Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents Roundup: From Microsoft's Trolls to Obama Policies

Section sign

“Software patents are a huge potential threat to the ability of people to work together on open source. Making it easier for companies and communities that have patents to make those patents available in a common pool for people to use is one way to try to help developers deal with the threat.”

--Linus Torvalds



Microsoft Patent Trolls



Transmeta is known to many F/OSS people because of Linus Torvalds, who used to work there. Well, the company is pretty much kaput, as disclosed roughly a month ago when it put itself up on display. Some of its assets are offered for sale now, so up for grabs are also several imaginary properties that are being grabbed by Microsoft's own patent troll.

IV was apparently there at the bargaining table with Novafora, which makes digital video processors. It's putting $11.6 million towards the $255.6 million purchase price in exchange for some kind of rights to Transmeta's low-power silicon patents, perhaps so IV can protect one of its investors.


Interestingly enough, this report comes from a known 'Microsoft mole' [1, 2]. Looking a little deeper between the lines, some connections can be drown: "William P. Tai informed the Board [...] of Transmeta [...] that he plans to retire [...] fulfill [...] commitments at Charles River Ventures, a venture capital firm [...]"

“Charles River Venture is connected to Intellectual Ventures, which is in turn connected to Microsoft.”Intellectual Ventures is listed right here under the online identity of Charles River Ventures. Charles River Venture is connected to Intellectual Ventures, which is in turn connected to Microsoft. The company was started by a former Transmeta board member, just after Intellectual Ventures had invested in his company and in Transmeta.

A reader of ours suggests the following chain of relationships: RPX Corporation -> Transmeta -> Intellectual Ventures -> Novafora -> Charles River Ventures.

Another company whose trail of dependencies seems tricky (subsidiaries, funding, and movement of employees) is Acacia. It sued GNU/Linux vendors shortly after inheriting top Microsoft staff and shortly after Microsoft's CEO had threatened Red Hat, which was among those sued [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11].

Acacia has acquired some more patents with which to fight and it last raved about it over a week ago.

Acacia Research Corporation (Nasdaq:ACTG) announced today that its subsidiary, Acacia Patent Acquisition LLC, has acquired rights to patents relating to improved lighting technology.


There are some other news to watch out for because this patent troll has 'Microsoft DNA' inside. It needs to be watched.

US Patents System Challenged



It has been over a month since Bilski [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33], but discussions have not ended. This important decision continues to jeopardise very many software patents, which would fail the court test.

Worth noting, however, is that Bilski did not claim a computer implementation of the recited method or a software claim. Thus, the "machine" prong of the machine-or-transformation test remains untested by the Federal Circuit as a result of the Bilski decision. However, the Court noted that in order to pass muster under the machine prong, the use of such a machine must "impose meaningful limits on the claim's scope." Field of use or insignificant extra-solution activity will not suffice. Moreover, the process claim in issue in Bilski was found to "not ... be a software claim." It therefore also remains open as to how or if a software clam can be written to satisfy the transformation prong of the test.


Over at P2PNet, people are reminded that the term “intellectual property” should be avoided and patents be referred to as “intellectual monopolies” instead. "If thought can corrupt language, then language can also corrupt thought," said George Orwell.

Instead of speaking of “intellectual property”, which invokes that feel-good idea of property and ownership, we should speak of “intellectual monopolies”. For this is precisely what copyrights and patents are: they are monopolies granted by governments for a limited period as part of a bargain - that, in return, those who are granted those monopolies hand them over to the public domain once the term of the monopoly has lapsed.


The Obama campaign (and administration to be) has summed up its stance/policy on intellectual monopolies as: "The Obama-Biden Transition Project respects the intellectual property of others..."

Reading the remainder of that statement, it reads very much like Biden's known ties with the MAFIAA are rearing their ugly head. What does this mean for patents? Well, they have established a working group that includes Irving Wladawsky-Berger, but his lifetime employer, IBM, is not against software patents and he even wrote in his blog that "It is ironic that if software patents were disallowed altogether, it might cause legitimate software innovations to then be protected as trade secrets, and thus keep them away from open source projects."

India and British Imperialism



Microsoft's patent troll is already bugging India following a series of letdown when it comes to patent law [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]. BT, which is still loosely tied to the British government, was previous seen participating in subversion of the law in India and now it's the British government itself which applies for patents (monopolies) over there.

The UK government is seeking a patent in India for a defence invention called 'modulation signals for a satellite navigation system', which can measure satellite signals.


Europe Suffers from Loopholes



The Stop Software Patents push has identified ways in which the EPO seems to be escaping hard questions regarding software patents.

The European Patent Office does not only grant software patents, it also lobbies the legislators to validate them through the creation of a central patent court.


“[The EPO] can’t distinguish between hardware and software so the patents get issued anyway”."

--Marshall Phelps, Microsoft



Further to the action against big pharmaceuticals in Europe, there is also this rant.

These obstacles cost taxpayers money, up to three billion Euro a year, according to the Commission report.


The monopolies will not give up without a fight. They have means for perversion of justice.

Miscellany



A very notorious patent, Amazon's 1-Click feature, celebrates a birthday of shame.

"Nine years ago Monday, Amazon kicked off the Holiday Season by slapping Barnes and Noble with a court injunction barring BN from using a checkout feature that Amazon said represented illegal copying of its patented 1-Click technology. 'We're pleased that Judge Pechman recognized the innovation underlying our 1-Click feature,' said Jeff Bezos in a press release. But an Appellate Court wasn't quite as impressed with Amazon's innovation..."


Moving on to some patents that relate less to software, we also find:

1. InterDigital, Samsung settle 3G patent dispute

InterDigital and Samsung settled two long-standing patent-infringement lawsuits just as the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) was about to make a decision on whether to recommend banning imports of Samsung phones containing 3G phones.


2. Fairchild Semiconductor Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Infineon Technologies - Quick Facts

In the lawsuit, the company stated that it believes certain Infineon CoolMOS and OptiMOS branded products, as well as other Infineon IGBT and CanPAK products, infringe one or more claims of eight Fairchild patents.


3. German firm claims Xilinx, Avnet infringe patents

Pact has been focusing accelerators that plug into the processor socket of dual or quad processor motherboards to run multimedia applications such as video, audio, voice, and image transcoding.


Feel the innovation. The lawyers sure do.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

YouTube is a Spamfarm, Slopfarm, and Clickfarm (a Lot of Numbers There Are Fake)
Those who don't fake look unpopular and unimportant
Misinformation is Not Intelligence
It's low-grade plagiarism and it fails to show any signs of intelligence
'Tech' Gimmicks Are for Advertising, Not for Usability
In the case of Microsoft, they latched onto slop
 
