Posted in Patents at 3:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Dr. Glyn Moody looks at the term “micropatents”, which is being used in the context of fabbers
Euphemisms like RAND or FRAND (neither reasonable nor fair) strive to belittle the negative impact of patents and there is another new (on the face of it) term on the block and that is “micropatents”. No, it does not mean Microsoft patents, in fact it hardly means anything at all. It’s just another name for patents. In light of this White House report on 3-D printers, Glyn Moody asks, “what the hell are “micropatents”?”
The key idea here is to offer “simple, agile and cost-effective intellectual property protection”; that is, making it easier to obtain patents, albeit lightweight ones. But in doing so, it will remove one of the few remaining barriers to patent applications, which inevitably will mean that every patent troll in the world will file thousands of trivial claims, since it will take so little effort or money to do so. It will give rise to the equivalent of patent spam.
Worse, these patent spammers will then proceed to sue huge numbers of inventors – and users – of objects made using fabbers. In fact it will become exactly like the world of copyright today, where tens of thousands of letters are sent out to alleged infringers, threatening to sue them but offering them a special “low-cost” way of settling.
Even more damaging, such a lightweight system will create a patent thicket around objects made with personal manufacturing systems that even nanotechnology will be unable to pierce. Again, we already have an all-too concrete example of what happens when it is easy to obtain patents for key ideas that are often indispensable for all users, in the world of software.
[...]
The only solution is to have not “micro”-patents, but the limiting case where the size of the patent tends to zero – that is, none at all. Then, companies and inventors would compete not on the underlying ideas (which patents try to capture and monopolise), but on their *implementation* of them.
As well as avoiding patent gridlock, this also addresses issues of copying and counterfeiting, since people will pay more for otherwise identical products when they come provably from a trusted supplier, and also of safety, since it rewards better-quality products (not just patented ones).
We shall see if the term micropatents gets used again in the future. It is worth catching such nonsense early on, before it mushrooms into something like “intellectual property” (fairly new propaganda term) and the British institute that deals with monopolies calls itself after it. █
Posted in Patents at 3:11 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: TechCrunch is sued using a patent on “[s]ystem and method for structured news release generation and distribution” and it starts complaining more and more about such USPTO-endorsed abomination
AS PART of AOL or even without it, TechCrunch has been attracting lawsuits for a while. In light of lawsuits such as this new one, TechCrunch seems to have become a vocal opponent of software patents, especially through the narrative of Vivek Wadhwa, whose personal pieces on the subject we mentioned in [1, 2, 3, 4]. Here is the latest puddle of mud TechCrunch finds itself in:
Oh no, we’ve been sued. This week’s hopeful plaintiff is Gooseberry Natural Resources LLC, who filed a complaint in a Los Angeles federal court against Reddit, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Digg, Fark, Geeknet, TechCrunch, Newsvine, Yahoo and others.
We, along with our fellow defendants, have allegedly been violating US Patent No. 6,370,535, titled System and method for structured news release generation and distribution. The invention underlying the patent appears to be the notion of typing text into an admin system, storing that text on a server, and then publishing it on the Internet. The patent was awarded in 2002.
Vivek Wadhwa, a patent holder with regrets about what he did, is once again explaining that patents are counter-productive. In his polite piece “Let’s Compete on Innovation Rather Than Patents” he says that “[i]n the tech world, patents don’t foster innovation; they inhibit it” and later on he writes: “[s]eems my patents piece shook many people up. Woke up to some extremely nasty personal attacks. means I hit the nail on the head.” Here is part of this piece.
The next generations of telecom technologies are called “LTE” or “4G”. China’s Huawei believes that by 2015, it will hold 15–20% of the worldwide patents in these technologies, and that these will earn it at least 1.5% of the sales price of every device—every cell phone, laptop, and tablet—that uses them. Huawei is on track to achieve its goals: in 2007, it held just 152 patents; by the end of 2009, it had applied for 42,543 patents, of which 11,339 had been granted in China, 215 in the United States, and 1282 in Europe. Huawei’s rival, ZTE, claims to hold 7% of the world’s LTE patents and plans to increase this to 10% by 2012.
Emboldened by these successes, the Chinese government has initiated a nationwide program to make China the world leader in patents in every important industry. The New York Times reported that the government is offering cash bonuses, better housing, and tax breaks to individuals and companies filing the most patent applications. According to the Times, China’s goal is to increase the number of its yearly “invention” patent filings from this year’s 300,000 to one million by 2015. And it wants another one million “utility-model patents”, which typically cover items like engineering features in a product. In comparison, there are 500,000 invention patents granted every year in the U.S. The requirements for “utility-model patents” are so mundane that they are not even recognized in the U.S. as a legitimate criterion for the existence of intellectual property.
We were never big fans of of TechCrunch/Michael Arrington, but this site’s persistent opposition to software patents definitely helps reconsider these views. █
Summary: A Mandriva derivative/fork joins the OIN while many more companies huddle around Linux organisations such as the Linux Foundation
THE GNU/LINUX system is growing very strong, very quickly. OIN too is growing strong with a new addition almost every week and a former Novell employee, Joe Brockmeier, has been trying to explain how OIN works, including its blind spots, e.g.:
OIN, in other words, isn’t a magic bullet for companies that are doing business on top of Linux.
Mageia joins OIN based on very few reports (Mageia is a new and thus obscure distribution).
As we explained before, the Linux Foundation and the OIN are closely related and the Linux Foundation too is growing at an incredible pace (we covered this in the daily links). The most jaw-dropping addition was Broadcom (just earlier this month) and IDG said that “IP management company Protecode and Timesys both joined this week, and Cybercom and GoAhead will join Broadcom in announcing their own membership next week.”
