Bonum Certa Men Certa

Understanding of Microsoft’s Patent Strategy Requires Scrutiny of the Patent Trolls It's Connected to

Microsoft nowadays sells its hosting as a 'protection' racket and it has euphemistically called it "Azure IP Advantage" [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Fox



Summary: As Microsoft's strategy appears to be arming patent trolls and then selling 'protection' from them we must still keep abreast of the actions of Microsoft-connected trolls and especially their lawsuits (because these are visible)

THOSE who believe that Microsoft has left patent aggression behind simply don't pay close enough attention. Look at some recent USPTO grants; days ago there were many reports about patents that Microsoft would likely leverage against Android, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Microsoft barely sells anything in this domain; Android dominates. There was also this patent application which reveals Microsoft's surveillance ambitions (getting people's blood pressure).

To better understand Microsoft's patent strategy, however, one must look at the trolls it associates with (founding, arming, funding). There are quite a few such trolls and we have spent over a decade tracking those. It doesn't take much research. A lot of the information is publicly available.

About two years ago GoPro was mentioned here in "Microsoft’s Copyrights- and Patents-Based Attacks on GNU/Linux Carry on"; we wrote that after Microsoft had targeted GoPro, whose products often incorporate Linux.

GoPro was mentioned again yesterday by Joseph Robinson, Robert Schaffer, and Steve Brachmann (Watchtroll). It's about something which was covered days earlier in relation to the Federal Circuit, dealing with a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) inter partes review (IPR):

GoPro petitioned for inter partes review of the '954 and '694 patents and challenged the patentability of the claims on obviousness grounds, relying on a 2009 GoPro sales catalog as prior art in each petition. The GoPro Catalog discloses a digital camera linked to a wireless viewfinder/controller that allows for a user to preview before recording.

The Board instituted both IPRs, and in its decisions to institute, the Board found that GoPro made a threshold showing that the GoPro Catalog is prior art. After the hearing, however, the Board found that the GoPro Catalog did not qualify as a prior art printed publication under 35 U.S.C. €§ 102(b), and because all the instituted grounds were based on the GoPro Catalog, the Board found that GoPro had not demonstrated that the challenged claims of the '954 and '694 patents were unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. €§ 103. GoPro appealed from these final written decisions to the Federal Circuit.


The name of the troll that goes after GoPro is Contour IP Holding, whose sole online presence is this case against GoPro. So the main question is, who's behind it? We've never heard of it before. It's worth checking whether Contour IP Holding just totally vanishes after a year or so. It would not be uncommon.

Speaking of shells, how about Interval Research Corporation, which is the creation of Microsoft's co-founder? It's a troll that recently re-emerged and Watchtroll has these details on how 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 dismantled nuisance litigation against AOL:

Recently, the Federal Circuit affirmed a judgment finding patent claims asserted by the patent owner, Interval Licensing, failed to recite patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. €§ 101. See Interval Licensing LLC v. AOL, Inc. (Fed. Cir. July 20, 2018) (Before Taranto, Plager, and Chen, J.) (Opinion for the court, Chen, J.) (Concurrence-in part, Dissent-in part, Plager, J.).

The patent related to an “attention manager” for a “display device,” which could make use of “unused capacity” by showing content in unused portions of the display. The “attention manager” could display secondary content in an area not covered with primary content, or when the “display device” was turned on, but not actively engaged by a user (e.g. a computer wallpaper).


Moving on to another Microsoft-connected lawsuit, there is this report about IPVALUE and Longitude Licensing. Remember that Seiko Epson's patents are connected to Intellectual Ventures (IV), as we noted late last year. Lloyd's and Wild's colleague, Jacob Schindler, said this:

Recent USPTO records have revealed what looks like Seiko Epson’s largest ever patent divestment. The Japanese electronics firm transferred nearly 2,000 patents in total to entities linked with Longitude Licensing in a series of assignments stretching back to last December. The Dublin-based NPE was acquired by private equity two weeks ago and has since announced a partnership with IPVALUE. In all, there are three assignments from Seiko Epson listing Longitude Licensing as the correspondent. In December 2017 and last month, the Japanese firm transferred 68 and 87 US assets respectively to Advanced Interconnect Systems Limited (AISL).


As we've never heard of Advanced Interconnect Systems Limited before and it is only being mentioned on the Web by RPX we assume that it's some kind of troll. "Advanced Interconnect Systems Limited was set up on Monday the 23rd of October 2017," according to this, so it appears to be a shell based (or registered) in Ireland.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Under the Guise of "MIT Technology Review Insights" the Site MIT Technology Review Posts Corporate Spam as 'Articles'
Some of the articles aren't even articles but 'hit pieces' against Free software and some are paid advertisements
Brett Wilson LLP Has Track Record in Scam Coin Cases (e.g. Craig Wright and More), Now It Works for 'Crypto' Scam Purveyors
But wait, it gets worse
Will Brett Wilson LLP Handle Its Own Winding Up Petition or be Struck Off for Overt Abuse of Process?
Today we sue not only the first Microsofter
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
Sharing Code and Recipes
It helps explain the triviality of software freedom
How Many Women Has Microsoft's Alex Balabhadra Graveley Already Strangled and Where Does That End?
If you too are a victim of this man and wish to share information, contact us
"We Might Save Somebody's Life"
I follow the example of my father
 
Links 17/07/2025: Science, Hardware, and Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/07/2025: Staying in the "Small Web" and Back on ICQ
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 16, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Exclusive: corruption in Tribunals, Greffiers, from protection rackets to cat whisperers
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 16/07/2025: Chip Bans and Microsoft’s “Digital Escort” Program
Links for the day
Revolving Doors: One Day You're a Judge, the Next Day You're an Attorney Paying Public Officials and Working for Violent and Dangerous Microsoft Employees
how the US justice system works
Slopwatch: Noise, Plagiarism and Even Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation
What are we meant to do to prevent a false association or misleading connotations? Game the LLMs? No. Boycott slopfarms.
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and Simple Web Browsing with TLS
Links for the day
Links 16/07/2025: Fascist Slop Takes "Intelligence" Clothing, New Criminal Case Against MElon
Links for the day
Why I am Suing the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, in the UK High Court This Week
Out of respect to the process and to the Court, I shall not share any pertinent details about the case
Links 16/07/2025: China’s Economy Grows Steadily, France Takes Action Regarding Harm to Children by GAFAM and Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
It is Not About Politics
Beware the people who try to make this about politics
Good Journalism Saves Lives
a shocking number of women die or get seriously hurt every day due to violence from a partner
Recognition of Women's Contributions to Free Software
Being passive is not an option when bad things are happening
Slopfarms Are Going to Perish Because Public Opinion is Changing
Many slopfarms will simply go offline
19 Years of Standing Up for Justice, Equality, and Truth
This week we shall take it up a notch
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: Tmux and OCC25 Working TLS
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 15, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Links 15/07/2025: LLM Pollution and Pushback in Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: xkcd, New Cert, and Alhena Gemlog
Links for the day
Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
Links for the day
Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day