Bonum Certa Men Certa

Android/Linux in the Age of Patent Trolls, Software Patents, and Frivolous Litigation


Jobs image licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (version 1.2 or any later versions); Ellison patch By Thomas Hawk



Summary: News update about the US patent system and the largest lawsuits against Android

THE Android platform is soon being recognised by all and quickly becoming the centre of development, alongside iOS and Windows for the most part. Linux is no longer a marginal and marginalised kernel; it cannot be marginalised. Android is said to be heading towards desktops, but it is all quite speculative although Google once said that it would try to sort of merge Android and ChromeOS, leveraging acquired dominance of one to ensure another. So Android might be poised to destroy Windows, on the desktop too.



"So Android might be poised to destroy Windows, on the desktop too."Android is being attacked by Apple and Microsoft, primarily through patent litigation. There is legislation in the pipeline that can bring change, but until it does, we expect the duopoly to attack Android, sometimes by proxy (patent trolls).

We count not on the suggested reform (the bill can be shot down) because although the US public would overwhelmingly support it, parliament is funded by and run by corporations. Unless members of Congress have their career jeopardised (like in the case of ACTA or SOPA), they are likely to silently vote against public interests. Patent lawyers too remain the well-funded parasites with their nonsensical propaganda, producing the usual nonsense and claiming that "growth" comes from monopolies (patents). Here is a new example of this type of propaganda. The government is now giving more money to patent lawyers in Ireland, based on this new report titled "Tax break for patents a vital step in stimulus". Oh, really?

To quote a part of the article: "Coulter, who is the managing partner of Tughans, one of the North’s largest commercial law firms, says there are five key aspects to the patent box that Northern Ireland companies should bear in mind..."

Why should we take the word of lawyers? They are not the producers of anything, they are merely the leech here (no offence to leeches intended).

While some are somewhat reformed in their views, others show their real zealotry for software patents. We named some of them before.

So anyway, Oracle lost the biggest case against Android and it will retry, as expected. "Oracle has now filed its Opposition," writes Pamela Jones, "to Google's motion for a Rule 50(b) judgment as a matter of law or, in the alternative, for a new trial. This is all about rangeCheck, those 9 lines of code. Is rangeCheck, as Google argues, de minimis as a matter of law? Oracle argues not, and in fact, up to now, Oracle's arguments prevailed."

"Unless members of Congress have their career jeopardised (like in the case of ACTA or SOPA), they are likely to silently vote against public interests."In Apple's case against Samsung there are parasites too. The only major winner here is the patents profession, which mostly comprises lawyers. Jones, a paralegal, writes: "I want to show you a little trick that will help you understand trial testimony. I'll use Apple's Trial Brief [PDF], which we have now as text, in the Apple v. Samsung litigation, just because it's current, but this works with any civil trial. Then I want to show you, again using Apple's trial brief, why Samsung may have felt it needed to stir things up a bit last week.

"You have probably seen articles in the media about the testimony of Phil Schiller and other recent Apple witnesses, where some seemed to wonder why the lawyer wasn't asking questions with more punch. Why go on and on about ad campaigns and how much money they spend on it? It may be interesting. But what does it prove? Why should the jury hear about that? Why does the lawyer ask about ad campaigns in a trial about patents, design patents, and trade dress? I'd like to show you."

As Mr.Pogson puts it, Apple got caught lying and to quote his points:

* Joswiak’s declaration to the court in Apple v Samsung:“The surveys reveal, country-by-country, what is driving our customers to buy Apple’s iPhone products versus other products such as the Android products that Samsung sells, what features they most use, our customers’ demographics and their level of satisfaction with different aspects of iPhone.” * Apple looked at rounded corners produced by Sony years before iThingies had them…“The Walkman digital-music player recently got a makeover. Its corners have been rounded out, “ * Samsung developed rounded corners before iPhone was released despite Apple telling the world that Samsung copied Apple. * There’s plenty of evidence Apple also recycled others designs… I remember Braun. They had lots of rounded corners.

Well, Apple, Samsung both claim innovator status in opening of patent trial, but what about other companies that inspired both? As Wired puts it, "Samsung’s attorney Kevin Johnson eventually got his turn to question Forstall. Johnson focused on internal Apple documents to illustrate how Apple looked to competitors, particularly Samsung, for inspiration."

