12.03.17

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Famed Journalist Dan Gillmor Calls IBM the Inventor of Patent Trolling

Posted in Free/Libre Software, IBM, Patents at 5:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Often attributed to Ray Niro though

Dan GillmorSummary: IBM’s growing focus on patent litigation — often with software patents — has not escaped the attention of people who are sympathetic towards Free/Libre Open Source software and IBM’s roots/inclinations when it comes to patent aggression (famously a subject of concern to Microsoft several decades ago) aren’t forgotten in light of recent activity, made visible owing to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) IPRs and few recent lawsuits

IBM has this highly bloated “Diversity & Inclusion” page to which it linked some days ago, stating: “Kimberly has filed 60 patents in the last four years. What’s her secret? Watch her story.”

That’s just a lot of patent propaganda. IBM likes to work behind closed doors in order to extract money out of companies (without it spilling over to courts, albeit PTAB often gets petitioned to invalidate IBM’s patents, whereupon these extortion/’patent assertion’ activities of IBM are made more visible).

“We hope that IBM is at least aware of its declining reputation among people who support Free software. They can see that IBM is a predator whose interests in several areas directly conflict with and harm Free software.”About a decade ago we were quite supportive of IBM, but nowadays the company attacks GNU/Linux-using firms and aggressively lobbies for software patents (we wrote about 20 articles about it). IBM is not what it used to be.

In response to the above, Dan Gillmor wrote: “She works for a company that basically invented patent trolling and employs platoons of patent lawyers?”

“IBM is the biggest patent troll,” the FFII’s Benjamin Henrion responded, “trying to rewrite the law in order to reinstall software patents in the US.”

We hope that IBM is at least aware of its declining reputation among people who support Free software. They can see that IBM is a predator whose interests in several areas directly conflict with and harm Free software. █

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