Summary: USPTO encourages litigation — not innovation — from people who were once productive and lost the plot, then used the patent system to fulfill their sense of entitlement
Suing over 100 companies is the type of action taken by Traul Allen, the patent troll who is also the co-founder of Microsoft; and that’s just what Jay Walker is doing [1, 2, 3, 4] after serving as an actual participating member of society. From Priceline.com he moved on to this:
A group of lawsuits filed yesterday by Priceline founder Walker Digital take aim at Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and more than 100 other companies for infringing on key parts of its patent portfolio.
The 15 lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court of Delaware, say these companies are infringing Walker Digital-owned patents covering things like e-commerce, private social-networking communications, online auctions, and a driving directions tool with visual cues.
Under the guise of “research”, Walker does the same thing as Interval, which also attacks Android (Linux-powered) right now:
In a broad move, technology research and development lab Walker Digital—which most famously gave birth to Priceline.com—has filed some 15 lawsuits against more than 100 leading technology companies, alleging they infringe on a broad array of it patents. The company chairman, Jay Walker, is the founder of Priceline.com and the lead inventor on the majority of Walker Digital’s patent and patent applications, and claims a broad number of patents that apply to ecommerce, retailing, online publishing, gaming, education and other industries—and now he wants to be compensated for other companies allegedly using his work.
The reason we’ve brought up Walker’s descent to patent-trolling is that it helps show what practices the USPTO empowers. This makes lawyers — not scientists — stronger.
Many implementations/execution are either inspired by others or are simultaneous realisations, which clearly lead to overlap. Should Google sue Microsoft for all its knockoffs of Google’s products. How about this new example?
“Me too” Microsoft now Streetside – Have they heard of Google’s Streetview?
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So its not Google Streetview then is it? Just like I saw with WP7, I believe it’s a watered down version of an already successful product – I’ll let you decide though. Watch out for a Bingmobile in a town near you!
Patents are a game waged by the losers (those who cannot compete), suggests the track record. Google does not sue Microsoft for copying many of Google’s ideas (or Google-acquired ideas/companies), whereas Microsoft keeps tying to extort Android with patent lawsuits and get Google in trouble by lobbying regulators/politicians. Read this new article:
U.S. General Services Administration Associate Administrator David McClure told a Senate subcommittee Tuesday that his office hadn’t pulled FISMA accreditation from Google’s touted Apps for Government applications, but was in the process of recertifying a more advanced version of the software.
Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., asked McClure to respond to a company blog post from Microsoft Corporate Vice President David Howard Monday charging that recently unsealed U.S. Department of Justice documents reveal that the Google Apps for Government application had not been certified under the Federal Information Security Management Act.
The DOJ documents are from a federal court case in which Google has charged that Microsoft was unfairly awarded a contract to move the U.S. Department of the Interior email systems to the cloud. FISMA certification would allow the Google apps, which were a part of its pitch for the DOI contract, to be used by a greater number of federal employees.
Groklaw remarks: “You thought 2011 was a good year to start believing every word Microsoft says about competitors? What? Are you nuts?” █
Microsoft has been defeated by GNU/Linux avers The Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin. But, there are Microsoft partners like Novell (and Mono) which will not give up so easily.
Mono team continues to bombard the free software world with Microsoft’s C# language and .Net implementation. Unfortunately, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has become an unaware puppet playing as proxy friend of Microsoft by making Banshee the default music player of Ubuntu. It means a hell lot of Mono will be pre-intsalled on your Ubuntu machine.
Every bit of Mono on my computer means hours of developer’s time wasted working on growing opium crops [Mono] of Microsoft. The dangers are more than we see at the surface. The more Ubuntu uses Banshee or Mono, the more stronghold Microsoft will find in the Linux world – a world Microsoft fantasizes of destroying.
I have no problem with Banshee as music player, I appreciate the hard work done by the developers. I have problems with its base – C# and .Net. I don’t want Microsoft to be in control of major applications that I use on the Linux devices. I can’t trust Microsoft — the repeated assaults on Linux companies — latest being Barns & Nobel — proves nothing has changed in Microsoft’s DNA. The company is and will always remain anti-competition.
Developer yanks unauthorized Windows Phone 7 update tool
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Just hours after launching a tool that let Windows Phone 7 owners grab smartphone updates directly from Microsoft, the developer yanked the utility from his Web site.
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Last week, a Microsoft executive apologized for the fiasco and acknowledged that customers were right to be angry. “We didn’t set out to let you down. But it’s clear we did,” said Eric Hautala, the general manager of Windows Phone 7′s customer experience engineering team, in a March 30 blog entry.
