IBM Has Been Lobbying for Software Patents, It's Not the Free Software Community's Ally
The ancient company has been lobbying for these patents for decades already
A lot of people online - except the media - talk about the latest giant wave of IBM layoffs. IBM is deflecting by talking about buying another company and one person said 20 minutes ago that it's "$4.3 billion along with the others spent buying companies, more debt The RA's won't save that type of money it will cause more RA's and offshoring more jobs..."
More worryingly, IBM has resorted to 'stealing' the money of other companies by blackmailing them using dubious if not illegal software patents, including this week [1, 2].
The mainstream media more or less quit mentioning why software patents are bad and not even legal after Alice/35 U.S.C. § 101 (SCOTUS, 2014). The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), besieged by the likes of IBM and Microsoft, grants these regardless. Why should the USPTO obey the law? It's just an instrument of corporate power now.
Outside the mainstream media there has also not been much effort to crush software patents. The corrupt EPO grants load of these (we covered those last week; it fancies calling them "AI") and the EFF last talked about it a very long time ago, calling the problem "bad patents" (generic) rather than software patents.
We've repeatedly complained about the EFF dropping the ball on this one and "it's good that the EFF has turned its attention to this problem," an associate has noted, "but it's egregious that there is no date of publication, so this link could be months old and the EFF's initiative abandoned already in favor of spending resources supporting Iran's Hamas."
There is no date of publication because it's old, just like the following stories that relate to it:
"Tillis, Coons Introduce Landmark Legislation to Restore American Innovation"
"Senators Kick off Bipartisan Patent Reform Effort | McCarter & English, LLP"
"Conservative Groups Push Senators to Pass Bipartisan Patent-Protection Laws | National Review" (blocked by gratuitous JavaScript)
"Congress Must Stop Pushing Bills That Will Benefit Patent Trolls"
"Pros and Cons: The Latest Patent Legislation"
What's important to remember here is that IBM plays a role in this lobby. In that regard, IBM does huge damage to all software developers, not just Free software developers.
Just because IBM bought Red Hat doesn't mean we blindly support IBM; in many ways it is no better than Novell. █