Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents Roundup: Bad System, Clear Symptoms

Apple is one of those symptoms

Apple with heart



Summary: A mixture of news about patents and software patents in particular

THE EVER-waning patent system gets more and more unpopular as people recognise trolling and entities close to the government have a chance to correct things. Quoting one news item, we have:



Supreme Court case could end costly patent trolling



The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case in December that could have major implications for the future of American business and a significant impact on companies in the Rochester area.


And sadly, however, the SCOTUS rarely helps people, it helps corporations [1, 2]. Maybe it will surprise us all for the better this time around. According to the Boston Globe independent studies provide clear guidance, unlike for example all that propaganda from patent lawyers and their clients. Even Amazon's chief has grown tired of software patents, as we noted the other day. There is big business around taxing technology with unnecessary barb-wire and even promotional evens for those who drink the Kool-Aide. Scientists need to expel this element which is eating away at productive jobs, replacing them with excess bureaucracy.

Over at TechDirt there is realisation that Open Source is again being harmed by patents:

Potential Patent Infringement Threatens To Doom Highly Anticipated Open Source Project



John Carmack, the guy behind the Doom series of games, has alway been a supporter of open source software. He has in the past released the source code for the original Doom and Quake to the open source community. This open access has led to Doom and Quake being used in a variety of ways and has allowed numerous people to learn how to make games. It has really come as no surprise that Carmack has decided to open source the code for Doom 3. What is surprising though is that move has been held up due to an old patent infringement suit.


OSS Watch covered this as well:

Just a quick one on the subject of open source and patents. John Carmack is well known in gaming circles as the lead programmer behind such classic PC and console games as Castle Wolfenstein, Doom (and sequels) and Quake (and most of its sequels). Carmack and his company id software are the originators of the ‘First Person Shooter’ genre of game which has in turn spawned such gigantic franchises as Call of Duty and Halo. As well as being technical pioneers, id has an interesting policy of releasing their old engine technology (the software which renders the game’s video and audio) as open source under the GNU GPL v2. This allows students of gaming software development to look at how real commercial games software is written, and also allows the games to be ported to new hardware platforms by volunteers. As the art and sound assets are not included with the code, this also generates a small market for licences to old id games – games which may well not run on more modern operating systems – in order to get the game data for use with the aforementioned ports.


Coverage about this was consistently negative in the sense that authors are disappointed about patents having this effect. Those who use patents are typically companies that are unable to make decent products. According to news report, Android is kicking Apple's behind and Apple has "Complain[ed] About “Total War” Apple Started", which we found rather amusing. According to this:

Apple's lawyers have accused Samsung of waging all-out patent war in the latest battleground for the world-spanning dispute between the two firms.

The tech giants are now in Paris to argue over Samsung's attempt to get a preliminary injunction against the iPhone 4S in France, based on alleged infringement of its 3G patents.


Remember who started this. We'll write more about Apple in a separate post.

Charles tackles some common misconceptions about innovation and patents in a blog post that says:

Innovation is not a mystery and I don’t think that you can track how it works. You can assume that a certain set of circumstances and an environment letting people code start-ups emerge and Free & Open Source Software projects grow will ultimately translate into something that someone, whether a journalist, consultant, politicians or venture capitalists will call innovation. Anything else besides that, innovation sounds more like vapor and magical boxes. This should probably express what I feel about software patents, by the way.

One last thing: Innovation is different than progress. Progress is usually applied to fields that do not necessarily belong to science or technology; it can be more a perception and may concern society as a whole. Yet the interesting thing is that while progress seems to be an even more elusive term than innovation, you can actually tell progress from regression or stagnation: people perceive it almost immediately, however relative it sometimes may be.


Apple is not innovative by the way. It's all overblown. Patents are not indicative of innovation, either. The same goes for sales. There is that infamous patent which appears in the news again and helps demonstrate what patents really are about. To quote: "The suits were filed in the District Court of Massachusetts, asserting infringement of the '502 patent.

"The '502 patent is directed to novel and groundbreaking methods and systems for facilitating interaction between object-oriented software programmes and relational databases. As such, the patented technology has become fundamental to the development of numerous enterprise software applications, including business intelligence and data mining products, Amphion said."

If this is what precludes innovation, then the word innovation lost its meaning. The SCOTUS needs to do something about it, but it probably won't.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Lufthansa Modern Slavery, Joerg Jaspert (ganneff) & Debian NSB Softwareentwicklung charade
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 16/10/2025: US Starting More Trade Wars With China, CIA War on Venezuela
Links for the day
SUSE Blog is Still LLM Slop, Marketing Manager at SUSE Cannot Write
Would you buy from a company or seek support from a company that cannot even write (or fakes writing)?
Pretend You're Not Dead: Microsoft Spent Almost Two Decades Rebranding Things as "Cloud, Then "AI", Now "XBox" and "Quantum"
"AI" bubble pops, Microsoft harping about "quantum" already
IBM Allegedly Found New Tricks for Silent Layoffs: LPI, Then MIS (Not PIP)
Remember that "Red Hat layoffs" won't be reported after the bluewashing
Links 16/10/2025: Red Lines and Feeding of Microsoft Trolls
Links for the day
MIT as a Propaganda Mill of GAFAM, Paid by GAFAM
"the news" today
Links 16/10/2025: Lies Euphemised as ‘Dueling Versions of Reality’ and Microsoft "Open" "Hey Hi" Resorts to Porn as No Business Model Was Found
Links for the day
The Local Staff Committee Munich (Representation of the EPO's Staff) Explains When Cluster of Pregnancies May Result in Reduced Pay
"...even one week of part-time working is sufficient to reduce the salary you perceive during the entirety of your maternity leave."
Another Black Eye for 'Secure Boot', Microsoft Media Tries to Blame "Linux"
It enables Microsoft to remotely control computers, even computers that don't run Windows and never had any Microsoft software installed
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT, linuxsecurity.com, and Various Slopfarms in Google News Attacking "Linux"
A new survey of the Web said that the majority of the Web is now slop (that's being said in the news this week)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 15, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Links 16/10/2025: Increased Use of Social Control Media Surveillance in US, French Rage Over Pensions
Links for the day
Links 15/10/2025: Qantas Airways Loses Control of Sensitive Data and Software Patents Are Being Thrown Out
Links for the day
Vista 10 is 'Dead', Here's Why People Should Move to GNU/Linux (or the BSDs)
Today we try to make an outline of reasons move away from Windows to GNU/Linux
Our Sites Continue to Improve
LLM slop has had no noticeable impact on us
Gemini Links 15/10/2025: Neovim, Helix Compared and Gemlog.blue Now Closed
Links for the day
Links 15/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon, OneDrive Spyware Revved Up, More 'Gen Z Protests'
Links for the day
The EPO's Staff Engagement Survey 2025 is Already Tainted by Intimidation by EPO Management (Trying to Influence Outcomes by Scaring Genuine, Honest Critics)
"[W]e have received reports that, following the previous survey, teams with negative responses were reproached or questioned about their answers..."
The DDoS Attacks by Microsoft's Scam Altman and Other Slop Charlatans and Frauds is Hurting the FSF, Delinking It From Copyleft Projects
This impacts a lot more than access to the licences
Microsoft Scanning Faces in Photos People Upload to Microsoft (Even Unconsciously), Slashdot Turns Report About It Into "Microsoft Sez" (Says)
Or "let's repeat the lies from a PR person/Microsoft's publicist"
[Teaser] Angel Aledo Lopez the Manipulator (Nepotism, Poll Rigging, and Other EPO Corruption)
We'll discuss this later today or tomorrow, based on internal EPO material
Attacks on Techrights Are Only Making Techrights Bigger and Even More Popular
A week ago they offered to settle with us
Epic Metaphor for End of IBM: "The IBM Demolition is Down to the Last Shards!"
Nothing lasts forever
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 14, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Proprietary and DRM Prisons Spiralling Down the Sinkhole? Not Just Yet.
Let's hope that more people will flee to GNU/Linux
The European Patent Office (EPO), the Second-Largest Institution in Europe, is Cracking Down on Recreational Activities
Without AMICALE activities, and as staff already says it's pressured to work more for less, how can the EPO recruit bright people?
Transparency: FSFE financial reports exclude speaker fees and expenses
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Many Developers Have Many Political Views, They'll Never Agree on Everything
It's an effort to divide and destroy, not build
Gemini Links 14/10/2025: An Opportunity to Consider GNU/Linux and Another Simple IRC Client
Links for the day
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT, LinuxSecurity, Google News, and the Serial Slopper Brian Fagioli
Nothing of merit here, just more slop
Links 14/10/2025: Lack of Trust in Slop and "Retirement Challenges"
Links for the day
EPO Staff Can Go Listen to Richard Stallman Next Week in Munich (Technical University of Munich, Rudolf-Diesel Hörsaal (MW2001) on Campus Garching at 18:00)
"The talk is open to the public and attendance is free. Registration is not required."
Rhonda D'Vine, Gerfried Fuchs, Pronouns & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
At IBM, Relocation Means Layoffs (Downsizing)
Silent or 'invisible' layoffs?
Central Staff Committee of the European Patent Office (EPO) Warns That EPO Management is Robbing or Manipulating Pension Funds Again
Faking "growth" is just about as bad as forgery
Probably a Lot Worse Than LLM Slop: GNOME Tying Itself to Divisive Politics, Even Where It's Clearly Not Relevant
Something has gone terribly wrong in GNOME
Links 14/10/2025: Microsoft OneDrive Scanning Faces in Photos (Without Asking First), "OpenAI Says It Will Move to Allow Smut"
Links for the day
They Generally Don't Like Scholars, as They're Less Compelled or Pressured to Repeat What Corporations and Oligarchs Say
People who loathe scholars have an agenda in mind that, unlike that of reasonable people, revolves around controlling people
Dystopian Trends in Technology Make Richard Stallman More Relevant Than Ever
It's good to see him attracting vast audiences
Belated New Article About Last Thursday's Lecture by Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
there are good reasons to pay with cash, not limited to privacy
Attacking Richard Stallman Has Become 'Career Suicide'
If you're going to viciously attack somebody, make sure your arguments are rock-solid
Microsoft's Failing XBox Business Has Turned Games Into Funerals
How does it feel to depend on Microsoft?
Yesterday's "Distinguished Lecture" by Richard Stallman Possibly Attended by Close to 1,000 People
The capacity of the place is about 900
Slop Poisons Everything
Imagine wanting to find what Torvalds has just said or what has just been released
Taking Software Freedom 'Mainstream'
interest in Software Freedom must have grown
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 13, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 13, 2025
Gemini Links 14/10/2025: Ada Lovelace Day, Sony CLIE PEG-TG50 Review, Why to Avoid Network Solutions
Links for the day
Richard Stallman (RMS) Announced His Talk Less Than 24 Hours Before It Took Place and Still Filled Up the Auditorium at Sapienza Università di Roma
Photos from yesterday evening [...] It looks like it was a very successful event