Bonum Certa Men Certa

IBM is Hoarding a Lot of Software Patents But Disguises Them as 'Cloud', 'AI', and Other Buzzwords

As if drawing some diagrams of so-called 'clouds' renders an old idea suddenly "innovative"

Bird and cloud



Summary: IBM, its disturbing software patents advocacy, and the new wave of bogus software patents, which hop and ride the wave of the latest buzzwords (the generation preceding that was "on a computer" or "over the Internet" patents)

EARLIER this year and last year we took note of IBM's dubiously large pile of patents. Statistics about these showed that many of these were about "AI" or "cloud" -- something along the lines of "on a computer" or "over the Internet". We remind readers that IBM is one of the, if not the, proponent/s of software patents and eradication of Alice-related tests. IBM even took leadership role in task forces to that effect and it employs David Kappos as a lobbyist, after he worked both for IBM and for the USPTO.



"They are 'cloudwashing' (our term) old stuff in an effort to make new software patents seem like they have merit or are novel."According to this, "analysis from Envision IP which found that IBM had sold more than 15,000 patents since 1991, with Google the biggest customer" [sic] (customer is the wrong term). We kindly remind readers that IBM patents a lot of dubious things that should never be granted a patent at all. They are 'cloudwashing' (our term) old stuff in an effort to make new software patents seem like they have merit or are novel. IBM is also 'openwashing' its operations whilst attacking large GNU/Linux users. IBM was one of the earliest allies of GNU/Linux, but that is no longer the case. The company now has a strategic partnership with Apple and many of its 'contributions' to Linux seem to be antifeatures like Treacherous Computing. We are therefore saddened to let go of the myth of IBM as protector if not flag bearer of GNU/Linux interests.

Incidentally, about software patents on so-called 'cloud' (a nebulous concept) there is this new article which takes note of trolls' role in it. To quote a couple of portions:

NPEs (Non-Practising Entities) are businesses that assert patents through litigation to achieve revenues from alleged infringers without practising or commercialising the technology covered by the patents they hold. NPEs are uniquely well placed to monetise their patents at each stage of the litigation cycle. They have access to capital and all necessary forensic and legal resources; and an NPE doesn’t practise its patents so is immune to a counterclaim that a defendant might otherwise be able to bring against a competitor, or a cross-licence that the defendant could otherwise offer.

[...]

Although the number of patent litigation cases filed in the USA has declined from a high point of 6,500 in 2013 to 5,600 in 2015, this is still almost double the 3,000 or so launched in 2009, and correlates fairly steadily over the last few years at around 2% of US patents granted.


The above decline is often attributed to AIA and/or Alice. We should add that, based on recent patent filings from IBM, the company is exploiting the AI hype (not a new thing, but the hype is newer), with silly marketing like "Watson", in order to hoard yet more software patents. There is this new article titled "Of Patents and Artificial Intelligence" and it totally misses the point that patents on AI are typically if not inherently software patents and should thus be denied. Pay attention to who authored the article though; don't ask lawyers about it. They say what brings them the most income, disregarding actual cases such as Alice.

"They say what brings them the most income, disregarding actual cases such as Alice."The bottom line is, forget (at least for a moment) about these notorious "on a computer" or "over the Internet" patents and pay attention to the latest wave of "AI" or "cloud" patents, which represent no expansion of innovation but a more creative way to bypass patent restrictions and fool examiners.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Real Life Should be Offline, Not Online, and It Requires Free Software
Resistance means having the guts to say "no!", even in the face of great societal burden and peer pressure
 