Of course. Apple's spiritual leader (and the man behind the patent aggression) admitted that Apple had been shameless about such behaviour. To quote: "We've always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

"But Apple erected more walls around its garden."Recently, Apple was seen deviating from UNIX after it had imitated it and took away (one must say "stole) it. Here is the latest: "OS X Mountain Lion not only ships without X11, but actually removes X11 from your computer when you upgrade. If you're not familiar with X11, it's a networked graphical user interface that geeks and systems administrators alike use all the time, every day to connect to and run various UNIX applications. It might not sound like a mainstream feature, and it isn't, but it's something that let me and people like me do our jobs using the Mac. It let me connect to work via ssh and use X11 forwarding to view terminal applications, use tsclient, vnc etc... It let me be an Apple customer. And now it's gone.

"My roots in UNIX and Linux, and I've always enjoyed using and tweaking them to my hearts content, from Gentoo, to FreeBSD to Ubuntu. A couple of years ago, I got tired of the tweaking and just wanted a beautiful Unix experience out of the box, where I could use Terminals, ssh connections, and X11 to keep getting work done, but have all the bells and whistles of a commercial operating system as well. I went with Mac OS X due to it’s BSD lineage and because it looked nice too. I could stay in Terminal all day, and enjoy the experience."

But Apple erected more walls around its garden. It no longer feels like it needs to play nice. It took the code of volunteer developers; now that it's big Apple is essentially suing the work of some of these developers.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
 
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Motorcycling in Central Oregon, Protocol Styles and the Flag of Sark
Links for the day
Links 30/09/2025: Death Sentences, Internet Censorship, and Internet Shutdowns
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Social Control Media and ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
Richard Stallman About to Give More Talks in Europe, Some Confirmed Already
In Göteborg
Links 30/09/2025: CERN in "Have I Been Pwned" and More Windows TCO Blunders
Links for the day
Microsoft Canonical is Selling Mass Surveillance and Back Doors as "Security for Ubuntu"
If you are looking for a GNU/Linux distro to use, just remember that Microsoft has Ubuntu in the bag
Justice for Wildlife
animals cannot speak to humans who hate animals
Cowboys Gonna Be Cowboys (on the Internet, They're Not a New Problem)
Boys will be boys
Cowboys of the "Left" and Cowboys of the "Right"
Don't believe the lie that this is some "leftist" thing
When Codes of Conduct Serve to Protect Criminals From Much-Deserved Scrutiny
CoCs are typically unfit for purpose because enforcement lacks context and suitable understanding of the full background (the "full story")
It Took the Open Source Initiative (OSI) 4+ Years to Address the 'Data Breach' or Data Protection Violation Reported to the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) in March 2025
We may never know the dialogue or its nature
Even Microsoft's Biggest Boosters (and Media Operatives) Are Turning Against Microsoft
Expect many more layoffs before the fake "results" next month
GNU Was Right 42+ Years Ago
Since then the abusive, user-hostile technology has spread like mushrooms
Old Isn't Always Inadequate
How many gadgets manufactured today (in 2025) will still work in 2075?
The Monkey Business of Rust People
Compatibility won't matter
Almost Half of the FSFE's Money (the Fake 'FSF', Misusing the Brand) Comes From Vodafone
That money always comes with strings, even if they're invisible to most of us
Microsoft Lunduke Spreads Deliberate Lies to Incite Online Mobs
Has he lost his reading comprehension skills?
Our 19th Birthday (in Just Over 5 Weeks From Now)
We meanwhile have ongoing, solid plans to cover patent-related issues when the FSF turns 40
British GNU/Linux Distro FydeOS Tops DistroWatch
That seems like a decent site and decent effort to keep an eye on
We'll Soon Have 75,000 GemText Pages
avoid many perils of today's Web
Google Used Free Software to Build a Monopoly. Now Google Kicks Free Software to the Curb
The "G" in "Google" does not stand for GNU. It never did. It's just another greedy company.
Gemini Links 30/09/2025: Retro Hardware, Federated Fragmentation, and Nex Server Written in C
Links for the day
4 More Days Till "4 decades, 4 freedoms, 4 all users"
We are now just 4 days away from the rare anniversary
Two Months After Merging to Hide GitHub Losses Microsoft is Doing It Again (This Time Windows)
Merging those two together is not a sign of strength but a tightening of budget
Speculations About the Next Large Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs
the mass layoffs are likely to happen on week 3 or 4 in October
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 29, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 29, 2025