04.22.11
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google at 4:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Another firm which tells people what to think of market share (and is paid by Microsoft) belittles Android
A report which gets quoted widely heralding the power of Apple is actually severely flawed and its source, ComScore, is one that we criticised before for spinning figures in favour of Microsoft after being paid by Microsoft several times. Such firms are choosing methods that decide what to count in order to get the required FUD — an endemic problem for sure and one that we remind readers to keep in mind. Neil Richards has just explained why this “comScore Report That Apple iOS Has Beaten Google Android Seems Flawed!” Here is part of his explanation:
I don’t understand this comparison as Android doesn’t even compete in the portable music player segment of iPod Touch. I also wonder if comScore took into account the ‘devices’ and not just the smartphones running on Android. I would very much like to know if comScore included Android-powered devices like Barnes & Nobel’s NOOK which hold a huge market share in the eBook segment.
In general, GNU/Linux market share figures (not just on the desktop) are a commonly abused area of statistics. Look at what Gartner is doing. One radical example are the flawed figures from IDC, which insists on counting revenue as “market share” rather than actually count boxes. Gartner and IDC too are both paid by Microsoft. █
“Lies, damned lies, and statistics”
–Benjamin Disraeli
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04.21.11
Posted in Asia, FUD, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft at 2:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“I have lost my sleep and peace of mind for last two months over these distasteful activities by Microsoft.”
–Deepak Phatak, a highly regarded Indian professor
Kids holding up graphics from Techrights (see context)
Summary: Microsoft FUD and other market abuses among the factors leading to anger and prominent action in India
THIS is not the first protest of its kind, but Muktware has announced yet another action which it precedes with: “Another problem with buying proprietary software is that the government agency is locked into that one company. The non-standard and incompatible technologies makes it impossible for governments to migrate to better or more advanced technologies like GNU/Linux.”
For those who do not remember, groups that include Groklaw and FFII are calling for people to provide their “Microsoft OEM tax” stories to the European Commission because there is belated action brewing.
Meanwhile, adds another article from Muktware (echoing some of what Groklaw covered the other day), Microsoft was not eligible for government selection as it had lacked certifications. We will write more about security later today. Watch how this article begins:
I can’t forget the sentiments within the Indian IT industry when Microsoft, a company which doesn’t even disclose finacial results for India, accused one of the most reputed engineers of India – Prof Phatak — to be working against the interest of India. Why? Because he rejected Microsoft’s OOXML on technical grounds!
The company whose products cost billions or dollars in losses [read the SJVN link] every year due to uncountable security holes is now accusing Google of selling insecure products to the government.
Lastly, states Muktware (it is a great Indian news site by the way), “The Game Microsoft Plays The Best [is] FUD”
Microsoft is well reputed for spreading FUD and launching proxy wars against free and open source technologies. Instead of competing in the market on the basis of better products Microsoft uses different routes, one of their favorite routes is spreading FUD.
It is well known that Microsoft has failed to mention which patents Linux infringes upon yet the company continues to bully Linux players to pay ransom using its FUD machine.
Microsoft uses against Google (as a services provider) the same tactics it uses against Linux and Android. It is not surprising. Microsoft has always been an empire of distortion and manipulation. It’s seen as profitable. Well, sometimes it’s time to get up and protest. █
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04.20.11
Posted in Antitrust, Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents at 4:40 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Original photo by Matt Buchanan; edited by Techrights
Summary: Proprietary software giants continue to use patents against freely-shareable software and regulatory agencies begin to react, acknowledging this anti-competitive problem
CPTN is a kind of cartel of proprietary software companies, unsurprisingly led by Microsoft. Three quarters of them have a recent, high-profile history of attacking FOSS projects using software patents and now they want Novell’s patents, too. Some of these patents may be UNIX-oriented.
We have no sympathy for Novell, which fuels Linux arch rivals. We have already alluded to the Apple lawsuit a couple of times (last time was this morning) and since Samsung pays Microsoft for Linux, we have not much sympathy for Samsung, either. Semi Accurate explains why “Apple suing Samsung is incredibly stupid”:
Apple (AAPL)suing Samsung over, well, who really cares anymore, is probably the dumbest thing that Apple could do. It could have more serious blowback than most pundits realize, including sinking the iGadgetmaker.
The situation goes something like this. Mobile phones are a brutally cutthroat business, with basically nothing to differentiate one company from another any more. There are only so many things you can do in a phone the size of a cigarette pack, and most of those have been done by someone or something in the past few years. Barring that, someone did it on a UNIX box in the 60′s, and there is a video out there to prove it. Nothing in computing is new.
Thanks to the best government money can buy, the US has a system of rather bogus software patent laws that allow things that any idiot would find blindingly obvious to be patented. Atari’s bitmap patents, Amazon’s ‘one click‘, and any of 73,000 Microsoft ‘innovations’ spring to mind. All these do is subvert the patent system in order to shut out competition, innovation, and anyone with pockets not deep enough to enrich a large legal firm. The system itself is broken and thoroughly gamed.
[...]
With that in mind, Big Fruit suing Samsung could be tantamount to suicide. All Samsung needs to do is suspend wafer starts for Apple and say, “See you in court Steve”. By the time it gets there, 2016 or so, will Apple be in business? How many months of no iAnything do you think it would take for Apple to dry up and blow away? Unlike graphics cards or memory, each ARM SoC is unique, needs a unique board, unique software, and has unique capabilities. The painful flip side of custom chips is that Apple can not make an iDevice with another part, period.
It sure seems like Linux-based platforms will dominate tablets (not just Android, maybe WebOS too) and the pathetic Apple lawsuits help validate this because we saw the very same thing happening in phones just before Android outpaced hypePhone in the United States. Lawsuits like this one are a last resort, they are a sign of desperation.
We previously explained Apple’s role in funding the world’s biggest patent troll (IV) and also its role in CPTN. Nasty stuff. See posts such as:
According to this important new announcement, regulatory bodies help in crippling the CPTN provisions, owing to complaints from the FSF and OSI (and maybe the FSFE too). In the interests of brevity, we are putting some responses of interest at the bottom of this post. From the announcement:
The Department of Justice announced today that in order to proceed with the first phase of their acquisition of certain patents and patent applications from Novell Inc ., CPTN Holdings LLC and its owners have altered their original agreements to address the department’s antitrust concerns. The department said that, as originally proposed, the deal would jeopardize the ability of open source software, such as Linux, to continue to innovate and compete in the development and distribution of server, desktop, and mobile operating systems, middleware, and virtualization products. Although the department will allow the transaction to proceed, it will continue investigating the distribution of the Novell patent to the CPTN owners.
How foolish must David Meyer feel right now, having paid attention to Microsoft Florian and published the headline “Novell patent sale clears US regulatory hurdle” some days ago in ZDNet UK. As Groklaw put it in response to these mobbyists, “I can’t resist. To my fellow journalists: did what Florian Mueller wrote about this turn out to be accurate?” His lobbying algorithm is flawed, the EPO should issue a refund immediately.
Microsoft Florian keeps ridiculing OIN this week (opposite of Groklaw, as usual). And also new from Groklaw: “Open Invention Network Takes on Mass – Facebook and HP Join”
The news today is that Facebook and HP have joinded Open Invention Network. In addition, Google is moving up from licensee to join Canonical as associate member, the second highest level.
What can the Open Invention Network (OIN) do to help against patent trolls? Groklaw ought to have some answers to these questions, especially with relevance to Microsoft and proxies such as SCO. In light of some additional text from the i4i vs Microsoft case, Groklaw is an important community site for the defence of Free software. Can anybody help us get those PACER-delivered court documents that Groklaw routinely obtains and HTML-ifies? What will the community do when Groklaw stops posting new articles? Upon closer inspection, its opponents usually turn out to also be opponent of the FSF and software freedom in general. the same goes for FFII opponents and many of our own opponents/hecklers.
The FFII’s mailing list has a new message about “Defensive patenting event [such as OIN] in Stanford”, quoting:
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/6660
Stanford Law School, Room 280B
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA, 94305
United States
Name of Speaker:
Jason Schultz and Jennifer Urban
Title of Event:
A Defensive Patent License Proposal
In other news about patents, it sure seems like people try to patent (or are already patenting) every little thing [1, 2] as this new example illustrates:
India has put in place a unique “global bio-piracy watch system” through which, whenever somebody files a patent application in any of the seven largest patent offices in the world, scientists sitting in India immediately get to know about it following which the application is checked “for prior knowledge”.
Who needs this garbage detection? Why assume this system which favours monopolisation is favourable in the first place? Even the Department of Justice is gradually realising that patents are used by cartels and need to be stopped/disarmed. █
Assorted responses to the CPTN decision:
The H: Department of Justice says Novell and CPTN must change patent deal
The Novell/CPTN deal was part of the agreement created in November to allow Attachmate to acquire Novell; before the $2.2 billion acquisition went ahead, Novell was to sell 882 patents to CPTN, a holding company owned equally by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and EMC, which would then allocate and distribute those patents between the CPTN owners. In January, the Open Source Initiative and the Free Software Foundation jointly asked the DoJ to intervene in the deal saying that the confidential negotiations taking place could “be used to hide nefarious intentions”. The OSI had also written to the German Federal Cartel Office in December.
The DoJ, working closely with Germany’s Federal Cartel Office, appears to have agreed with the OSI and FSF’s view of the deal, and is requiring major changes. Most importantly for open source developers, the agreement now says that all of the Novell patents will be “acquired subject to the GNU General Public License, Version 2, a widely adopted open-source license, and the Open Invention Network (OIN) License, a significant license for the Linux system”. The announcement does not specify how these licences, especially the GPLv2 software licence, will apply to the patents. There would also be limits on CPTN, and it’s owners, from limiting which patents are included in the GPLv2 and OIN licensing process or influencing the process.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Microsoft gets Novell’s Patents rights but must share them with Open-Source Software
Well, this is almost certainly not the Novell patent deal that Microsoft and its CPTN Holding Partners-Apple, EMC and Oracle-wanted . The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced today, April 20th, that in order to proceed with the first phase of their acquisition of certain patents and patent applications from Novell, CPTN Holdings has altered their original agreements to address the department’s antitrust concerns. In particular, “The department said that, as originally proposed, the deal would jeopardize the ability of open source software, such as Linux, to continue to innovate and compete in the development and distribution of server, desktop, and mobile operating systems, middleware, and virtualization products. Although the department will allow the transaction to proceed, it will continue investigating the distribution of the Novell patent to the CPTN owners.”
Andy Updegrove (from the above): “This is a rather breath-taking announcement from a number of perspectives. Among others, the granularity of the restrictions imposed demonstrates a level of understanding of open source software in general, and Linux in particular, that has not been demonstrated by regulators in the past. It also demonstrates a very different attitude on the part of both the U.S. and German regulators, on the one hand, and Microsoft, on the other, from what we saw the last time that Microsoft was under the microscope. In the past, Microsoft was more disposed to fight than negotiate, and the U.S. and the European Commission were far apart in their attitudes. This announcement conclusively places open-source software on the U.S. regulatory map.”
Simon Phipps: Open Source Critical To Competition
News just broke jointly from the US Department of Justice and the German Federal Cartel Office that they have directed CPTN to change the way they acquire Novell’s software patents so that the open source community is protected.
This is landmark news for the software freedom community. The Open Source Initiative (where I am a director) and the Free Software Foundation both submitted opinions to the DoJ. Both agreed that the acquisition of Novell’s patent portfolio by a consortium comprising Apple, EMC, Microsoft and Oracle presented a threat to the ability of open source software to promote strong competitive markets. It seems the DoJ and FCO agreed with them.
To me, this establishes:
* Open source is a crucial market force, ensuring strong competition, and as such deserves regulatory recognition and protection;
* Software patents pose an anti-competitive threat that deserves regulatory recognition and action;
* OSI-approved licenses form a suitable basis for regulatory remedies;
* The collective action of the software freedom community – represented here by OSI, FSF and FSFE – can have an important effect.
Carlo Piana: via Identi.ca
Kudos to OSI and !FSFE for pursuing the #CPTN matter on the two sides of the pond. Seems quite an achievement for #antitrust #swpats
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 2:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Overlap between Mono and Microsoft is increasing and Novell helps make Microsoft stronger
Microsoft has already become a contributor to Mono. Its own code is right in there and parts of Mono are licensed under Microsoft licences. Some members of the Mono team are former Microsoft employees, who still serve Microsoft’s interests; they find Android to push their APIs into, as we explained most recently (announcements come from Novell, which was paid by Microsoft). They advocate pushing more Mono also into Linux, the kernel. Yes, that’s just the most recent example of the former Microsoft employee recommending that Linux adopts C#.
Meanwhile, the Mono team is helping Microsoft by spreading the dying Silver Lie (why be so adamant to save Microsoft’s products?) and sites that focus on this area of Microsoft’s operation indeed give credit to Mono. Mono and Moonlight are closely related, as we have explained since 2007 (back when the Mono team denied it). Well, it’s quite telling that according to Microsoft MVP de Icaza, even Mono conferences are held on Microsoft’s territories. To quote his new Monospace rave:
The event will take place at the Microsoft NERD Center.
Yes, this is where the future of Mono is being determined. Mono is Microsoft. It’s Microsoft’s benefit, it’s Microsoft’s APIs, it’s Microsoft’s patents, it’s Microsoft fans. █
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04.18.11
Posted in America, Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft at 5:47 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The US patent system preys on Canadians as Microsoft’s infringement goes to SCOTUS and RIM wants a patent shield shortly after Microsoft’s patent troll, Nathan Myhrvold (the company’s extortion arm), put a tax on every BlackBerry; Apple too goes trigger-happy against Linux, having given investment money to this same patent troll
Microsoft should just defect to the side which works to abolish software patents and if not, then shareholders of Microsoft should start criticising the company’s strategy. As things stand at the moment, Microsoft is bombarded with patent lawsuits and Groklaw explains why Free software cares about the i4i case which we last mentioned this morning (it goes beyond the Canadian media due to escalation to SCOTUS, which got the lawyers [1, 2] and the MSBBC paying closer attention). To quote Groklaw:
Today is the day scheduled for oral argument before the US Supreme Court in the appeal of the i4i v. Microsoft patent litigation. The appeal is focused on an issue that matters to FOSS a great deal. EFF, Public Knowledge, and the Apache Foundation have filed an amicus brief [PDF] that explains to the court why it matters so much and with such particularity to the FOSS community. I’ve done it as text for you.
I’ll let them explain the details, but the big picture is that US patent law, largely due to the Federal Circuit’s broadening of plaintiffs’ rights, is hard on defendants and harder still on FOSS defendants, because FOSS uses a development model that doesn’t match the patent law as currently interpreted by the Federal Circuit.
The issue before the US Supreme Court is this, in plain English: how hard should it be to prove that a patent that the USPTO has issued is invalid? How about if you have evidence that the USPTO examiner never looked at? Should juries assume that the USPTO got it right? I smile just writing that. With FOSS software, it’s almost impossible for an examiner to find prior art, unless it’s been patented, which it almost never is, given the restrictions on what examiners can search through. And you may be surprised when you read what the courts require as proof. I am pretty sure that after you read this brief, you’ll see how unbalanced the current system is, how it disadvantages FOSS defendants, and hopefully you’ll notice some things you can do to help balance out the playing field. I hope the court sees the unfairness too, and I hope they care.
The bottom line for me remains that software and patents need to get a divorce. But anything that we or the courts or Congress can do to ameliorate the strange and damaging tilt toward patent plaintiffs to the detriment of defendants is to the good. The law is supposed to be fair to both plaintiffs and defendants, but with patent law, it absolutely isn’t, as the brief will show you. The damage being done to innovation is enormous already, and with Microsoft on a march to rape and pillage FOSS and force the community — most especially Android — to pay royalties for patents that could be invalidated in a more fair system but which it can use as anticompetitive weapons unless something is done to shortcircuit their strategy, this case is vitally important.
