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Update on Patents Versus Android/Linux, New Rants Against Software Patents

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Summary: A news roundup about patents and legal battles affecting software which respects some freedoms

THE PATENT BUBBLE is hurting Linux and Groklaw's Pamela Jones asks: "Remember I told you that Oracle wasn't giving up? Here's the proof. They have filed a motion saying that if, by any chance, there is no spring trial, or if the USPTO appeal goes its way in time, it asks the court to allow it to amend its infringement contentions regarding patent '205."



So it is too early to expect Oracle to just back off. Google is meanwhile shown to be making progress with those Motorola patents that can be used as a deterrent against further litigation. The reactionary armament not as problematic as Apple and Microsoft would have people believe; it's problematic to the duopolists, not to Google or Motorola.

"The reactionary armament not as problematic as Apple and Microsoft would have people believe; it's problematic to the duopolists, not to Google or Motorola."The truth is, this patent armament locks smaller players outside. NASA, which is funded by the US public, feeds trolls and British newspapers take note [1, 2]. Microsoft pays trolls yet again, whereas Nintendo defends against trolls who attack. There are new patents from allies of Microsoft: "As noticed by Data Center Knowledge, the technology is laid out in a Facebook patent application recently released to the world at large."

Facebook, which is partly owned by Microsoft, is a patent aggressor, too. Google does apply for patents, but unlike Facebook it does not sue companies using patents. Not yet anyway. It is a matter of policy.

Not so long ago we wrote about how MOSAID got fed by Microsoft and then got Apple sued. These stories too help show the insanity of the patent system, wherein shell companies (or proxies) can be used to wage battles at the behest of monopolists.

Here is a new perspective on the "broken system for software patents":

In Slate’s Farhad Manjoo: Use Crowdsourcing to Improve Patents and Kill Patent Trolls, I explained why the focus on patent trolls is misguided; and why using crowdsourcing and incentives to increase the quality of prior art brought to the patent office’s attention, to improve patent “quality” by weeding out “bad patents”–is also misguided. And that improving patent quality will address the patent troll problem. And that improving patent “quality” is not a desired solution since the low quality of patents and the patent examination process has little to do with the threat patents pose to innovation and the economy.

Derrick Harris’s Gigaom post, Can big data fix a broken system for software patents?, is also on the wrong track. The post explores various proposals to use “data analytics” to improve prior art searches for fields like software patents.


The problem is not prior art search; the problem is government-granted monopolies on algorithms.

This whole idea that stuff encoded or delivered over the Web basically becomes patentable must stop. As TechDirt put it the other day:

Why Does An Unpatentable 'Abstract Idea' Become Patentable If You Add 'On The Internet'?



Back in 2009, we wrote about a case involving a company called Ultramercial, which held a broad and ridiculous patent (7,346,545) that effectively covered the process of watching an ad before you could download content (seriously). Ultramercial sued Hulu, YouTube and WildTangent over this. The case went back and forth with an initial ruling that rejected the patent, by noting that it was just an 'abstract idea' and abstract ideas are not patentable.

[...]

Along with the petition, there were also two interesting filings in support, urging the Supreme Court to hear the case. One from Redhat, CCIA and EFF, which goes into great detail about how such broad patentability would seriously harm the open source world, and a strongly worded brief from Google and Verizon (yes, together) about how such a ruling would do serious harm to innovation by allowing all sorts of abstract ideas to be locked up via patent. Hopefully the Supreme Court is willing to listen -- and will push back (yet again) on a bad CAFC ruling.


In the news we continue to find software patents like this new one on an "algorithm", another one here, and a patent-pending nonsense for Apple-targeted junk. Here is another new rant about software patents:

Why Hayek Would Have Hated Software Patents



In his famous essay “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” Friedrich Hayek argued that the socialists of his day falsely assumed that knowledge about economy could be taken as “given” to central planners. In reality, information about the economy—about what products are needed and where the necessary resources can be found—is dispersed among a society’s population. Economic policies that implicitly depend on omniscient decision-makers are doomed to failure, because the decision-makers won’t have the information they need to make good decisions.


By now, it is generally agreed among journalists (and the public) that software patents need to go. But lobbyists and policy-makers do not represent public interests. That ought to change. The crisis of democracy cannot be separated from technology. What we see here is an element of class warfare -- one where those in power leverage protectionism as matter of law.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Turns Out LLMs for Code Don't Save Time and Don't Improve Quality
Neither legal nor useful
 
