Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent (In)Sanity - Recent Links

To those who have missed the recent events (myself included), here are some highlights.

Mark Webbink has joined the SFLC.

This is good news, that Mark Webbink has joined the board of the Software Freedom Law Center. Good news for the FOSS community. For him, I think the idea of a laid back, restful retirement is now just a dream.


Just hours ago he also published an article, Patent Sanity, in Linux Magazine. Subscription is needed for access to the full text, but you could forge HTTP headers and appear like a search engine, which then permits entry.

For years, many in the software industry have expressed concern over software and business method patents and the patent system.


Earlier this week, Mark Webbink's home base, better known to us as Red Hat, was among those hit by a software patent lawsuit.

Intellectual property licensing firms IP Innovation and Technology Licensing Corporation have filed a lawsuit against Red Hat and Novell for alleged patent infringements in their Linux distributions.


The Groklaw community was prepared for such developments. It jumped all over this one with a sea of comments. Result? This whole case seems to be virtually over before it even began. It's DoA based on at least one criterion. And there's another:

It's a 2005 case, so a lot has happened in the meantime. Oh, and if you are looking for prior art, the patent to look at first would be the oldest one of the ones IP Innovation has claimed in the Red Hat litigation. That is the one that I think needs to be knocked out either by prior art or by obviousness.


Then comes the Microsoft threat, which was implicit. It also had the Microsoft spinners (yet again) trying to do damage control after Steve Ballmer. It's a "good cop, bad cop" routine.

Those who were worried that the FUD would have a negative effect on adoption should worry no more. Linux isn't just unaffected, but it's actually gaining momentum, according to Dell.

The PC manufacturer says that Microsoft's patent-infringement claims have not affected sales of its Linux servers.


Some more analysis at eWeek says that this case is nothing out of the ordinary.

"Any impact would largely depend on who was the first mover. One likely impact of such a lawsuit, regardless of who sues, is that software companies may pay closer attention to patents," he said.


Red Hat points its finger in the same direction that it did back in May -- the "Deploy with Confidence" page.

The Linux Foundation dismisses Ballmer's threat as another "FUD attack."


More about this here.

Red Hat is taking a business-as-usual stance in the face of renewed rumblings from Microsoft's Steve Ballmer over the need for Red Hat Linux users to pay up.


As usual, Mark Shuttleworth comes out swinging.

For starters, Shuttleworth said, Ballmer is implying that open-source developers don't take IP seriously. Nothing could be further from the truth, he said.


SJVN does the Sopranos analogy.

Steve Ballmer, the Sopranos and the protection racket.

[...]

"Because they don't, Tony. Er, I mean, Steve. What you're doing is trying to set up an extortion racket."

"Oh, yeah? Who knows more about extortion, me or you?"

In this case, I think it's me.


There is still some extortion going on in Fortune 500 companies, according to Brad Smith, but companies don't want to admit this because of the wrath of developers.

There's also some activity in other patent harassment cases that occupied a lot of paper space recently, e.g.:

Vonage agrees settlement on Sprint lawsuit

Vonage Holdings, the internet phone company, agreed on Monday to pay $80m to settle a patent suit filed by Sprint Nextel, the third largest US mobile carrier.


Lawyers face sanctions in Qualcomm suit

Chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. dueled Friday in federal court with its hired attorneys over who shoulders the blame for what a judge called "gross misconduct on a massive scale" at a past trial.


Qualcomm Firms Meet a Stern Judge

It didn't take long Friday for a courtroom packed with grim-faced attorneys to sense where a magistrate judge stands on sanctioning attorneys involved in a huge discovery failure by Qualcomm Inc.

Southern District of California U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Major came out swinging.


The cases above have helped illustrate the need for a patent reform. This is why they remain relevant, just like previous key rulings that were usually in favour of change and against a weak patent system.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October