IBM Took a Man’s Voice, Pitting Him Against His Own Work, While Companies Profit from Low-Effort Garbage Generated by Bots and “Self-Service”
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Links 26/09/2023: KDE, Programming, and More
Links for the day
Mozilla Promotes the Closed Web and Proprietary Webapps That Are Security and Privacy Hazards
This is just another reminder that the people who run Mozilla don't know the history of Firefox, don't understand the Web, and are beholden to "GAFAM", not to Firefox users
Debian More Like an Exploitative Sweatshop Than a Family
Wiltshire is riding a high horse in the UK, talking down to Indians who are "low-level" volunteers in his kingdom of authoritarians, guarded by an army of British lawyers who bully bloggers
Small Computers in Large Numbers: A Pipeline of Open Hardware
They guard and prioritise their "premiums", causing severe price hikes due to supply/demand disparities.
Microsoft Deserves a Medal for Being Worst at Security (the Media Deserves a Medal for Cover-up)
There are still corruptible/bribed publishers that quote Microsoft staff like they're security gurus
10 Reasons to Permanently Export or Liberate Your Site From WordPress, Drupal, and Other Bloatware
There are certainly more more advantages, but 10 should suffice for now
About 200,000 Objects in Techrights Web Site
This hopefully helps demonstrate just how colossal the migration actually is
Good Teachers Would Tell Kids to Quit Social Control Media Rather Than Participate in It (Teaching Means Education, Not Misinformation)
Insist that classrooms offer education to children rather than offer children to corporations
Twitter: From Walled Gardens to Paywalls and/or Amplifiers of Fascism
There's moreover a push to promote politicians who are as scummy as Twitter's owner
The World Wide Web is Being Confiscated From Us (Like Syndication Was Withdrawn About a Decade Ago) and We Need to Fight Back
We're worse off when fewer people promote RSS feeds and instead outsource to social control media (censorship, surveillance, manipulation)
Next Up: Restoring IRC Log Pipelines, Bulletins/Full Text RSS, Wiki (Archived, Static), and Pipelines for Daily Links
There are still many tasks left ahead of us, but we've progressed a lot
An Era of Rotting Technology, Migration Crises, and Cliffhanging
We've covered examples from IBM, resembling the Microsoft world
First Iteration of Techrights as 100% Static Pages Web Site
We want to champion another decade or two of positive impact and opinionated analysis
Links 25/09/2023: Patent News and Coding
some remaining links for today
Steam Deck is Mostly Good in the Sense That It Weakens Microsoft's Dominance (Windows)
The Steam Deck is mostly a DRM appliance
SUSE is Just Another Black Cat Working for Proprietary Giants/Monopolies
SUSE's relationship with firms such as these generally means that SUSE works for authority, not for community, and when it comes to cryptography it just follows guidelines from the US government
IBM is Selling Complexity, Not GNU/Linux
It's not about the clients, it's about money
Birthday of Techrights in 6 Weeks (Tux Machines and Techrights Reach Combined Age of 40 in 2025)
We've already begun the migration to static
Linux Foundation: We Came, We Saw, We Plundered
Linux Foundation staff uses neither Linux nor Open Source. They're essentially using, exploiting, piggybacking goodwill gestures (altruism of volunteers) while paying themselves 6-figure salaries.
Security Isn't the Goal of Today's Software and Hardware Products
Any newly-added layer represents more attack surface
Linux Too Big to Be Properly Maintained When There's an Incentive to Sell More and More Things (Complexity and Narrow Support Window)
They want your money, not your peace of mind. That's a problem.
Modern Web Means Proprietary Trash
Mozilla is financially beholden to Google and thus we cannot expect any pushback or for Firefox to "reclaims the Web" a second time around
Godot 4.2 is Approaching, But After What Happened to Unity All Game Developers Should be Careful
We hope Unity will burn in a massive fire and, as for Godot, we hope it'll get rid of Microsoft
GNU/Linux Has Conquered the World, But Users' Freedom Has Not (Impediments Remain in Hardware)
Installing one's system of choice on a device is very hard, sometimes impossible
Another Copyright Lawsuit Against Microsoft (or its Proxy) for Misuse of Large Works by Chatbot
Some people mocked us for saying this day would come; chatbots are a huge disappointment and they're on very shaky legal ground
Privacy is Not a Crime, Reporting Hidden Facts Is Not a Crime Either
the powerful companies/governments/societies get to know everything about everybody, but if anyone out there discovers or shares dark secrets about those powerful companies/governments/societies, that's a "crime"
United Workforce Always Better for the Workers
In the case of technology, it is possible that a lack of collective action is because of relatively high salaries and less physically-demanding jobs
Purge of Software Freedom and Its Voices
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
GNOME and GTK Taking Freedom Away From Users
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer