WHEN it comes to software patents, Microsoft is the #1 enemy of GNU/Linux. People like Florian Müller would like to divert attention away from Microsoft (Müller has written many comments there to defend himself) and in response to the likes of them, Pogson writes a detailed rebuttal (which saves others from needing to do so).
I recently received a FUD post about four companies: IBM, RedHat, Google and Oracle. The FUD being sown was that these folks while pretending to be FLOSS supporters were actually crassly fighting open interoperability. The truth is much different.
The willingness to collaborate brought us free and open source software. Now we continue to see that willingness to collaborate permeate our government agencies. A prime example is the Peer To Patent program developed at New York Law School by Prof. Beth Noveck. First presented as an idea on her July 2005 blog Peer to Patent: A Modest Proposal, Peer To Patent has become an early success story in actively engaging the public to improve the quality of government decision making.
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In addition to the U.S. pilot projects, IP Australia has run a Peer To Patent - Australia pilot project in conjunction with Queensland University of Technology with technology assistance from New York Law School. The results of that pilot are now being compiled, but it appears the results will be quite similar to those in the U.S. Later in 2010 the Institute of Intellectual Property in Japan plans to run a Peer To Patent pilot in conjunction with the Japan Patent Office.
as the decision came down Monday, The Prior Art’s inbox was filling up with e-mails from lawyers and law firm publicists offering expert commentary on what it all meant. (By the end, the number of pitches had hit nearly 40). One e-mail, from Goodwin Procter’s Stephen Schreiner, contained a statement that typified the joyous tone of the patent bar’s broader reaction. Schreiner said the Court had “launched the United States Patent System into the Information Age with the Bilski v. Kappos decision today....Rejecting the chorus from some demanding the Patent System be limited to Industrial Age technology, the Court answered with a flat ‘no,’ finding patents are available for software, business methods, medical diagnostic techniques, and other products of the Information Age.”
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And what about those who sought an even more far-reaching change—the abolition of all software patents (of which it is estimated there are now more than 200,000)? The Bilski decision makes that dream look like one that may never come true. Some of the anti-software-patent activist groups are likely to refocus on educating Congress and the wider public about their cause rather than hoping for near-term court action.
"I'm not optimistic about it," says Peter Brown, director of the Free Software Foundation. "At the end of the day, if this decision allows more abstract ideas to be patented, there's going to be a hell of a lot more litigation.” Such pressure could ultimately lead the business community to push for more limits on patents. "Maybe the financial services industry will say, ‘Clearly, we're not getting anywhere with the courts,’" Brown adds.
“Sony is also a huge promoter of DRM and sponsor of the MAFIAA (RIAA|MPAA).”In other patent news, Sony is said to have just patented two-player 3-D technology, which sounds like a software patent. Slashdot has links to the filings and it has changed its headline to improve accuracy.
Sony is a big promoter of software patents, for obvious reasons. Sony is a massive company (almost twice the number of employees Microsoft has), so it can afford to waste time filing for patents. Sony is also a huge promoter of DRM and sponsor of the MAFIAA (RIAA|MPAA).
According to a new academic study, patents in general are bad for startups.
It seems that every week we hear about another patent lawsuit between tech companies claiming the exclusive rights to various technologies and methods. With large corporations like Apple, Google and Microsoft frequently defending patents in court, smaller companies may get the idea that patents are the best way to protect intellectual property. A recent survey from the University of California, Berkeley found that, in fact, the opposite trend is appearing among these types of companies. The largest reason? Cost.
“We should not be creating tools (and artificial scarcity) by helping wealthy groups tax small groups or even put them out of business with these tools.”
--Jose_X"One possibility for patent reform is to limit how any patent can be used on entities which have revenues/profits below a certain amount and are not mostly owned or controlled by another entity that itself might fail to qualify.
"An additional possibility is to outright prevent "information" or abstract patents. The SCOTUS has ruled this way over the years, but that hasn't kept litigation down in the US. Congress should pass a clear law to remove "information" patents. The broad coverage possible from a patent (or from a broad copyright "derivative works" definition) is too far reaching and hence stifling unless it only affects a small number of groups that already have significant levers at their disposal."
The only 'startups' that can benefit from patents are patent trolls, but they offer no value whatsoever to the industry. To expand on the new example which we gave yesterday, here is more press coverage:
Erich Spangenberg makes a fortune suing major corporations for infringing on patents he owns. Is he exploiting a legal loophole or is he a modern-day Robin Hood? A look at one very unusual and vilified profession.
Comments
Florian Mueller
2010-07-23 16:48:19
If that were my mission, why would I have linked to this website here several times on Twitter and my blog?