They Try to Lecture Us on Ethics
They even removed "master" from Microsoft GitHub
The Future of the Web is One Rendering Engine or 'Flavours' of Chrome
The future of the Web does not look bright at all
Best Sites Are Not Optimised for Any Browser, They Work Equally Well With All of Them
Red Hat (IBM) is making rubbish sites
We Don't Do JavaScript and Pages Are Small
Thankfully Gemini Protocol has nothing like JavaScript
'Tech' is Not Technology
Some people use terms like 'Old Tech'
IBM's Debt Rose by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in the Past 6 Months Alone
The "hey hi" circus is coming to an end
Yes, Master
Gaslighting by actual racists
Microsoft Bribes and Buys Politicians to Tell Europe What to Do About Free Software (Which It's Attacking)
Microsoft: we speak for the thing that we are attacking! Follow the money...
Making Backups Quickly and Reliably
Backups are imperative, more so in an age of uncertainty, unpredictable weather, and worsening standards (quality of products going down while prices go up)
Techrights Investigation: Estimating the Point in Time LinuxIac Turned Into LLM Slop (Part of the Time)
Bobby Borisov got lazy
10th Month, Ten Weeks From Now, at Ten AM
In Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 24, 2025
A Nadella Memo Distracts From Microsoft's Cheapening Of the Workforce
Right now the "MSM" (mainstream media) is flooded/overwhelmed by garbage pieces that relay lies for Nadella
Vanishing Faces of GNU/Linux
Free software projects do not depend on any one person or company to still exist
Microsoft Says It Lost 400 Million Windows Users, Now It's Waiting for GNU/Linux to Stop Booting on 'Old' PCs
When it comes to Windows, Microsoft is fully aware of the issue and statements it made earlier this summer suggest it lost 400 million Windows users
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, linuxsecurity.com, LinuxIac, and More
Also: The Register's Microsoft agenda (new editor)
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Gemtext Aware Titan Editor and Gemini Protocol Comeback
Links for the day
Links 24/07/2025: Convicted Felon Quits UNESCO, "Vibe Coding Goes Wrong", and Signalgate Gets Worse
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/07/2025: Forgejo Woes and Smolnet Directory Week
Links for the day
Links 24/07/2025: Storage Tapes Still Kicking, Windows TCO 'on Steroids' (Microsoft-Induced Catastrophes)
Links for the day
Bobby Borisov (LinuxIac) Has Apparently Begun Experimenting With LLM Slop, So We Cannot Trust LinuxIac Anymore
So did LinuxIac become a slopfarm? Maybe not yet, but it's getting there
Informa TechTarget's ITProToday is Becoming a Slopfarm Generated by Microsoft Chatbots
Busted.
BetaNews Sacked Brian Fagioli and Deleted His Comments, But He Still Tries to Use the "BetaNews" Brand for Self-Affirmation
Fagioli takes the work of other people
[Meme] Hard to Be a Better Person?
Sooner or later they'll realise that for each pound I spend they need to spend about 1,000 times more
The LLM Con Artists Are Highly Destructive
Who will ever be held accountable for this scam?
Too Bribed by Microsoft to Move to Free Software?
Microsoft lies and Microsoft bribery (in politics)
New US Editor for The Register is a Microsoft Booster
"Avram Piltch has served as US editor for The Register since July 2025."
Microsoft Hiring European Politicians is Another Form of Bribery; There Should be a European Investigation
When Microsoft bribed people in Europe for OOXML (there's no denying this!) a European government delegate said that Microsoft operated like a cult
Reda Demanded That FSF Removes Its Founder, Now Reda Works Directly for Microsoft
A sellout and a traitor, first working for GAFAM, now Microsoft
PCLinuxOS is Raising Money to Support Development After Fire Incident at the Host
PCLinuxOS has not had announcements lately
Speed of the Site Should be Better Now
The "bot attacks" impact the speed of the sister site too
Getting More From AnalogNowhere
Recently we used many images from AnalogNowhere
Microsoft, Microsofters and 'Secure' Boot Shills Already Storming the LWN Report About Expiring Certificate, Shooting the Messenger
LWN has clearly stuck a nerve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Disable "Secure" Boot Today (the Only Better Time to Do So Was Yesterday)
Don't trust anything Red Hat tells you about security
Links 23/07/2025: Windows Killed Company After 150+ Years, US Government Mimics Russia's Attacks on the Media
Links for the day
Freedom Generally Wins at the End, History Shows (But It's Constantly Attacked, Too)
At the moment people realise "Linux" (e.g. Android) isn't enough to guarantee any freedoms
Over 3 Months Later Brett Wilson LLP Still Unable to Recruit a Media Lawyer?
"Immediate start", but not found... still unfilled
“Inhumane” and “Disgusting” Mass Layoff Execution, According to Microsoft Staff
The workers are looking for other places to work
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Slogan for Its 40th Anniversary
The freedoms are what's most important
Microsoft is Trying to "Pull a Nokia" on GNU/Linux as Desktop/Laptop Platform
We all remember that rather well, don't we?
LLM Slopfarms gbhackers.com, "Cyber Press" and CyberSecurityNews Are Drowning Google News (and Shame on Google for Feeding and Facilitating Them)
All are run by the same people
Links 23/07/2025: Droplets GUI Patent Monopoly Challenge, Nokia Leverages Illegal Patent Court Against Rivals
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Community in Geminispace and Challenges With Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day