Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Publishes List of its Offensive (Weaponised) Software Patents While Google De-Weaponises Its Own

Two companies, two entirely different stories and strategies

GNU Google



Summary: PR moves from a patent aggressor and a notable patent victim which might be preparing for reactive lawsuits

A huge number of sites covered the news from Google, with the notion of 'free' software patents. How silly is that? Well, as put better by another site, "Google’s Open Patent Non-Assertion Pledge: Don’t start nothin’, there won’t be nothin’."



Microsoft, conversely, as a form of threat and PR did this:

Microsoft today launched a searchable list of its complete patent portfolio as part of its defense of the patent system, particularly software patents.


Now that mobile patents are extensively used in litigation and a quarter of issued patents are on mobile (Microsoft still aggressively patents mobile ideas), we expect this list to be used for extortion more than anything. It's like an arsenal of nuclear weapons to be used to strike patent deals.

The newspeak of extortion as "transparency" is laughable. Watch the longtime Microsoft booster helping the PR by using this "transparency" buzzword in his headline:

Microsoft this morning published a searchable online list of its patent holdings — more than 40,000 patents held by the company and its subsidiaries in the U.S. and internationally — as part of its push for more transparency in the patent system.



What a load of nonsense. It is just hogwash.

Is Microsoft trying to steal Google's thunder after Google followed the footsteps of Twitter, as we had urged it to do last year? The headline above is not an accurate headline, it is marketing. Here is another poor headline about the real news:

Google announced a “patent pledge” in which it will donate 10 patents related to MapReduce to protect the emerging cloud and big data industry from lawsuits.


The Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge is better than no pledge but not better than no patents. Here is more about it:

Google just announced the Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge, a new initiative whereby the company has promised not to sue developers, distributors, and users of open source software utilizing Mountain View's patents "unless first attacked." In introducing the good faith effort, Google is reiterating its passion and support for all things open. "Open-source software has been at the root of many innovations in cloud computing, the mobile web, and the Internet generally," writes Duane Valz, Google's senior patent counsel. "We remain committed to an open Internet — one that protects real innovation and continues to deliver great products and services."

The company isn't throwing its entire patent portfolio up for grabs, however. Quite the opposite: it's starting small, contributing a mere ten patents to the pledge. Google claims these patents are already in wide use and that it will eventually expand the set of Google-owned patents that fall under the pledge.


The original announcement generated press not only in FOSS sites but also large news sites [1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23]. The smart folks at TechDirt correctly point out that this might be a prelude to patent lawsuits from Google (preparation and damage control in expectation of negative press), as outlined here. One of our readers asked, "OIN all over again?"

Here is one of the most cited articles about it. it's from Wired:

Behind the scenes, just about all of the web’s biggest names are mimicking Google. That includes Facebook, Yahoo, eBay, Twitter and so many more.

All of these web giants rely on Hadoop, an open source software platform for crunching data across hundreds or even thousands of computer servers, and Hadoop is based on technology originally developed at Google. A little less than a decade ago, Google published two research papers describing some of the software that juggles data inside its data centers, including a platform called MapReduce, and in short order, a community of software developers — led by Facebook and Yahoo — recreated these tools with open source code.


Expect Google to sue more, but only against companies that sued first.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Two Risks to Companies: The Microsoft Culture and the Microsoft Tools
Novell was killed by a form of "social engineering" by Microsoft
It's Hard to Trust People Who Worked - Not Only Those Who Still Work - at Microsoft
Bryan Lunduke is just what people would call an "arsehole of a person"
Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
Links for the day
The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
“Twibel” Actions Against Comedians (and Why It's a Truly Low Blow)
they try to make up in quantities for a lack of merit or quality
 
[Video] "Copyleft Isn't a Bug."
"Copyleft isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. GNU GPL forced the world to treat code like a public good."
Being in Social Control Media Means Exposing Oneself to Heckling
Richard Stallman does not (either himself or directly) post to any social control media
Links 06/07/2025: Airlines Perils, Scams, and Breaches
Links for the day
For the Second Time, Bryan Lunduke From Microsoft is Siccing Racist Trolls and Vandals at Me
You're only reinforcing the point we made yesterday
Links 06/07/2025: End to End Encryption at Risk, Reuters Twitter ("X") Account Withheld in India
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
Links for the day
PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
let's just be patient
Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
IBM is Not Your Master
IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.
Linux Foundation Apparently Flirting With Slop (Marketing by LLM-Generated SPAM)
The Web is in a really bad state!
COVID-19 Sped Up Site Improvements in Techrights
A few months later we created our very own IRC network
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: Negative Questions and 'Touching Grass' (Going Outside)
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Dalai Lama Succession as 90th Birthday Approaches, 40 deg C in China
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Hungary and US Defecting to Russia, "Google's Hotseat Hypocrisy"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: 4th of July 2025 and "Zig Roadmap 2026"
Links for the day
How to Combat the Exploitation and Abuse by Microsoft GitHub
Not to mention corruption and crimes against women
Bryan Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People
"[Lunduke] is actually sending his audience to attack people."
Even The Right Wing is Rejecting Bryan Lunduke
no wonder he became so irrelevant and marginal
Microsoft's MSN Helps Microsoft Spread Lies About the Layoffs' Scale (Well Over 25,000 People Laid Off This Year)
There seem to be monopolies on lies and on truth
The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
X.Org Server is alive and well
Rewriting Things in Rust
How far would you go?
In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
Monopolies and Scalping
Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
"August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
LLM slop disguised as news
Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
Links for the day
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead