Summary: The European Union takes the slippery slope of excessive enforcement while Microsoft gets more militant about patents

THE president of the FFII warned us some time earlier this month that the EU seemingly planned to criminalise patent violations and today the FFII shows us this document titled "Towards more effective criminal enforcement of intellectual property rights". To treat infringements like a crime would be absolutely irrational and even dangerous. And here is another outrageous patent story:

[O]f course, where "obvious" and "internet" meet, there are almost always patents to get in the way. Mike Wokasch alerts us to the news that a company called Carlson Marketing Worldwide is suing beermaker MillerCoors over its "Miller High Life Extras Loyalty Program." The patent in question, 6,039,244 is incredibly short... and broad, and covers a form of creating a database for a loyalty program. It's only three claims long, with the first claim being the only one that matters. Read that claim and explain how this patent was ever found to be legit.

Patents are the lowest form of competition. They are the fake 'products' which companies use when they lose. Microsoft mobbyists are hitting hard with Oracle's anti-Android case, which keeps going on without settlement reached. Microsoft meanwhile seems to be after Nokia's patents (also see [1, 2, 3, 4]) for more anti-Android attacks (speculative at this stage) and in addition to it there are Novell patents in CPTN (deal not withdrawn, contrary to the claims in the video shown below). As a recap see:

• CPTN Shows Microsoft Becoming a Patent Agitator Like Kodak, Whose Time is Long Gone
• Microsoft-run Patent Cartel Retreats Following Formal Complaint, But Why? (Updated)
• Microsoft Patent Cartel (CPTN) Dodges German Federal Cartel Office
• Benjamin Orndorff From Microsoft/Gates and Ellis Represents the CTPN Patents Cartel
• OIN is Very Different From CPTN and UNIX Risk is Revisited
• In Defence of OIN and Android
• SCO, CPTN, and UNIX
• From UNIX Battles to .NET Battles
• Free Software Foundation's Statement on Microsoft/Novell/CPTN Patent Attack Against Software Freedom
• A Paralegal's Take on Microsoft's Latest Anti-Google (and Anti-FOSS) Moves
• Maneuverers of Microsoft in an Age of Software Patents
• Novell Keeps Amassing More Software Patents, Feeding a Rogue System

In the next post we are going to deal with the sad state of Microsoft in the mobile market. All they have left is patents and that too is a losing battle. ⬆