Microsoft Patent attack fended off

[lmilano]

I think this is a nice read, especially for those who consider it childish to dislike (and avoid) Microsoft and its products:
http://www.linux.com/news/featured-b...oft-got-caught

How sneaky that attempt was! Almost as bad as buying Novell's soul
http://boycottnovell.com/

Oh well.

[Jook_roberts]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

So will this make them stop saying that Linux violates their patents, or do they have more up their sleeve?

I would like to see what those patents actually are. I read once that M$ had a patent on using a computer in a car.

[toad]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

M$ also have a patent for, wait for this, a modular operating system! They filed it earlier this year. Never mind that UNIX and UNIX based OSs have been modular ever since their conception! Oh, and never mind that a modular windows does not even exist yet It is a mere idea of theirs and they managed to get the patent.

Hey, I'm going to patent the idea of barbecuing. Never mind whether somebody has done it before. Never mind that I'd burn my fingers trying it myself. As long as I can charge others doing it I'm going to be alright, Jack!

[lmilano]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

LOL

Never mind that UNIX and UNIX based OSs have been modular ever since their conception! Oh, and never mind that a modular windows does not even exist yet

Actually, under the hood, for what I heard, they started using BSD code around year 2000 (coincidentally, around that time they improved their stuff considerably). Of course, I never liked the BSD license because it is susceptible to this kind of abuse.

[lmilano]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

So will this make them stop saying that Linux violates their patents, or do they have more up their sleeve?

Hard to tell I guess. My hunch is that this will not stop them, they just lost one more battle, and they were exposed in public, again. But unless there is a coup and a fundamental change in upper management, I don't expect them to stop the attacks.

[kjjjjshab]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

Patent/copyright/trademark system is broken in USA IMO... but here's a fun interactive infographic anyway (just because they're fun):

http://www.jsonline.com/business/53244432.html

[dibl]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

Patent/copyright/trademark system is broken in USA IMO...

I agree -- the idea of an "invention" doesn't fit software anyway. If a developer (or his employer) can't stand the GPL and wants legal protection of his product, I've always thought a copyright on the source code would be a better approach. It is more a "work of authorship" than an "invention", IMO.

Interesting link -- thanks kjjjjshab!

[lmilano]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

@kjjjjshab: I agree the system is broken in that regard. What adds insult to injury is to see MS trying to use it to destroy the competition. As if they never did this sort of thing before.

[kjjjjshab]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

Before I read what this story was really about, I was about to defend Microsoft again, since corps like this have to file for every/all possible patents just to defend against the trolls, but then I read the article and vomited. But RE that modular OS patent... IF they are only trying to get it for defense against a merit-less SCO-like lawsuit, then you can hardly fault them for trying.

The system needs fixing... but in the meantime companies have to live within the crap reality. But wow, trying to sell existing patents to a re-seller... definitely a new low for Microsoft.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

Last fall I did some research at the USTPO site on the volume of patents Microsoft is awarded almost every day, For the period I studied Microsoft was receiving 27 patents PER DAY.

At the time, one patent I saw was for PGUP and PGDN on the keyboard. Specifically, having page up and page down jump not to the top of the next page, but to the same relative location in the next or previous page. Ya, that patent was loaded with prior art too, and the stench was noticeable all the way out here in Nebraska.

[Fintan]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

@toad:

I'm going to patent the idea of barbecuing.

You do that I'll sue you because I have the usage license on charcoal, wood and everything else that burns
I also have the patents for cooking food in any form or fashion

@GG

Ya, that patent was loaded with prior art too, and the stench was noticeable all the way out here in Nebraska.

Here in switzerland as well. At least we have a halfway decent patent system.

I have to agree with dible. Although I am no programmer by any stretch I think developing software goes closer to copyrighting than patenting.

As for MS, well the whole they are digging is just getting deeper. So be it.

[askrieger]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

When I was a callow youth, I worked for a company that had the policy of submitting patent applications for EVERYTHING (and I do mean everything) that was ever discussed in the office for more than 5 minutes. The net result was that people who could have been doing productive work spent a significant fraction of their time writing disclosures and our patent lawyers got rich.

However, it eventually became clear (even to me) that the objectives of this exercise were, first, to look good to people who might want to invest in (or buy) the company, second, to provide ammunition for our lawyers to write threatening letters to our competitors, and third (and most important) to be able to point to a specific date on which we had independently generated a particular idea, so we rebut threatening letters from our competitors.

This is a long way of saying that the U.S. patent system was sick as far back as the 1960's.

[lmilano]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

Yes, I heard that story a few times (companies developing a portfolio of patents as a defence mechanism).

I think this is clearly three things: the inadequacy of patents to cover software, the broken status of the patents system in many countries, and the fact that MS is using it against Linux (and in general the competition), this time in a very sneaky way.

Oh well, thank you all for the insight. In other news, but among the same lines, MS is now creating a very fishy "Open Source" foundation. Guess who is there, supposedly representing "us" (the community")?

http://lwn.net/Articles/352201/

[Jook_roberts]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

Eventually companies like M$ are going to be the ones who force a change in the patent laws. You can only abuse the system for so long, before someone decides to fix it.

Either that or all the corporations in the western world will be surpassed by corporations in countries where patents are ignored.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

.... You can only abuse the system for so long, before someone decides to fix it. ....

Obviously you don't live in America, Jook! In 1913 a coal Robber Barron asked the governor of Colorado to suppress a coal miner's strike in Ludlow. The gov sent in the national guard, which promptly machine gunned men, women and children. It took over 100 years to get a monument to that atrocity dedicated at the site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_massacre

Then there is the Matewan massacre in the 1930s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Matewan

The killings of citizens by corporations have been an ongoing tactic in their search for higher, and some would say obscene, profits. It has developed into a legalized art form by the Health Insurance companies, who regularly withhold promised treatments on flimsy pretexts, allowing sufferers to die. Even now, with their profit engine threatened, they are flooding the country with emails making absurd claims about Universal Health Care, which is scaring poorly informed Americans into protesting improvement in the health care industry which would benefit ALL Americans. I've gotten emails from patientsunitednow.com, AMERICANSFORPROSPERITY.ORG, and a couple others. I've tracked them all down to lobbyists offices on the 10th floor of the Office building at 1726 M STREET NW Washington, DC.

"AmericansForProsperity.org" is the front for corporate pharms and health insurance businesses that is generating a flood of Astroturf emails. They also hosted ‘Drill Baby, Drill’ rallies around the country, financed Joe the Plumber’s tour against the Employees’ Free Choice Act and other anti-EFCA rallies, and started NoStimulus.com, “a grassroots website that we hope will be a focal point for the widespread frustration ordinary Americans feel at the runaway government growth that we see during good economic times and bad.”

And you thought that Microsoft funding the Astroturf campaign against the DOJ and targeted at both Congress and Americans was bad, a campaign which included letters signed by residents of cemeteries.


If the patent mess in this country, and the lobbying of Congress by corporations prove anything, it proves that giant multinaitional corporations essentially CONTROL American politics, life styles and life itself.

Either that or all the corporations in the western world will be surpassed by corporations in countries where patents are ignored.

You hope. As we write, Microsoft, with the help of its Astroturfing front organizatiosn, is pulling the same kind of stunts in Europe as it pulled off here in America. It was the head of the Netherland's branch of ISO how rammed through approval of OOXML by ignoring ISO rules, and then after approval was granted resigned to work for Microsoft. Recently, the very same "non-profit" group's CEO was weasled onto the European Open Source Strategy Document committee, where he promptly twisted the document away from recommending FOSS software to government bodies into recommending "mixed software environments", with Microsoft software taking the majority share. To "appear" in favor of FOSS Microsoft has made a lot of publicity about donating some code to the GPL (which they were caught using illegally) and to starting a "FOSS" CodePlex website. Europe is the target, and getting it to adopt a patent similar as bad as America's is the goal.