"Advertising is far from impotent or harmless; it is not a mere mirror image. Its power is real, and on the brink of a great increase. Not the power to brainwash overnight, but the power to create subtle and real change. The power to prevail."

--Eric Clark

Summary: After deliberate infringement of other people's patents Microsoft strives to earn a monopoly on consumer-hostile (and very trivial) ideas

THE latest news from the i4i case [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11] is that Microsoft won the right to appeal. It is likely that Microsoft will eventually settle through negotiations with i4i.

Microsoft is not opposed to software patents; Microsoft is one of the biggest proponents of these. Where Microsoft goes too far is consumer-hostile nonsense like this:

Microsoft: Prove you're human by reading and regurgitating an ad

Looks like nothing is safe from becoming an advertisement these days. A newly surfaced Microsoft patent application proposes to create ads out of human interactive proofs, also known as CAPTCHAs, those lines of fuzzy or distorted text or images used by websites to confirm that submissions are coming from real human beings, not automated online bots.

Although it has just been published, it seems like old news. But it is worth bringing up again now that Microsoft is also attempting to hijack areas of biology. Here is Masnick's take on it:

Microsoft The Latest To Try To Patent An Entire Bio Industry"

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Now, some will point out that, in the software space at least, many feel the need to stockpile patents, just for the sake of having something to use to threaten those who threaten you with patent infringement (the nuclear stockpiling theory).

"Nuclear stockpiling" is an interesting analogy. The practice is by all means counter-productive; it is posing and bragging about one's might. How about this new patent-imposed embargo-type strangulation from Sandisk?

But Sandisk is still gunning for the remaining makers of memory cards, USB drives and media players including Kingston and Dane-Elec. If Sandisk prevails, it could impose US import bans.

Now, that's what innovation is all about, isn't it -- banning products. FFII's president shares this "Presentation of Georg Jacob at Froscon about software patents: http://is.gd/2wnnz"

Let's keep this patent scam out of the realms of software, at least in Europe. ⬆

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

--Marshall Phelps, Microsoft