Bonum Certa Men Certa

With 'Friends' Like IBM and Its 'Open' Invention Network We Legitimise Software Patents Rather Than End Them

Choice of a 'lesser evil' still leaves us with evil

A devil



Summary: Another reminder of where IBM stands on patent policy and what this means to those who rely on IBM for sheltering of Free/Open Source software (FOSS) or small businesses (SMEs) in a post-Alice era

Large corporations take it all when it comes to patents. Patent trolls are somewhat of a distraction and an obsession, as they help obscure the underlying problem with patent scope, including the existence of software patents. Consider IBM. IBM is itself a patent bully (with history). It uses software patents to attack far smaller companies and lobbies for such patents as well. IBM is opposing patent reform and it is also relying on its lobbyist (and former employee and former USPTO Director) David Kappos to maintain the status quo and abolish Alice as a factor, i.e. to prop up software patents at a time they're increasingly dying.



"IBM is opposing patent reform and it is also relying on its lobbyist (and former employee and former USPTO Director) David Kappos to maintain the status quo and abolish Alice as a factor, i.e. to prop up software patents at a time they're increasingly dying."According to another new article from Fortune, which seems to have found an interest in patents lately, "innovation and entrepreneurship has been on a steady decline for the last 40 years, and the U.S. has ultimately become less competitive as large companies take a greater share of profits in their respective industries, and roughly as many small companies go out of business as start up annually. One particularly telling statistic: Nearly 60% of U.S. employees now work for firms founded before 1980, Kauffman says." The article is titled "How Licenses and Patent Trolls Are Choking Entrepreneurship in America". The current policy is basically an SME killer (they're increasingly being eliminated by patents), whereas large companies don't seem to mind this. They form conglomerates like OIN which provide them with a collective shield in many cases. Where does antitrust law come into this?

"Don't be misled," IBM's Manny Schecter wrote regarding the above article, "this is about occupational licenses, not patent licenses even tho it is also about patent trolls"

Benjamin Henrion responded to Schecter by saying "patent trolls such as IBM. I had a look at your Prodigy patents complain[t], really insane."

And right now, based on yet another corporate media puff piece (Bloomberg in this case), it sure looks like the OIN people are greasing up major journalists for puff pieces this week. iophk told us regarding this article: "When will Microsoft put their money where their mouth is and join?"

"Some may be friends of FOSS on the technical side, but when it comes to policy -- especially patent policy -- they are certainly part of the problem."Well, when will IBM actually do something to stop the menace of software patents rather than promote these? Red Hat, which itself pursues software patents of its own (we wrote about this before), gets all excited about OIN even if it doesn't achieve much. Today it wrote about it that "Fortune reports that Toyota has joined the Open Invention Network as a full member, joining IBM, Red Hat, Google and others."

Unless or until OIN makes its goal also the abolition of software patents, why would the FOSS community have a good reason to embrace it? Look at the main parties behind OIN. Some may be friends of FOSS on the technical side, but when it comes to policy -- especially patent policy -- they are certainly part of the problem. Toyota itself is very close to Microsoft.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli, Google News, and Other LLM Slopfarms
Why does Google News keep promoting these fake articles?
Links 29/10/2025: Amazon Kept "Data Center Water Use Secret", "Abuse of Power" Against Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/10/2025: "My Hardware Specs" and "Goodbye Debian…"
Links for the day
EPO Cocainegate: Feedback and Clarifications
Part III will come out soon
Links 29/10/2025: "US Military Is Destroying the Planet Beyond Imagination" and Boat Strikes Deemed Unlawful
Links for the day
Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete