07.06.15

Gemini version available ♊︎

There is No ‘New Microsoft’: Under Nadella, Patent Extortion Against Linux/Android Carries on

Posted in Site News at 5:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Kyocera

Summary: Kyocera is again being targeted by Microsoft, using patent aggression, with a secret settlement being reached whose negative impact on Android remains to be seen

AS LONGTIME readers may recall, back in 2007 Microsoft picked Kyocera for its anti-Linux patent campaign, leading us to years of research and protests, even when Kyocera adopted Android, only to be sued by Microsoft earlier this year (with ‘partners’ like these, who needs enemies?). Kyocera is not “just peanuts”; despite not being so well known in Western nations, this is a company with 68,185 employees (not much smaller than Microsoft, which is still on the process of shrinking based on what I privately get told by Microsoft staff).

“Kyocera is not allowed to speak about what Microsoft did to it, for that might damage Microsoft’s reputation or harm Microsoft’s future efforts to blackmail other companies using patents.”US News has this new article titled “Microsoft Seeks a Comeback – But Is It Too Late?” The article alleges that Microsoft is falling way behind Google/Android/Linux. No wonder Microsoft is has been in layoffs mode for half a decade or so, with pace of layoffs increasing over time. Microsoft is now relying more and more on patents; Kyocera is a victim again, as this time it actually fought in court (unlike that time in 2007 where it just bent over).

According to Tech Times, there has just been a secret settlement with all details unknown. Kyocera is not allowed to speak about what Microsoft did to it, for that might damage Microsoft’s reputation or harm Microsoft’s future efforts to blackmail other companies using patents.

“A few months ago,” Tech Times wrote, “Microsoft filed a lawsuit against Kyocera, claiming that three Android smartphones from the Japanese company violated seven Microsoft patents. The smartphones in question were the Duraforce (pictured), Brigadier and Hydro. The patents, meanwhile, cover a wide range of mobile technologies that Microsoft alleged the Android devices violated.

“Microsoft has dozens of licensing agreements in place with Android OEMs, including Samsung, but it will not back out of a litigation if it doesn’t reach an amicable agreement. Microsoft went after Kyocera in March, asking a Seattle court for a U.S. sales ban on the three phones that infringed its patents.”

Microsoft is euphemistically calling racketeering “Technology Sharing Agreement” in its short press release. To quote the Microsoft press release: “In addition to strengthening the partnership between the two companies, it also resolves a patent-infringement lawsuit brought earlier this year in U.S. District Court. The remaining details of the agreement are confidential.”

The words “strengthening the partnership” serve to insinuate that Microsoft uses patent pressure (and rising litigation costs) to coerce Kyocera into becoming Microsoft’s vassal, just as Microsoft did to Samsung shortly before suing Kyocera (March 2015).

The Samsung settlement had conditions from Microsoft, essentially turning Samsung’s Android devices into “Microsoft Android” devices (this has actually been confirmed since the settlement, after mere speculations and rumours). So, there is nothing peaceful about it. This is blackmail. The loaded gun of the Mafia in this case is a pile of patents, usually software patents.

Tech Times does not cover any of this, but the report concludes with: “It remains unclear, however, just how much Kyocera will pay to use Microsoft’s patents.”

So it is possible that Microsoft got Kyocera to pay Microsoft for Android and also preinstall Microsoft malware on future Kyocera handsets. How nice of Microsoft… what a peaceful company.

Looking for any additional takes on this, we only found a proponent of software patents (“AmeriKat”) commenting poorly in a lawyers’ blog. Remarking on these attacks on Android, he wrote that “Kyocera follows Barnes and Noble, Foxconn, Invetec and Samsung in the line of companies that have recently settled with Microsoft.”

“It’s about Microsoft forcing companies to turn to Windows or “Microsoft Android”, making malware with surveillance (spyware) mandatory installed apps.”It’s hardly a settlement. It’s extortion. Microsoft essentially killed Barnes and Noble by tilting it in Windows’ direction in exchange for a so-called ‘settlement’ (we wrote a lot about this) and Samsung did this in exchange for becoming courier of Microsoft rather than an Android company. Kyocera may turn out to be just more of the same. It’s about Microsoft forcing companies to turn to Windows or “Microsoft Android”, making malware with surveillance (spyware) mandatory installed apps.

Curiously enough, in China (where many Microsoft bits of software are now officially banned for use by government agencies) Samsung is now facing a lawsuit over installed apps. We may safely assume that since Samsung agreed to preinstall Microsoft malware on many of its devices (after patent extortion) the Chinese government won’t be too happy. To quote the Shanghai Daily, “Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission yesterday formally announced it has taken legal action against manufacturers Samsung and Oppo over their practice of pre-installing apps on their smartphones.

“The Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court said on Wednesday it had accepted separate cases against Tianjin Samsung Telecommunications Technology Co Ltd and Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Co Ltd.

“We may safely assume that since Samsung agreed to preinstall Microsoft malware on many of its devices, the Chinese government won’t be too happy.”“Tao Ailian, secretary-general of the commission, said it filed the public interest lawsuits after investigating complaints from the public about unwanted apps.

“In a study of 20 smartphones, the commission found several that were sold with apps already installed, many of which could not be removed. It also claimed that some phones “stole” cellular data.”

For many users of Galaxy devices, Microsoft malware is clearly “unwanted apps”, so maybe the Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission should also go after Microsoft, both for racketeering, for bundling, and maybe also for mass surveillance, for which it is most notorious (far worse than Google).

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Richard Stallman's Talk is in Two Hours and There's a BigBlueButton Livestream

    Dr. Stallman is in Italy to give talks at universities this week; he will soon give a live talk, accessible in his site or directly at the source



  2. Links 06/06/2023: Angie 1.2.0, New EasyOS and EndeavourOS Released

    Links for the day



  3. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: OpenKuBSD, GrapheneOS, and More

    Links for the day



  4. Links 06/06/2023: OpenSUSE Plans for Leap

    Links for the day



  5. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: Bubble 4.0, Neutral News, and Older Bits

    Links for the day



  6. IBM's War on Open (Look at the Pattern of Layoffs at Red Hat)

    By abandoning OpenSource.com and OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice IBM sends out a clear signal that it doesn’t understand or simply does not care about the community of Free software users; its siege against the FSF and other institutions never ended and today we look at who’s being laid off or shown the door (the work environment is intentionally being made worse)



  7. Links 06/06/2023: IceWM 3.4.0 and Liveslak 1.7.0

    Links for the day



  8. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: Apple Might Kill VR, Tea Tea Deluxe 1.2.7 and Tea Land

    Links for the day



  9. IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 05, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, June 05, 2023



  10. Links 05/06/2023: Debian 12 Almost Ready, Hong Kong 'Cannot' Remember Tiananmen Massacre

    Links for the day



  11. Gemini Links 05/06/2023: New Ship in Cosmic Voyage, Stack Overflow Moderator Strike

    Links for the day



  12. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 04, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, June 04, 2023



  13. Links 04/06/2023: Unifont 15.0.05 and PCLinuxOS Stuff

    Links for the day



  14. Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Wayland and the Old Computer Challenge

    Links for the day



  15. StatCounter: GNU/Linux (Including ChromeOS) Grows to 8% Market Share Worldwide

    This month’s numbers from StatCounter are good for GNU/Linux (including ChromeOS, which technically has both GNU and Linux); the firm assesses logs from 3 million sites and shows Windows down to 66% in desktops/laptops (a decade ago it was above 90%) with modest growth for GNU/Linux, which is at an all-time high, even if one does not count ChromeOS that isn’t freedom- or privacy-respecting



  16. Journalism Cannot and Quite Likely Won't Survive on the World Wide Web

    We’re reaching the point where the overwhelming majority of new pages on the Web (the World Wide Web) are basically junk, sometimes crafted not by humans; how to cope with this rapid deterioration is still an unknown — an enigma that demands hard answers or technical workarounds



  17. Do Not Assume Pensions Are Safe, Especially When Managed by Mr. EPOTIF Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos

    With the "hoax" that is the financial assessment by António Campinos (who is deliriously celebrating the inauguration of illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo courts) we urge EPO workers to check carefully the integrity of their pensions, seeing that pension promises have been broken for years already



  18. Links 04/06/2023: Why Flatpak and Wealth of Devices With GNU/Linux

    Links for the day



  19. Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Rosy Crow 1.1.3 and NearlyFreeSpeech.NET

    Links for the day



  20. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 03, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, June 03, 2023



  21. Links 04/06/2023: Azure Outage Again (So Many!) and Tiananmen Massacre Censored

    Links for the day



  22. Links 03/06/2023: Qubes OS 4.2.0 RC1 and elementaryOS Updates for May

    Links for the day



  23. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Hidden Communities and Exam Prep is Not Education

    Links for the day



  24. Links 03/06/2023: IBM Betraying LibreOffice Some More (After Laying off LibreOffice Developers)

    Links for the day



  25. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Bubble Woes and Zond Updates

    Links for the day



  26. Links 03/06/2023: Apache NetBeans 18 and ArcaOS 5.0.8

    Links for the day



  27. IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 02, 2023

    IRC logs for Friday, June 02, 2023



  28. The Developing World Abandons Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux at All-Time Highs on Desktops/Laptops

    Microsoft, with 80 billion dollars in longterm debt and endless layoffs, is losing the monopolies; the media doesn’t mention this, but some publicly-accessible data helps demonstrate that



  29. Links 02/06/2023: Elive ‘Retrowave’ Stable and Microsoft's Half a Billion Dollar Fine for LinkeIn Surveillance in Europe

    Links for the day



  30. Linux Foundation 'Research' Has a New Report and Of Course It Uses Only Proprietary Software

    The Linux Foundation has a new report, promoted by Clickfraud Spamnil and others; of course they’re rejecting Free software, they’re just riding the “Linux” brand and speak of “Open Source” (which they reject themselves)


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts