05.08.16
US Bodies Are Locking Up the Commons and Industry Standards in Patent Enclosures, in Order to Benefit Few Monopolists
Anybody surprised by this?
Campaign promises versus actions
Summary: How public policy and guidelines are being warped by patent aggressors and super-rich opportunists rather than public/collective interest
EARLIER this year we showed how Microsoft-connected FRAND lobbying yielded discriminatory (against FOSS) policies in Europe. This is not a coincidence, it’s intentional. This is also one way to legitimise software patents through the back door.
“In some ways not much has changed since the IEEE Standard Association’s (IEEE SA) new patent policy came into effect in March last year.”
–IAMFRAND should not be acceptable for standards, for reasons that have been covered to death around the Internet. According to a new press release, NASA makes some patents (not many) “available in the public domain,” to use its own words. As Red Hat’s Jan Wildeboer put it in Twitter, “Good! But why not all?” We wrote about this before [1, 2]. As NASA is funded by taxpayers, hoarding patents makes no sense, especially when NASA auctions these away to patent trolls who can then tax the public.
Writing about standard essential patents and FRAND, IAM ‘magazine’ has just said: “In some ways not much has changed since the IEEE Standard Association’s (IEEE SA) new patent policy came into effect in March last year. There remains a group of tech companies led by Qualcomm, Ericsson and Nokia who refuse to license their standard essential patents (SEPs) under the new rules while, on the other side, the IEEE and another, larger band of tech companies including Cisco and Intel, insist that the changes were vital in bringing clearer guidelines to licensing on fair, reasonable and non discriminatory (FRAND) grounds.”
Nokia now feeds patents into patent trolls, at Microsoft’s request. One of these patent trolls literally pays IAM — a fact that even IAM’s editor was unable to deny when I asked him. Then we have Ericsson, which brought patent trolling to Europe, and also Qualcomm, which Will Hill explained 2 days as follows:
Heh, no surprise there. Qualcomm is a big Microsoft partner, allegedly “playing nice” for the “internet of things.” Maybe their existence is as a Microsoft proxy and PRISM partner, corrupting free software like Android from the inside. I wonder if they are one of the vendors that aggressively push for non free firmware that the guy behind Core Boot complained about in 2006 or so.
As a patent victim,
http://techrights.org/2007/08/07/patent-terrorism-asia-2004/
http://techrights.org/2007/12/13/patent-life-and-death/
Attacking Nokia with patents,
http://techrights.org/2007/11/26/acacia-patent-qualcomm-nokia/
http://techrights.org/2007/11/22/naughty-patent-apple-burst-nokia/
http://techrights.org/2008/03/06/uspto-breakage-ms-oss-hijack/
As a patent perp,
http://techrights.org/2008/01/11/hddvd-qualcomm-patent/
http://techrights.org/2009/11/25/us-patent-office-problems/
http://techrights.org/2008/12/04/ms-employment-patent-hawk/
http://techrights.org/2015/04/24/google-coexisting-with-swpats/
blocking legal reform
http://techrights.org/2007/10/26/patent-news-netapp-ms-verizon/
“working with Android” receiving Palm patents,
http://techrights.org/2014/01/25/palm-qualcomm/
Lock step with Microsoft in killing Windows 7 and Windows 8 to push Windows 10,
http://techrights.org/2016/01/20/escaping-microsoft-malware/
http://techrights.org/2016/01/21/biggest-fans-upset-at-microsoft/
Part of the empire,
http://techrights.org/2015/10/20/preferential-treatment-for-microsoft/
The latter bunch, those who advocate FRAND, are also asking for something unfair, unreasonable and discriminatory because it excludes FOSS. To quote IAM: “To Cisco’s Ohana that means that the IEEE dispute is about much more than a small number, albeit significant, changes to its patent policy. “I have never believed that the furore around the IEEE policy has much to do with the policy itself but more to do with the concerns that some companies have about contagion,” he says. “Fundamentally what they’re worried about is if what has happened at IEEE spreads beyond the IEEE.”
“Notice to what degree IEEE policy is guided by multi-billion multinationals.”Notice to what degree IEEE policy is guided by multi-billion multinationals. Where are public interests in all this? Well, just like in NASA’s case, we are seeing how even at a Federal or supposedly scientific level there’s no real debate about merit of policies, only self interest of a bunch of billionaires. And that’s a problem.
The IEEE’s hostility towards FOSS isn’t a new thing. See for example the older articles below. █
- IEEE is Still Against Scientists, Protects Monopolies Instead
- IEEE Hates Software Freedom, Now Makes it More Official
- IEEE Turns Young People Into Microsoft Customers
- IEEE Celebrates Patent Monopolies (Including Software Patents) While Patent Trolls Carry on
- Microsoft Receives Printed Lies Placement From IEEE
- User Stung by OOXML, IEEE Stung by IEC
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