Bonum Certa Men Certa

Big Figures for Big Impact: Academics Versus Lobbyists

Education
Patent lawyers' propaganda does not stack up



Summary: New numbers from Bessen et al. and the latest propaganda from a UK-based front group for 'IP'

FOLLOWING the newest study from Bessen and his co-workers, there is press coverage estimating the cost of patent trolls at about half a trillion dollars. The figure as it appears in headlines might not be accurate, but it does have an impact and it can help squash patent trolls. We are quite used to seeing the Business Software Alliance commissioning the likes of IDC (at the behest of Microsoft et al.) to put out there some bogus figures which have the very opposite effect, so maybe this is a case of using scholarly work to battle lobbying. "Federation Against Software Theft" is another new body we saw emerging in a press release a couple of days ago. It says: "The new small claims service being introduced at the Patents County Court (PCC) in 2012 will help small and medium sized software businesses protect their copyright, trademarks and designs, reports the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST)."



Sounds like lobbying for patents on someone else's behalf. At the bottom it says that "The Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) was formed in 1984. FAST is a not-for-profit organisation limited by guarantee and wholly owned by its members. It was the first organisation to protect software publishers’ rights and advances its mission through education, enforcement and policy initiatives, together with promoting standards and best practice in the professional management of software. FAST advocates IP for growth. www.fast.org.uk "

IP growth, eh? It's funny that they have a .org.uk domain while they probably just serve as a front group of multinationals like Warner or Microsoft. Historically, we are less used to seeing this body fronting for patents and more used to seeing it involved in copyrights maximalism.

In other news, there is this continued push to put patents on just about anything, which leads to a stunning debate that ought to have been trivial. Some companies wish to patent life itself. To quote: "Oral arguments begin today on two separate cases, which don’t involve biotech firms but will affect the industry."

It also says: "Both Akamai and McKesson have found support from two biopharma groups and one company in amicus curiae filings. Myriad Genetics offered insight into industry thinking: Since the Human Genome Project, the company noted, companies cannot obtain patents for fundamental composition of matter, since almost all of the human genome, all its encoded proteins, and analyses of those molecular markers, are deemed prior art."

They actually wanted a patent on life and the Genome Project famously stopped them (to a degree). How did things get so bad to begin with? Not every piece of knowledge should be treated as "property" that can be sold of leased. It's an outrageous suggestion to do so. Here is some news about patents being sold. It says that "Cryptocard has acquired the patents and intellectual property of GrIDsure, a UK pattern-based authentication start-up that became insolvent earlier this month. Term of the deal, announced Friday, were undisclosed."

So basically this company was just a bunch of patents and it failed. Who would have guessed? Based on this news, there are predators out there looking just for patent monopolies to pick from defunct (or up for sale) companies so that they can extract fees without really doing anything. And as noted before, Doom 3 too is now suffering from patents, so despite goodwill from Carmack, we have no source code yet. "Games programming icon John Carmack," says one article, "has been advised to rewrite some of the Doom 3 code to pave the way for its open-source release." There is more about it here. The patent system does not encourage innovation, it is just an expensive nuisance as it stands. Software developers do not want that.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries