Bonum Certa Men Certa

When Our Patents Are 'Good' and Others' Are 'Bad'

Cooking pot
Pot calling the kettle "black"



Summary: The issue of hypocrisy in the patents battleground and some updates from Apple's anti-Android litigation

The opposition to software patents and patent trolls gets a hand from another sector which uses software and gets sued a lot. An advertising-centric site says:



“Congress is wary of going after software patents, so we’re going after the procedure. It may be small ball, but I believe it will be an impact,” said De Fazio, who co-sponsored last year’s bill with Rep. Jason Caffetz (R-Utah.) He’s already held preliminary discussions with Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, about holding hearings.


The ITC finds itself at the centre of this debate about patent trolls, which a patent lawyers' site covered by saying: "An en banc request for rehearing in the Interdigital case has been denied, but the panel majority has released a new opinion particularly addressing the patent-troll-domestic-industry question. Judge Newman has also released a new dissenting opinion."

We wrote about Interdigital in [1, 2].

Another domestic patent dispute involves software patents and as CBS puts it: "The EchoStar subsidiary that makes the Slingbox alleges that its rivals unfairly copied aspects of its place-shifting devices."

A proponent of software patents, a man who is widely believed to be the first software patent holder, is already dismissing some software patents. How convenient it must be to him that his patents are "good" and others' are "bad" software patents. As Guardian puts it, "Amazon 1-Click 'should never have been awarded' and Apple's pinch-and-zoom 'questionable' says man who changed software industry in 1968 (updated)"

A FFII activist says: "Not too complicated to say why we don't need Software patents. Not the right tool and I don't want to walk a mine field" (of someone else).

To some developers, the idea of getting their own patents may seem tempting as long as or until they reailise that with others' hundreds of thousands of software patents they won't be able to develop anything peacefully.

Apple likes to claim credit for inventing stuff it didn't invent and suing over it, quite often deceivingly or fraudulently. It's then that we realise just how much it ripped others off and usually we see it sued in return. It's a PR disaster. Apple's CEO may be deposed for patent blackmail quite soon [1, 2]. Apple almost sued Palm and the current CEO was the one behind threats that we covered at the time.

Over at the legal blogs, we learn more about Apple's fight against Samsung:

Magistrate Judge Paul Grewall has now ruled [PDF] on Samsung's request for help getting discovery from Apple for use in the Japanese litigation between them. He has decided that he'd like to wait for the Japanese court to rule on Samsung's discovery requests. If they deny, then Samsung is free to resubmit its request in the Seattle court.

What does it mean? It means Samsung has two shots to get what it is looking for. If Japan says no, in addition, it will confirm what Samsung told the California court. Both sides provided a lawyer declaration, Samsung's saying that Japanese courts don't order such discovery, and Apple's lawyer saying it does. So the judge wisely says, let it play out, and let's see. After it all plays out, then we'll all know.


An Apple fan site boasting patents reminds us that Samsung too has a lot of patents:

The Electronic Times and the Gwanggaeto Patent Research Institute recently analyzed the patent management of Apple, Samsung and Google amongst other tech companies and found that the ongoing litigation between Apple and Samsung has caused most large tech companies to increase the number of patents they own.


In the USPTO, which is foreign to Samsung (Korean company), Samsung "came in second, with 5,081 patents—up nearly 4 percent," says this report which quantifies patents in terms of totals. Apple Insider, another pro-Apple site, says that Kodak may have its patents shared amongs Apple and Android backers, raising the cost of everything (it is part of the cartel).

Apple would like Android devices to get more expensive, even if by patent stacking, which is an anticompetitive tactic. Apple just got desperate because shops consider iPhone inferior to Android phones. Except in the US market, Android is simply unstoppable.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October