infringement. It’s the same company that already pays Microsoft some ‘Linux tax’. [via]

LG’s patent infringement lawsuit against Taiwan-based AU Optronics took an unexpected turn, as the final ruling not only found no fault against AU but in fact found AU as the victim, and now LG is the guilty party.

It is worth emphasising that this is to do with LCD (hardware). █

Summary: What Samsung’s rumoured entry into the market of ‘Google TVs’ (running Android) actually means to Microsoft

IT is no longer a secret that Microsoft pressures companies to pay Microsoft for Android. One of those companies is Samsung, the company which is said to be working on Android-based TVs. [via]

Samsung Electronics, the world’s top TV maker, is considering developing “Google TVs” which run Google’s Android operating system, its executive told The Korea Herald yesterday.

The move came as Samsung’s rival, Sony, is reportedly working with Google and Intel to offer Internet-connected, Android-based TVs, seeking to allow viewers to download and enjoy a wealth of Web content and software as they do on computers and smartphones.

Apple and Google are seeking to take a bite out of the TV market, hoping to expand their influence beyond the mobile arena. Such moves herald a repetition of a race over operating systems and applications, as is currently seen in the smartphone market, analysts said.

LG is the other Korean company which must already be paying Microsoft for Linux and with new LG phones running Android, this cannot be good news.

The Android TVs being speculated above are not to be confused with Sony’s. Sony too is reported to be on the case and in Sony’s case it’s even confirmed with certainty. [via]

Sony Corp., trying to reverse sales declines in its TV division, will announce home-entertainment devices next month that use Intel Corp. chips and Google Inc. software, said two people familiar with the matter.

The companies plan to discuss the new products at a conference sponsored by Google in San Francisco on May 19 and May 20, said the people, who asked not to be identified because details are still being worked out. Intel is contributing a customized version of its Atom chip that will run a new version of Google’s Android operating system called Dragonpoint.

TechDirt points out that Microsoft is being very cheeky by taxing Google products without any details given and without Google’s consent.

Seems a bit strange, right? Why should Microsoft have any say in whether or not HTC can put Google’s Android operating system on its phones. The whole thing seems even odder when you realize that HTC was, for a long time, one of the major makers of smartphones running Windows Mobile operating system. But, the complicating factor here might be Apple. Apple, of course, famously went on the patent offensive and sued HTC over its Android phones a couple months ago. So now, with Microsoft doing this deal, it seems to very publicly be entering the patent fight between Apple and Google, which for bizarre reasons is playing out with HTC as the pawn getting bounced around between them all.

Someone in this comment thread shrewdly points out a “solution: make the software free to download and sell the phones with no operating system installed. would this work?”

HTC is bringing out more new phones running Android, despite Microsoft’s pressure to tax Android or simply discourage Android use as means of promoting Windows/Kin.

Why, hello there, little HTC Android phone with a nice, fat keyboard.

We strongly encourage readers to avoid HTC products. HTC lets Microsoft harm Android and Linux without even putting up a fight. In Apple’s case, HTC expects to at least fight. This will partly be the subject of the next post. █

Summary: IBM and Novell grow a little closer; Verizon and SpagoBI make use of SUSE as well; other Ballnux distributions have little to say

SUSE (SLES/SLED)

MOST of the SUSE news this week relates to IBM and/or Studio, starting with this article about IBM’s Power7.

The Power7-based blade servers can also run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5, which was just tweaked two weeks ago to support the Power7 chips as well as all the new x64 processors from Intel and AMD. Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3 will support the new Power7 blades, but you’re going to have to wait until SP1 to get SLES 11 for these machines.

Novell is left behind RHEL in this case. When it comes to appliances, Novell beats this drum a lot. There is a new LinkedIn group, SUSE Studio blog [1, 2], and this announcement about SpagoBI.

An open-source business intelligence appliance powered by Suse Linux has been released by database maker Ingres and Italian infrastructure software provider Engineering Ingegneria Informatica.

The SpagoBI appliance, announced on Thursday, is based on the open-source business intelligence (BI) suite SpagoBI, along with the Ingres database and Novell’s Suse Linux 11.

Verizon’s new relationship with SUSE is one that was mentioned last week. Here is the press release about it and also some news coverage [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

This brings us to IBM, whose new arrangement with Novell (see corresponding press release) led to Sutor’s chat that can be viewed below.

There is another new IBM chat with Novell, but the lady there concentrates on System z.

Here is the news coverage from Server Watch:

IBM is turning to technology from Novell to build Linux OS powered software appliances — a move that aims to deliver easy-to-deploy software for physical, virtual and cloud-based environments in use at small to midsized businesses.

The new software appliances deliver solutions for IBM Lotus, Websphere and Cognos software applications. Specifically, IBM will be offering software appliances for the IBM Lotus Foundations collaboration suite as well as the Lotus Protector for Mail Security. IBM’s WebSphere Application Server is also benefiting with a software appliance aimed at virtualized environments, while Big Blue is ramping up its analytics offerings with appliances for its Cognos Now! and IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer packages.

The new solutions leverage technology from Novell’s SUSE Appliance Program, which enables software vendors to build and deploy software appliances using a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) operating system base.

This is also covered in some other news sites [1, 2, 3].

According to the company, the initiative, which leverages the SUSE Appliance Program from Novell, enables IBM to deliver ‘plug and play’ appliances that lower the cost and complexity of deploying applications for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and help independent software vendors (ISVs) expand their routes to market.

The press in Pakistan covered a talk from Novell in a fashion that promotes SUSE.

Apurva Shah, Alliance Manager for Novell in India and Pakistan was the keynote presentation at the event where he talked about how Novell and SUSE Linux solutions power enterprises with efficient and intelligent systems.

Novell Support Advisor 2 is released to help support SUSE, but is it enough to beat RHEL?

Xandros

Xandros is mentioned in relation to MeeGo [1, 2] and few other articles. But Xandros is generally nowhere to be seen; Linspire too is treated just as part of history.

Samsung and LG

These two Korean giants which pay Microsoft for Linux both make Android handsets. There are new examples from both Samsung [1, 2] and from LG [1, 2], showing that they continue to make Ballnux phones.

This is the last “News Summary” of this type; we will continue to cover news of this nature, but the format will change. █