IBM (and Red Hat) is a Patent Troll, Still Leveraging Software Patents to Extract Money Out of Other Companies by Suing Them
"Tech giant IBM has agreed to settle a patent lawsuit with mobile game maker Zynga after securing a $45m jury verdict earlier this year, Reuters reported, citing a filing in Delaware federal court in the US."
So says this hours-old report. As we explained at the time of the verdict, there's nothing to distinguish IBM from patent trolls here, except size.
In spite Alice/35 U.S.C. § 101, which IBM opposes and lobbies against, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is still granting software patents. Legislators try to bypass SCOTUS and IBM backs this through front groups such as IPO. There's no question about it. There's no confusion. It's as clear as daylight.
Basically, when it comes to patents, IBM is demonstrably part of the problem, not the solution. IBM's policies harm Free software. Red Hat has no say on the matter. There's no Red Hat anymore. It's just some trademark.
After Zynga - equipped with a perceived legitimisation - IBM will continue knocking on doors, making threats. It hopes that the Zynga will act as a deterrent. Remember the time IBM front groups settled with a patent troll for GNOME? Instead of squashing the software patent? That's just a form of legitimisation... for the troll's shakedown campaign.
IBM has financial problems and layoffs. It uses R.T.O. to make some of those layoffs less visible*. Resorting to patent trolling to make money is a low blow**. █
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* It's not just IBM. Amazon is now subjecting more and more units, everywhere in the world - even external firms! - to R.T.O. policies (source: Amazon staff). "Return" to the office every day (even if you always worked from home, right from the very day you started working there) or resign. Many will resign. It impacts disabled people really badly. However, this is not unexpected [1, 2]. The real "news" is, the latest R.T.O. directive is effective for most Amazon staff/units starting Jan 1 2025, for some it's effective only some time in March 2025. IBM, Microsoft, and "Meta" (Facebook) do the same [1, 2] for the same reasons. This basically means that the "IT" industry continues to deteriorate and remaining workers have it worse. When so many people compete for the same position and would settle for lower pay no wonder working conditions worsen so rapidly. There's no talent shortage, it's an oversupply, but they try to cheapen what's left of it and therefore many qualified people opt out, e.g. retire or taker Sabbatical. This means IT systems, too, will get worse over time, e.g. trains not running on time.
** We hoped this would stop when IBM bought Red Hat, but it visibly carried on even a few months after the takeover.