I raise issues that many others don't like to talk about because of all sorts of FOSS people having some sort of attachment to the likes of IBM and Red Hat. I have a clear-cut focus: anticompetitive exclusionary use of patents and hypocrisy are the two priority subjects I focus on. Microsoft doesn't use patents on an exclusionary basis nor does Microsoft pretend to defend FOSS interests. They lobby for software patents and in that context I've mentioned them several times. They file for many (but IBM owns more than Microsoft, HP, Oracle, Apple, EMC, Accenture, and Google combined).
I believe that the issues I raise and the angle from which I do so make a contribution to people's information-gathering and opinion-forming. I encourage pluralism. All of what I wrote about OpenForum Europe is right on and it's a shame that the FFII and FSFE (both of whom I respect very much apart from that fact) collaborate with OFE, a notorious pro-software-patent lobbying entity. I actually believe it would be in the FFII's and the FSFE's own best interest to dissociate themselves from such an organization for credibility reasons. The New York Times article on which I commented contained the absurd quote of the OFE's chief executive saying that proprietary companies are "trying to preserve their market positions" when considering what IBM, Oracle and Google do to protect their market positions in their core businesses (where all of them are proprietary, too).
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-23 16:53:41
We've already had this discussion. You need to get your facts right.
Florian Mueller
2010-07-23 17:19:39
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-23 17:24:15
How many companies has Microsoft threatened to sue?
That's like saying, many shops opened the register when Capone and his buddies came over.
Florian Mueller
2010-07-23 17:30:48
I don't like it that there are software patents -- without them, no royalty problem. But if companies rightfully own them, I prefer them to content themselves with royalties as opposed to seeking destruction.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-23 17:48:48
twitter
2010-07-23 17:25:06
Your rejection is correct because you have gone from diversion to outright defense of the indefensible. This site was founded as a reaction to the exclusionary Novel/Microsoft deal and has extensively documented that and many other patent extortions. In case you need to be reminded in Microsoft's own words, I have a small history of Microsoft patent extortion. My history is not complete but it is compact enough for a busy person to read and understand. Patents are exclusionary by nature but Microsoft has become the biggest abuser of them especially against free software which is fanatically hated by Microsoft management. GNU/Linux has been a special target of patent attacks by Microsoft from at least 2002 and they have been driven to launch lawsuits without hiding behind their usual stooges. It is hard to believe that someone concerned with patents and free software would not be aware of these recent lawsuits.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-23 17:28:06
Florian Mueller
2010-07-23 17:36:59
Same thing with TomTom and Salesforce. None of those companies ever denied that Microsoft wanted to do a license deal.
Also, it's worth noting that the Primax case isn't about software patents.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-23 17:58:41
Florian Mueller
2010-07-23 17:33:40
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-23 17:56:54
Florian Mueller
2010-07-23 17:59:55
I understand Red Hat's comments as them having refused to do a similar license deal. So they weren't excluded. They opted out, and they're still around and actually doing well.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-23 18:20:18
twitter
2010-07-23 22:35:04
Florian Mueller
2010-07-25 03:07:28
There are two ways to use patents: collect royalties (which may include tactics where the contacted companies choose to pay rather than pick a fight) and seek injunctions. The law allows both, although in the case of a company dominating a given market there's at least antitrust law to impose a duty to deal, along with a FRAND requirement, if all else fails.
If you don't want that kind of patent licensing to happen, you have to change or abolish the patent system. Since software patents are basically also hardware patents in most cases (they're patents on "methods" and "machines"), this means you have to do away with very large parts of the patent system. But if there's the political will, it can happen.
The case you try to make here is that even the much less harmful way of the two to use patents is equally bad as the truly worst way.
It's easy to say that. The moment you're in a responsible position in a company, or shareholder of a company, I'm sure you'll view it differently. Maybe you own stock in, say, Red Hat. What would you prefer? Someone using patents that drive them out of business, or someone using patents in a way that affects relative competitive strength, gradually?
I'm fine with convincing the rational people who look at the fundamental difference between the two ways to use patents. I can't convince people who refuse to make a distinction that's clear to anyone who either has business experience or can imagine what the situation of a business is like.
I also think you're way too convinced of a "legal theory" that patents that aren't disclosed in a public announcement of a licensing deal are automatically weak. That's completely off base. Show me even one license deal between practicing entities (with trolls it's different because they usually have very few patents anyway) where the announcement comes with a list. And considering that Microsoft did file a lawsuit against TomTom, there's no rational reason whatsoever to assume they were afraid of whether their patents stood up. As far as the FAT patents are concerned, those have in fact survived different attempts to invalidate them (I remember when Eben Moglen told me about wanting to take them down, and to my knowledge he didn't succeed, nor did the EFF).
twitter
2010-07-28 19:00:15
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-28 19:06:04