As Mr. Arthur put it, “Microsoft seeks to weaken software patent rules at US Supreme Court”:
A software patent case in which Microsoft was accused of wilfully infringing a patent on XML – and forced to suspend sales of Word and Office – reaches the US Supreme Court on Monday afternoon UK time and could have a wide-ranging effect on future litigation.
How long can Microsoft pretend that software patents which are asserted against Microsoft are invalid whereas those which is uses to extort others are valid? In some cases, as in the VirnetX case for example, Microsoft must pay a lot of money to a company which according to this new report “does not currently have any sources of revenue from operations.”
It is a patent troll. When Microsoft quits areas like mobile (due to failure), Microsoft’s mobile division too will become a patent troll. Microsoft is currently busy trying to extort all sellers of Android/Linux, so Google, in turn, is competing to inherit the patent portfolio which currently ‘belongs’ to Nortel. There is competition over it, reportedly from RIM [1, 2, 3, 4], which is the latest victim to be massively extorted by the world's largest patent troll, Microsoft's very own patent troll, Intellectual Ventures (it also extorted Android, at least at Samsung and HTC).
Here is a new pinion piece by Doug Lichtman (at the New York Times). It implies rather than states that the patent office has been subverted by leeches like Intellectual Ventures. To quote: [via Groklaw]
ON Monday the Supreme Court will consider whether to fundamentally alter the way American patent law is litigated. Specifically, in the context of an otherwise unremarkable patent dispute, the Court has promised to decide the degree to which juries should be allowed to question whether a patent should have been issued at all.
It’s a critical issue: the current approach, under which juries are explicitly discouraged from questioning a patent’s validity, all too often means that dubious patents are nevertheless enforced. That inhibits innovation, the very thing that patent law is supposed to encourage.
[...]
These problems could in theory be fixed with more money. But resources aren’t the only issue. The extent and quality of Patent Office review is also limited by the fact that the process is not adversarial. Indeed, the only parties involved in Patent Office review are the applicant and the applicant’s lawyers — people with an obvious incentive to see the application move forward. Contrast that with litigation, where patent plaintiffs have to square off against very motivated patent defendants.
The last bit there is important. it validates calls to abolish the patent office or reboot it such that it actually serves the public and not the lobbyists of Bill Gates and his buddy Nathan Myhrvold. Microsoft does not want software patents to go away because people up there at the top of Microsoft are still cashing in, at the expense of everyone else. That’s what patents are for, they are simply a monopolist’s dream. Apple is no better in that regard, e.g. with its latest anti-Linux patent lawsuit. Boycott Apple, the expensive imitators. █
“We’ve always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”
–Steve Jobs
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Posted in America, Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft at 4:47 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
(ODF | PDF | English/original)
Resumen: El sistema de patente de los EE.UU hace presas de los canadienses cuando Microsoft va a SCOTUS (Corte Suprema de los Estados Unidos) por su infracción de patentes y RIM quiere un escudo de patentes poco después de que Nathan Myhrvold el troll de patentes de Microsoft, (brazo que la compañía utiliza para la extorsión), pone un impuesto a todos los BlackBerry, Apple también va disparando fácilmente contra Linux, después de haber dado dinero de inversión a este mismo troll de patentes.
Microsoft debe decidirse para que bando trabajar, para abolir las patentes de software y si no, entonces los accionistas de Microsoft deberían empezar a criticar la estrategia de la compañía. Como están las cosas en este momento, Microsoft es bombardeado con demandas de patentes[http://techrights.org/2009/10/31/microsoft-10-q-legal-secrets/] y Groklaw explica por qué le importa al Software Free/Libre[http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110417223700208] acerca del caso i4i[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/I4i_vs_Microsoft] que la última vez que lo mencionamos esta mañana[http://techrights.org/2011/04/18/ooxml-patent-complications/] (que va más allá de los medios de comunicación canadienses debido a la escalada a SCOTUS (Corte Suprema de los Estados Unidos), que tiene los abogados [1[http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2011/04/microsoft-v-i4i-oral-argument-monday-april-18.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PatentlyO+%28Dennis+Crouch%27s+Patently-O%29], 2[http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/04/court-takes-up-standard-of-patent-validity/]] y la MSBBC prestando atención[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/maggieshiels/2011/04/microsoft_supreme_court_showdown.html]). Para citar Groklaw:
Hoy es el día fijado para el argumento oral ante la Corte Suprema de los EE.UU. en el recurso de casación de i4i versus Microsoft litigio de patentes. El recurso se centra en un tema que importa a muchísimo al FOSS (Software Libre y Abierto). La EFF Fundación Electrónica de la Frontera, Public Knowledge, y la Fundación Apache han presentado un amicus breve [PDF] que explica al tribunal por qué es tan importante y con la particularidad como a la comunidad de software libre. Lo he hecho como texto para usted.
Voy a dejar que les expliquen los detalles, pero el panorama general es que la ley de patentes EE.UU., en gran parte debido al Circuito Federal de ampliación de los derechos de los demandantes, es difícil para los acusados y aún más difícil a los acusados de software libre, por que el software libre utiliza un modelo de desarrollo que no coincide con el Derecho de patentes en la actualidad interpretado por el Circuito Federal.
La cuestión ante la Corte Suprema de los EE.UU. es esta, en simple lenguaje: ¿Cúan difícil es demostrar que una patente que la USPTO ha emitido no es válida? ¿Qué tal si usted tiene pruebas de que el examinador de la USPTO (Oficina de Patentes y Marcas de los Estados Unidos) nunca miró? ¿Deben los jurados suponer que la USPTO ha hecho lo correcto? Sonrío sólo por escrito. Con el Software Free/Libre, es casi imposible que un examinador pueda encontrar previas técnica, a menos que ha sido patentado, que casi nunca lo es, dadas las restricciones en lo que los examinadores deben examinar a través de. Y usted puede estar sorprendido al leer lo que los tribunales requieren como prueba. Estoy bastante segura de que después de leer este informe, verá qué desequilibrado es el sistema actual, la forma desventajosa en que los acusados Software Free/Libre están, y espero que te darás cuenta de algunas cosas que usted puede hacer para ayudar a equilibrar el terreno de juego. Espero que el tribunal consideré la injusticia también, y espero que les importe.
La conclusión para mí es que las patentes y el software necesitan obtener un divorcio. Pero cualquier cosa que nosotros o los tribunales o el Congreso puedan hacer para mejorar la inclinación extrañas y dañinas hacia los demandantes de patentes en detrimento de los acusados esta bien. Se supone que la ley es justa para ambos demandantes y demandados, pero la ley de patentes absolutamente no lo es, como el escrito te lo mostrará. El daño que está haciendo a la innovación ya es enorme, y con Microsoft en marcha de violación y pillaje contra el Software Free/Libre y forzar a la comunidad – sobre todo a la de Android – para pagar regalías por las patentes que podrían ser invalidadas en un sistema más justo, pero que -Microsoft- puede utilizar como armas contrarias a la competencia a menos que se haga algo para causar un cortocircuito a su estrategia, este caso es de vital importancia.
Como el Sr. Arthur dijo[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/apr/18/microsoft-i4i-software-patent-us-supreme-court], “Microsoft busca debilitar las normas de patentes de software en la Corte Suprema de los EE.UU.”:
Un caso de patentes de software en el que Microsoft fue acusado de infringir deliberadamente una patente en XML – y lo obligó a suspender las ventas de Word y Office – llega a la Corte Suprema de los EE.UU. en la tarde del Lunes tiempo España, y podría tener un efecto de amplio alcance sobre futuros litigios.
¿Por cuánto tiempo puede Microsoft pretender que las patentes de software que se hacen valer en contra de Microsoft no son válidos mientras que las que ellos utilizan para extorsionar a los demás son válidas? En algunos casos, como en el caso VirnetX[http://techrights.org/2010/12/04/scotus-swpats-i4i/] por ejemplo, Microsoft tiene que pagar mucho dinero a una empresa que, según este nuevo informe[http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/business/ci_17871202] “no tiene actualmente ninguna fuente de ingresos de las operaciones.”