[...]
“Be careful when using unofficial hacker tools,” Prengel said, according to a translation of his original message in German. “They can put the phone in an undefined state [making] the installation of future updates impossible. Use at your own risk — neither Microsoft nor the device manufacturer or network operator assume liability for the consequences.”
It may be interesting to find out if Microsoft threatened the developer somehow. We may never know, but it got yanked, just as Microsoft had hoped. █
Posted in GNU/Linux, Google at 2:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Assessment of what is happening to what we once called “Linux” and collectively advocated as a pathway to digital freedom
When GNU/Linux becomes just Linux, loses the Free software (proprietary and DRM promoted by stores with remotely-controlled kill switches instead), and even limits access to the source code or discourages development from outside Google, are we really winning? That depends. The FSF has a love-hate relationship with Google based on its recent statements. It’s a very important subject right now and Groklaw says: “Now it’s Microsoft and all its venal little helpers and proxies attacking Google and Android. Linux back in 2003 had nobody to stand up for it. But Google doesn’t need our help. I’m sure it wouldn’t mind, but they have plenty of money and they can hire whatever they need or just buy it. I was willing to accept the threats and the danger and the smear campaigns I’ve had to experience when it was for the community. But I don’t feel the same, if I see I’m not needed, and I see it. Android has won. No matter what tricks Microsoft may pull going forward, the world knows now that when there was free choice in the marketplace, people chose Android, which runs on Linux, over Microsoft’s phone. Nothing they do can change that. All they can prove perhaps is that dirty tricks and misuse of the courts and regulatory bodies can distort the marketplace. But without the benefits of a monopoly, people don’t actually choose Microsoft phones, at least not in comparison to Android. All they can do about that now is try to force you to use their products. That’s in a way what a monopoly is.”
OHA was announced a few years ago. It was to be led by Google and it received a lot of press, which Steve Ballmer dismissed at the time, calling it just some words on paper. But Google’s Android has come a long way since then, even if not under the “OHA” banner. Android played a role in weakening some counterparts like LIMO and MeeGo, which were developed more closely with Linux.
“I was willing to accept the threats and the danger and the smear campaigns I’ve had to experience when it was for the community.” –Pamela Jones, GroklawTechrights is concerned that, despite its enthusiasm for Android, the platforms from Google redefine what we once knew as “Linux” or “Free (as in freedom) software”. We are not necessarily moving towards greater openness — let alone freedom — except in numbers. In other words, it could be argued more and more people use less restrictive software if Android becomes a “monopoly” as Gartner already labels it (this is a negative word which paints Google as an offender). But on the other hand, Google’s Android is not as open as a platform can be; far from it. And while nothing ever changed much in terms of antifeatures (Google insists on it when it rebuts the smears, and quite rightly so), Techrights believes that having more Linux contenders in the mobile space (e.g. multiplicity for diversity) would be beneficial. In a sense, Google has done to mobile Linux what Canonical has done to desktop Linux. Red Hat probably has not had quite the same effect on Linux servers; it’s open to debate really. Some make accusations out of that (e.g. Canonical is killing Mandriva) and some look at the positive sides, e.g. Ubuntu consolidates and offers GNU/Linux increased uniformity.
Are we winning the “Linux battle”? And if so, which one? What is the achieved goal? The “year of Linux on the desktop”? The “year of Linux everywhere”? The “year of Linux on the most widely-used form factor”?
Moreover, what are our yardsticks for success? It is the extent of use (e.g. overall number of users)? Or the degree of freedom made available to a willing user of existing products? These are open questions and those who spent a considerable part of their lives advocating “Linux” ought to ponder the crossroad where we all stand together.
When it comes to market share, Microsoft is the #1 threat.
When it comes to freedom within consumer products, Apple is probably the #1 threat.
A video display with a ~1.5-to-1 aspect ratio was non-obvious in 1995???
As mentioned in the prior post on these cases, one of the two asserted patents is US 5,825,427, titled Image display system.
Generally, when I see news coverage of a patent suit, I also find some misplaced outrage in the article or its comments based on just the title or abstract of the asserted patent. When possible, I do my part to defend the patent system, pointing out that the actual claims being asserted are far narrower than the title, abstract, or news article imply, and that the patent system is, to a large extent, doing its job.
The Twitter user who highlighted the above in the context of the “swpat” hashtag added: “Apple accused of infringing incredibly broad patent but gets no press. What if it was Google.” If it was Google, the horde which includes Microsoft Florian would launch another dirty disinformation campaign. Groklaw knows a coordinated attack when it sees one, having witnessed this for the past 8 years. As a side note, we would like to send our gratitude to Pamela Jones who inspired those who created Techrights. Her work or at least her impact will carry on. █
What’s Microsoft’s is Microsoft’s and what’s Novell’s is also Microsoft’s
Summary: Spirit is low at Novell as companies which are boasting a market cap 100 times higher than NOVL take the customers away
IN a conversation with a friend the other day, it came up that Novell used to be a respected company back in the days. These days it’s a laughing stock and people whose living is made by administrating Solaris servers do not seem to even know that Novell has a GNU/Linux distribution (Ballnux), at least the one I spoke to. Microsoft has had Novell characterised as some Windows/Microsoft company, not a “Linux company” and Microsoft is taking Novell’s customers now that Novell is at the edge of a cliff. See thisfor example. Then, see this from the Microsoft boosters:
The service will replace Novell GroupWise software, which the school district is now running on its own servers. Live@edu will provide e-mail for 8,500 faculty and staff and high school students in the fall, Microsoft said today. The service and e-mails are stored in Microsoft’s data centers and accessed by students and faculty via the Internet.
Microsoft is slaughtering Novell (ignore the PR which neglects to mention business decline), but then again, so does Google. Both companies are competing to take personal data at taxpayers’ expense (Fog Computing enables this). Microsoft is very excited about this and we previously explained this excitement (Microsoft is fanatic about lock-in). Not only has the deal with Novell enabled it to turn Novell into a vassal; it also enabled Microsoft to grab Novell customers more easily (“interoperability” as they call it makes the transition easier) and grab Novell’s patents, which are handy for a fight against UNIX/Linux due to the nature of the patents.
Learn why deals with Microsoft are suicide. Just watch Novell. █
Posted in Google, Novell at 4:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Novell is a leech
Summary: How Novell uses other people’s work that they produce for free in order to sell proprietary software from Novell
IN OUR more recent posts about Vibe (e.g. [1, 2, 3]) we explained its relation to Google Wave and also to parts of Novell’s proprietary portfolio (e.g. Groupwise). It’s rather striking that no journalist dares to criticise Novell for the nature of what it’s doing, which is in some sense more cheeky than what SAP is doing to deliver something similar.
In its latest announcement Novell says just about nothing about who did a lot of the heavy lifting and instead there is marketing lingo which sells proprietary software. To quote one article: “Novell Vibe Cloud is an enterprise social media product that combines activity streams and ad hoc collaboration with file sharing and group editing capabilities. While the beta test is over, a Basic Edition product will remain available for free and essentially provides all the same collaborative capabilities on a single-user model, with a 250 megabyte limit on file storage. Upgrading to the Enterprise Edition ($84 per user per year) buys an organization more administrative control, integration with enterprise directory services, and unlimited collaboration groups.”
Other coverage is pretty much the same [1, 2, 3, 4]. It does not say where Novell received a lot of the code (and it contributes nothing back). As we are going to show later, Novell exploits Linux in more or less the same way. Novell uses SUSE to sell proprietary software which is made at Novell. It’s the same with Mono. Novell is like Apple in this regard. █
Summary: Monopolies and titans spread their monopolies and perpetuate the patent problems rather than strive to resolve them for about 99% of the businesses out there (those without a massive scale and monopoly)
A WHILE back we hoped that Apple would rethink its patent lust given the $625 million verdict against it, but this case is being overturned now:
A federal judge in Texas threw out an earlier verdict against Apple in a patent-infringement case with Mirror Worlds, overturning one of the largest settlements ever awarded in a patent case and fueling debate on software copyright in general.
How is Apple going to learn a lesson about software patents’ harm if not by cases like this one? Apple is currently suing the Linux-powered Android, which leads Google, for example, to resorting to patents too (much to the regret of the FFII). A longtime critic of the patent system calls it the “Nuclear Option” and says that “the exploding IP litigation in mobile will only get larger as Google angles to buy the mobile-patent equivalent of a thermonuclear device.” To quote the opening part:
In a blog post today, Google (GOOG) general counsel Kent Walker announced that the company had bid for Nortel’s patent portfolio. The $900 million offer makes Google the so-called stalking horse bidder: one that sets a high enough bottom line to keep others from low-balling the auction.
This is a major change for Google and an overt declaration that it will use its cash to obtain patents that could make life unpleasant for litigious competitors. Expect that the exploding IP litigation in mobile will only get larger as Google angles to buy the mobile-patent equivalent of a thermonuclear device.
Google would be wiser to give a billion dollars to the FFII and other groups which seek to abolish software patents. That would also help Google justify its “do no evil” motto.