“Hopefully,” wrote Groklaw, “they are also going to join Open Invention Network.”
The addition of Protecode shows that the Linux Foundation is really not selective, however even if Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation or the OIN (it is said to have been invited), that would not jeopardise the GNU/Linux world; to the contrary — it would probably defang Microsoft to a high extent. █
Summary: Tim and Roy talk about a 98-pound PC, Stuxnet, Android/ChromeOS, and copyright news
LAST NIGHT’S show started with some important GNU/Linux news from the UK and it then covered many different topics that are linked in OpenBytes’ show notes. (Update – 22/1/2011: show notes posted days later)
The show ends not with the usual opening/closing theme but with Marti’s promotional track for TechBytes. We hope you will join us for future shows and consider subscribing to the show via the RSS feed. You can also visit our archives for past shows. If you have an Identi.ca account, consider subscribing to TechBytes in order to keep up to date. █
Posted in Novell, SCO, UNIX at 1:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The remaining assets of SCO are being sold (e.g. support for remnant of its customers) and the Novell case will resume shortly
The SCO case is not over just yet. This serves as a cautionary lesson regarding the litigation system (“legal system” sounds too good), which favours persistence and works quite well for lawyers (the longer the process, the more they will be paid).
SCO wants to have another auction. The first one was a fizzle, or so they seem to be indicating, even though at the hearing back in August on SCO’s desire to hold the first auction, they represented they had bidders lined up already. But no sale.
This isn’t just another way to delay until after the January 20th oral argument in SCO’s appeal of its loss to Novell, is it? Or avoid the inevitable discussion about defaulting on the Yarro loan, handing over the keys, and turning out the lights once and for all on SCO as we knew it? And what should us normal folks hope for in such a scenario as this?
That we knew The Rest of the Story of what’s going on behind the scenes, methinks.
Synchronize your watches, and if you need to book a flight, now you know the day to arrange for. SCO is listed last for that day, but call the court if you plan to attend to verify closer to the date.
SCO is eternally in bankruptcy, as Groklaw helps show: “SCO has filed its monthly operating reports for October in the bankruptcy farce. Here are the September MORs, if you’d like to compare.”
Here is a new press release regarding a book with SCO vs. Novell in it:
Tenth Circuit’s The SCO Group, Inc. v. Novell, Inc.; Retirement Group v. Galante and Dowell v. Biosense Webster, Inc., from the California Court of Appeal
It will be interesting to see what AttachMSFT [sic] does regarding this whole case, which has cost Novell a lot of money (Novell really wants UNIX for itself). █
Posted in Apple, Patents at 1:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Apple patents and the accompanying fanfare are a source of concern and ridicule
ON NUMEROUS occasions we wrote about patentlyapple.com, which is some sort of a fan site (maybe AstroTurfing) for Apple monopolies. Some of them are used to sue Android. This time the site looks at Apple patents from the past year, noting (cultists alert): “It was another banner year for Apple patents in 2010. The Crazy Ones of Cupertino were shown to be working on an incredible line up of ideas and projects in areas ranging from sports to Near Field Communications to next generation 3D user interfaces and devices and even green technologies. Yet at the end of the day, there were ten patents that rose to the top; Ten patents that the Mac Community clearly chose as their favorites. The Mac Community celebrates Apple’s spirit of invention as it empowers and inspires us throughout the year. Will one of your favorites be on this list? Well, let the top-ten countdown for 2010 begin!”
“I *know*! I thought I’d give you a laugh,” wrote Groklaw, whose apologetic attitude towards Apple we previously questioned (it has changed a lot since then). “I had no idea there was any tech community anywhere that had a top ten favorite patents list. Patents. That’s like a list of your favorite plagues. I’d have to vote for frogs … in the oven, in your bed, in your clothes. Definitely my favorite plague.”
Posted in Patents at 1:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Photo by Steve Jurvetson from Menlo Park, USA
Summary: Examples of former innovators who simply perish and then become patent trolls that harm the industry and add nothing to it
OCCASIONALLY we give examples to show who is exploiting the patent system. People who once had companies use them as a safety net and large companies use them as some sort of negotiation tools and ‘insurance policies’. Forgotten in the process are matters like documentation and innovation. The patent system has not been about anything fruitful for quite some time now.
As this new item shows, people who used to actually make something are now just a patent (or several patents) with one man (or more) sort of ‘around’ it. Jay S. Walker is a recent example of it [1, 2, 3]. Once a real developer of something, Walker devolved to end up as a major nuisance and become a patent troll. He uses some shell called Walker Digital to not do anything digital but instead to sue companies (using analogue papers). Here is what TechCrunchhas to say about it:
Walker Digital, the “invention company” founded by Priceline.com co-inventor Jay S. Walker, isn’t just suing Facebook, he’s also trying to take on some giant game publishers.
More specifically, Walker Digital has just filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Zynga, Activision and the latter’s subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment.
As you can see in the complaint embedded below, the patent-in-suit is U.S. patent no. 6,425,828, which was issued on July 30, 2002. The patent is entitled ‘DATABASE DRIVEN ONLINE DISTRIBUTED TOURNAMENT SYSTEM’.
“One patent troll sent reportedly sent such threat letters to 75,000 companies,” says this document (in page 4) recently found/highlighted by the FFII’s president. When that’s the business model, no wonder the patent system gets so paralysed.
Over at Identi.ca, Silner says: “I’ll make a wild and woolly 50 year prediction. Eventually, patents will be the undoing of the Western world” (Asia uses patents differently). █
The show ends not with the usual opening/closing theme but with Marti’s promotional track for TechBytes. We hope you will join us for future shows and 
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