Es un troll de patentes. Cuando Microsoft cierra áreas como la telefonía móvil (debido a sus fallas), la división móvil de Microsoft también se convertirá en un troll de patentes. Microsoft está ocupado tratando de extorsionar a todos los vendedores de Android/Linux, por lo que Google, a su vez, está compitiendo para heredar la cartera de patentes que en la actualidad ‘pertenece’ a Nortel. Hay una competencia sobre ella, según los informes de RIM [1[http://www.techeye.net/business/rim-competes-with-google-in-nortel-patent-buyout], 2[http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/rim-may-bid-against-google-for-nortel-patents-26933], 3[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-15/rim-said-weighing-bid-to-top-google-offer-for-nortel-patents-1-.html], 4[http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/04/17/rim-wants-to-outbid-google-apple-and-nokia-for-nor.aspx]], que es la última víctima de ser masivamente extorsionado por troll más grande del mundo de patentes, el propio Microsoft troll de patentes[http://techrights.org/2011/04/02/patent-trolls-vs-rim/], Intellectual Ventures[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Intellectual_Ventures] (que también extorsionó a Android, por lo menos en Samsung y HTC).
Aquí es una pieza nueva del piñón de Doug Lichtman[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/16/opinion/16Lichtman.html?_r=1] (en el New York Times). Implica más bien que afirma que la oficina de patentes ha sido subvertida por sanguijuelas como Intellectual Ventures. Para citar a: [a través de Groklaw]
El lunes la Corte Suprema de Justicia estudiará la posibilidad de alterar fundamentalmente la manera en que se litiga el derecho de patentes estadounidenses. En concreto, en el marco de un litigio de patentes de otro modo sin complicaciones, el Tribunal de Justicia se ha comprometido a decidir el grado en que a los jurados deben permitirse la pregunta de si una patente debería haberse expedido en absoluto.
Es una cuestión fundamental: el enfoque actual, en que los jurados están explícitamente desalentados a cuestionar la validez de una patente, demasiado a menudo significa que las patentes son dudosas, sin embargo forzadas. Que inhibe la innovación, la misma cosa que la ley de patentes que se supone que alentar.
[...]
Estos problemas podrían, en teoría, se arreglan con más dinero. Pero los recursos no son el único problema. El alcance y la calidad de las patentes en revisión por la Oficina también está limitada por el hecho de que el proceso no es contradictorio. De hecho, las únicas partes que participan en la revisión de patentes de la oficina son el demandante y los abogados del demandante – personas con un incentivo evidente para ver cómo se apruebe su aplicación. Compárese eso con el pleito, donde los demandantes de patentes que se enfrentarán contra los acusados de patentes muy motivados.
Lo último es realmente importante. ya que valida las llamadas a la abolición de la oficina de patentes o reiniciarla de modo que en realidad sirva al público y no a los grupos de presión de Bill Gates y su compadre Nathan Myhrvold[http://techrights.org/2011/04/04/bill-gates-exposed/]. Microsoft no quiere que las patentes de software se vayan del todo porque la gente allá arriba en la parte superior de Microsoft siguen cobrando, a costa de los demás. Eso es lo que las patentes simplemente son, el sueño de un monopolista. Apple no es mejor en ese sentido, por ejemplo, con su última demanda de patentes contra Linux[http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/991086-apple-sues-samsung-electronics-over-galaxy-phone-tab/page__pid__593906982#entry593906982]. Boicotemos Apple, sus caros imitadores. █
“Siempre hemos sido descarados robando grandes ideas.” -Steve Jobs
Translation produced by Eduardo Landaveri, the esteemed administrator of the Spanish portal of Techrights.
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04.16.11
Posted in Apple, FUD, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Security, Windows at 1:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The more Microsoft speaks against Google, the dumber it sounds, and top-level Microsoft staff keeps jumping off the Microsoft ship
MICROSOFT has lost its marbles and it is also losing major, long-standing, and lucrative contracts. To demonstrate just how bad things are for Microsoft, there is a wave of “security” FUD from Microsoft (champion of insecure software itself) against Google. Yes, that’s right. Microsoft is singing the merits of “security”. There is a bogus controversy over the subject and the story was pushed through heavily by the mobbyists of Microsoft. Groklaw rebuts the FUD:
If you were as puzzled as I was by the blog fight, as Geekwire calls it, between Google and Microsoft over whether or not Google was FISMA certified, then you will be glad to know I gathered up some of the documents from the case, Google et al v. USA, and they cause the mists to clear. I’ll show you what I found, but here’s the funny part — it turns out it’s Microsoft whose cloud services for government aren’t FISMA certified. And yet, the Department of the Interior chose Microsoft for its email and messaging cloud solution, instead of Google’s offering even though Google today explains that in actually its offering actually is. It calls Microsoft’s FUD “irresponsible”.
The case is being heard in the United States Court of Federal Claims. Google filed what is called a bid protest. The context is that the Department of the Interior wished to procure a cloud solution to unify and streamline its email and other messaging systems “while simultaneously reducing its risk of data security breaches”.
That’s the amazing part. If it wanted to reduce the risk of data security breaches, why would it choose Microsoft?
When Google had security issues it was because of Windows and Internet Explorer. Subsequently, Google dumped Windows and instructed all employees not to use it.
Is it not hilarious that Microsoft uses “security” as a sales pitch for its Windows toys?
On the security side, nothing goes right for Microsoft these days (new record highs on the vulnerability sheet) and even though journalists refuse to call out Windows, all Google employees — including those who were hired from Microsoft* — are forced to move off Windows and into something like GNU/Linux or Mac OS X. Here is a new example of an article which fails to name the operating system affected:
U.S. authorities claimed one of their biggest victories against cyber crime as they shut down a ring they said used malicious software to take control of more than 2 million PCs around the world, and may have led to theft of more than $100 million.
A computer virus, dubbed Coreflood, infected more than 2 million PCs, enslaving them into a “botnet” that grabbed banking credentials and other sensitive data its masters used to steal funds via fraudulent banking and wire transactions, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday.
GNU/Linux and Mac OS X users need not worry. They are gradually winning the operating systems war. They rise from the bottom (phones for example) and inevitably they’ll move upwards through sub-notebooks, tablets, etc. █
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* According to this new report, Microsoft exodus continues because “Kevin Timmons, who helped build the data centers that power Microsoft’s global cloud computing operation, has left the company and is expected to take a leadership position at Apple.”
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04.13.11
Posted in Apple, Bill Gates, Google, Patents at 5:46 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: When patents cost people their lives more pundits are willing to publicly admit that the patent system is unethical
MORE PEOPLE are speaking out against patents. The Atlantic, an influential publication by all measures, is seemingly fed up with some patents:
In a closely-watched oral argument Monday at a federal courthouse in Washington, the core questions of the case read like scripts from a college philosophy exam: are isolated human genes and the subsequent comparisons of their sequences patentable? Can one company own a monopoly on such genes without violating the rights of others? They are multi-billion dollar questions, the judicially-sanctioned answers to which will have enormous ramifications for the worlds of medicine, science, law, business, politics and religion.
Tell this to Bill Gates, who happens to promote companies of these sorts by giving them investment money, by lobbying for them, and also by hiring their staff to join and administer the Gates Foundation. Maybe when Gates meets Alzheimer he will change his mind, but never mind, Gates can afford to license some absurd patent to save his life. Others can’t. Mike Masnick is the latest to complain about this patent:
We keep hearing stories of important healthcare research being disrupted by patents, and the latest, as pointed out by Slashdot, involves an organization called the Alzheimer’s Institute of America… which happened to buy some patents on a DNA sequence, and is now suing or threatening to sue a ton of researchers in the space. Amusingly, AIA presents itself as an organization committed to supporting Alzheimer’s research, when it appears the organization is more focused on shaking down researchers.
More patent rants by Mike Masnick can be found in [1, 2]. He speaks about the patent problem wrt Google’s dilemma and the Hubris-ridden Apple, which also happens to be hurt by them recently (although not sufficiently). Google too is named: “A lawsuit filed by H-W Technology earlier this week in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Dallas Division claims Apple, Research In Motion, Google, and 29 other major technology companies are infringing on a patent it was granted in April 2009.”
We all know by now that the Northern District of Texas is a breeding ground for patent trolls. When will the USPTO get rebooted? █
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