Pissing Contests and Pissing Off Everyone
people who came from Microsoft are trying to vex and divide the community
Microsoft Repeats the Mistakes Made by the EPO After We Exposed a Major Microsoft/EPO Scandal 10 Years Ago
That scandal was all over the media, not just in English
The Demise of LLMs
We've just checked BetaNews again. They've dropped all the slop and went back to human authors.
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Sonpo Museum of Art and FCEUX
Links for the day
Links 13/07/2025: UnitedHealth's Censorship Campaign, Australia Wary of China
Links for the day
Firing Away With Nonsense
Or fighting fire with fire
Links 13/07/2025: Climate Crisis, GAFAM Poisoning the Water
Links for the day
The Microsofters Will Have an Obligation to Compensate Us
This story isn't just about Microsoft. It's also about corruption, there are many women victims, there is abject "abuse of process", and many more scandals to be illuminated in years to come.
Reproducing at the EPO Instead of Producing Monopolies for Foreign Monopolies With Their Price-Fixing Cartels
Does the EPO recognise the need of well-educated Europeans to bear kids?
Valnet Inc. Dominates Real (Not LLM Slop) GNU/Linux Coverage in 2025
And likely in prior years, too
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Fund Raiser Goes on
Later this month we'll expose another OSI scandal
EPO Staff Representatives Issue a Warning About Staff's Health and Inadequate Care
Even the EPO's own stakeholders (money sources) are openly protesting against what the EPO became
Links 13/07/2025: Partly Assorted News From Deutsche Welle and CBC
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Board Games and Battle Styles
Gemini Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 12, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 12, 2025
Plunder at the Second-Largest Institution in Europe
cuts, neglect, health problems, even early deaths
Links 12/07/2025: Political Developments, Attack on Opposition, Climate Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: Melodic Musings and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 12/07/2025: Jail in China for Homoerotica, South Korea Discriminates Against Old Workers
Links for the day
If Only Everything Was Rewritten in Rust, We'd Have No More Security Issues?
Nope.
Links 12/07/2025: Birdwatching and Fake/Misleading Wall Street 'Valuation' Figures
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: How to Avoid Writing, Apps for Android
Links for the day
Using SLAPPs to Cover Up Sexual Abuse and Strangulation
The exact same legal team of the Serial Strangler from Microsoft and Garrett already has a history fighting against "metoo"
EPO Staff Committee on Harassment in the Workplace
slides
Adding the Voice of Writers to UK SLAPP Reform
The journey to repair antiquated (monarchy era) laws will likely be long
EPO Takes More Money From Staff for Speculation (Pensions), Actuarial Study Explains the Impact
"The key change in this year’s Actuarial Study, due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the financial study, is a significant increase of the total pension contribution rate of 5.7 percentage points, up to a total of 37.8%. This is driven by an unprecedented decrease in the discount rate of 105 bps down to 2.2%."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 11, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 11, 2025
Microsoft - Like IBM - Does the "Relocation" Tricks (Start Over Elsewhere, Then Get Sacked by Microsoft)
It is a "low blow" or a "dick move"
After the Free Software Foundation's Campaign to Raise Money Let's See Campaigns to Finish Off Microsoft (Vista 11, GitHub etc.)
Microsoft is in effect collapsing
Your Publications Have No Major Impact Unless or Until You "Get Some Heat"
we're on the right track
Slopwatch: A Cause for Hope, the Hype is Dying
For about a month we showed that becoming a slopfarm - for several weeks - resulted in utter failure and ruin for BetaNews
Links 11/07/2025: Censorship Worsening, 3D Printing Success Stories, UK and France Unite Around Nukes
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Zorin OS and Scriptonite Updates
Links for the day
Links 11/07/2025: Hardware, Russia, and China
Links for the day
Links 11/07/2025: Intel Collapsing and Microsoft Resorts to Bribery to Push Slop Via Obligatory Education
Links for the day
The EFF Sided With the Team That Strangles Women and Tells Women to Kill Themselves
They say that apathy and inaction are a form of a "stance"
"Nat [Friedman] and [the Serial Strangler From Microsoft] Were Always Exceptionally Close," Says Former Housemate and Colleague
Now Alex (hiding behind another name when that suits him) not only attacks women but also people who merely report what he did to women
Exemplary List of Things That Are Not Artificial Intelligence or Even Intelligence
The "age of AI" or "era of AI" or "AI revolution" mostly boils down to rebranding, just like "the cloud"
New Letter From the European Patent Office Explains How the Office Plots to Grant Many Illegal Patents, a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of 'Growth'
Open letter to Mr Rowan (VP1) and Mr Aledo Lopez (COO)
Abuse of Process
5RB is employing people who help violent men
What Microsoft's Nat Friedman and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
"Get in da car; No time to explain, loser"
Microsoft and IBM Don't Have Much of a Future (They Mostly Pretend at This Point)
IBM and Microsoft are in some ways alike but in many ways different
It's Not Just Twitter (or X.com) That's Dying, Microsoft's Equivalent is Dying Also
Unable to find a business model
GitHub Copilot Can Cause the Bankruptcy of GitHub to Come Sooner and GitHub to be Shut Down Just Like Skype
Some publicly available information suggests that even for each paid subscriber for plagiarism (LLM 'coding') GitHub Copilot still loses more money than it makes
Wayland is Bad for the Planet
If you use Wayland, it'll take you longer to accomplish tasks and you will consume more energy (or battery life)
Legitimising Those Who Sabotage You
Microsoft is a very malicious company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 10, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 10, 2025
On Microsoft Layoffs
we might be looking at about 60,000 Microsoft layoffs since 2023
EPO Management Already Breaks Its Own Promise (Lie) on "Bringing Teams Together"
This gut-punching move happened just 2 days ago
Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Occupation of 2025 and "Old Man Yells At Soundcloud"
Links for the day
Our Lawsuits Against the 'Cancel Mob' (Ringleaders) Helped Reduce Anti-Free Software Online Abuse
That's not to say that lawsuits are the best way to handle terrible people. But that can help.