What we are seeing these days is not just consolidation where few companies amass enormous power (e.g. Oracle buying Sun) but also a distortion of law that benefits the rich (e.g. tax exceptions for the super-rich, tax havens for large corporations only). Unless the people stand up behind groups like the FFII, FSF, EFF, etc. nothing is going to improve; it’s only going to get a lot worse. Patents are a symptom and a characteristic of this general trend. They solidify the power of the already-powerful over everyone else, essentially making “illegal” the act of competing. As we last showed yesterday, there is nothing ethical about patents; it’s protectionism, it’s selfishness. █
Posted in Google, Patents at 8:11 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Elements of the FFII, notably Benjamin Henrion (left), encourage Google to use its financial power to abolish — not acquire — software patents
THOSE who want to get rid of software patents need not compromise at the level of accepting them as an interim solution just as activists against nuclear weapons must not encourage more nations to acquire or develop nuclear weapons as a “deterrent”. The whole argument around deterrence is a weak one, it’s propaganda. The opinions of the president of the FFII are quite similar to ours, unlike others in the FFII who adopt a more “diplomatic” (arguably cowardly) approach. This division within the FFII is a subject we alluded to before and it is not of much relevance to this post (see Andre’s opening remarks in the video below for a better idea).
“There is not so much consent around the attitude of the OSI, the Linux Foundation, and OIN.”In any event and at any rate, there seems to be growing popularity and intensity for the argument that we must get rid of all software patents. There is not so much consent around the attitude of the OSI, the Linux Foundation, and OIN. The president of the FFII points to this older post and notes that EPO Judges argued “[c]omputer-implemented inventions and their protection in the US and under the EPC was the next agenda point” (why do they discuss it in the first place?). He also links to this post and notes this patent: “Downloader: A computer that retrieves web pages and embedded objects from the internet. 6,864,904 ”
Suffice to say, the cited item is a lawyers’ blog, so it has nothing to do with technology. These people who are not engineers. They are in fact patent lawyers who sue for a living and extort using pieces of paper (patent watchtroll in this case), so they worship patents as a whole and also defend patent number 6,411,947. They insult those who actually write code and understand the subject matter (pun not intended). My critics too should know that I wrote about 3,000 lines of code last month.
it’d be better if Google were pouring that $900 million into lobbying to get rid of software patents altogether http://ur1.ca/3s2px
Wishful thinking? No patents would be Utopian to Google, but this would not be beneficial to just Google (it’s like promoting the brand “Linux”), so how can this be justified to shareholders? Moreover, Google’s lawyers wish to justify their existence within the company. “Google not really against software patents,” concludes the president of the FFII who links to other critics of intellectual monopolies. This strategy which Google adopts does not help against trolls, but some would play along with Google and call it “patent armoury”. It’s not. Patents are like nuclear weapons; they are used for litigation, not so much for negotiation. We are better off without any of them. Just watch Sun’s “defensive” patents and what Oracle did to Android with them. ZFS, which is now owned by Oracle, is a famous victim of patents and we wrote about this for years. Patents change hands and with this change of “ownership” comes change in patent strategy, too.
Nortel will pay Google $25 million in break up fees, and a further $4 million to cover expenses if another party wins the auction, Bloomberg reports. Bids will go up in increments of at least $5 million, and bidding has been pegged to hit a minimum of $1 billion.
Today: Texas Instruments intends to buy NatSemi for $6.5 billion. Plus: Watch out for email “phishing” schemes. And: Google (GOOG), Pandora, Silicon Valley tech stocks.
$6.5 billion NatSemi deal
Texas Instruments intends to buy Santa Clara chip giant National Semiconductor in a cash deal worth $25 a share, or $6.5 billion, the two companies announced this afternoon.
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Google would be the “stalking horse” bid, but other companies also could make offers for the patents. Google is trying to buy the patents even as it argues for changes to the system, arguing that some software patents are stifling innovation rather than encouraging it.
Well, software patents are indeed stifling innovation rather than encouraging it. So what example is Google setting by its actions?
Here is a new article which suggests that universities should forget about patents:
Open source software licenses already offer university software creators an alternative to the university’s patent+license commercialization model. Open source hardware licenses are next. University intellectual property strategies will need to learn to peaceably learn to co-exist with open sourced hardware licenses. A centralized, enforcement-flavored intellectual property strategy is not going to work. Nor will university policies that blindly favor hardware patents at the expense of alternative methods of sharing design information.
Here is a new press release from some company which thinks it’s acceptable to get a thought monopoly on a product:
Tentatively called The Trade Marketplace, this patent-pending software was recently revealed in beta form to a group of Cleveland-area job shop owners, who said they would welcome a convenient, time-efficient means to quote new business, especially one that spotlights their core competencies, reduces the expense of processing an RFQ or an RFP and increases the opportunity to win new business.
It is not about winning new business but about obstructing rivals, as this new story about Mosaid Technologies helps remind us. Companies which do not abolish software patents and part of the problem; conformism is not an excuse. Aim high, achieve much. Aim low, achieve nothing. █
Summary: The Linux-hostile strategy at Microsoft evolves to get around regulators and further the patent agenda; Novell’s acquisition delayed until exactly one week from now
Microsoft remains a top patent threat simply because it is doing anything which deserves this label. It is not a scapegoat. Linux foes like Microsoft Florian seem to be part of the PR campaign which paints Google — not Microsoft — as the patent problem. Here is one recent rebuttal to Florian’s latest lies and distortions:
I’ve been sitting back watching the newest Florian Müller psycho babble play out. It always plays to the same formula. Florian Müller raises the alarm. The people who actually know what they are talking about explain why Florian is wrong. Again.
Let’s face it. Either Florian isn’t all that bright, or someone is paying him to make his statements. No one could be this consistently, stupidly, wrong. It’s just not possible. People learn. Learning is the basis of human existence.
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The next day, Florian Müller starts off a blog post with the sentence Intellectual property issues continue to cloud Google’s mobile operating system. Do you see a pattern here folks?
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He’s not a programmer. He’s not a lawyer. Just how does he have the skills to reach a conclusion? Is he even thinking?
In light of news like this (which we mentioned earlier) the inflammatory FUD machine of Florian is once again trying to incite people against Google, which has no history of patent aggression. The article says:
Hopeful of dissuading further patent lawsuits against its Android partners, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) went public Monday with its intention to bid on a patent library held by bankrupt telecom company Nortel and said it had been selected to open the bidding with a $900 million offer.
The Microsoft-led consortium of tech companies trying to hoover up nearly 1,000 of Novell’s patents is back in business.
CPTN Holdings re-registered with German authorities on Wednesday, according to the website of the German Federal Cartel Office. Plans to create CPTN as a German entity were withdrawn in December 2010.
CPTN is buying 882 of Novell’s patents in a deal with soon-to-be Novell-owner Attachmate. Apple, EMC, and Oracle are also members of CPTN, but it’s helmed by Redmond.
Everyone which we found covering this has some special relationship with Microsoft. That includes Microsoft Florian, who got access to inside information whose publication was beneficial to Microsoft. On a public level, Novell has this to say about CPTN (from its SEC filing):
The merger contemplated by the merger agreement remains subject to the satisfaction or waiver of certain closing conditions, including the closing of the sale of certain identified issued patents and patent applications to CPTN Holdings LLC (“CPTN”) pursuant to a Patent Purchase Agreement, dated as of November 21, 2010. Under the Patent Purchase Agreement, one of the conditions to closing of the patent sale to CPTN remains the expiration of applicable waiting periods under the competition laws in Germany and the United States.
With respect to Germany, on December 30, 2010, the CPTN consortium had voluntarily withdrawn its filed notification in order to provide the Federal Cartel Office (the “FCO”) with more time to review the proposed patent sale. On March 23, 2011, the CPTN consortium, following discussions with the FCO, re-filed the notification. The re-filing starts a new one month review period under the German Act against Restraints of Competition in the version of 15 July 2005, as amended, during which the FCO could clear the transaction at any time.
In the United States, the Company previously reported that, on March 4, 2011, each of the Company and CPTN certified as to its substantial compliance with the second request for information from the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice (the “DOJ”) and that each of the Company and CPTN has agreed to provide the DOJ with additional time to review the patent sale and not to close the patent sale prior to April 12, 2011.
The Company remains committed to working with the DOJ and FCO as they conduct their respective reviews of the patent sale. The patent sale remains subject to the satisfaction or waiver of other closing conditions as set forth in the Patent Purchase Agreement.
This may soon be addressed according to other reports, e.g. [1, 2] from the news, including one report from the 11th of March (following an earlier report) that says: “Novell said yesterday the Department of Justice needs more time to investigate its sale of Linux patents to Microsoft.”
Maureen O’Gara and others name April 12th as the day to look forward to (or not to look forward to). The Microsoft camp would love to see Microsoft putting its hands on those thousand patents (or almost a thousand patents) for the purpose of patent manipulation. Novell has patents which relate to UNIX. Since Microsoft mostly sues companies which use Linux these days, what does that say about Novell’s decision to give Microsoft patents? █
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