Why Microsoft Won't List Claimed Patent Violations 626
BlueOni0n writes "Earlier today, Microsoft announced it will begin actively seeking reparations for claimed patent infringement by Linux and the open source community in general. One opinion on why Microsoft won't reveal these 235 alleged IP infringements to the public is that they're afraid of having the claims debunked or challenged — so instead they're waiting until the OS community comes to the bargaining table. But a more optimistic thought is that Microsoft may be afraid to list these supposed violations because it knows the patents can be worked around by the open source community, leaving Microsoft high and dry without any leverage at all."
Re:MSSCO (Score:4, Insightful)
Like McCarthy holding up an envelope (Score:5, Insightful)
So how can MSFT proceed if they don't list them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that the SCO case is tanking .,.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The SCO vs IBM assault (funded by Microsoft) is about to implode.
Therefore, Microsoft is poised to move on to their next strategy of
attacking free software.
Much of Microsoft's IP strategy is FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Just take a look at the amusing comments on the Office blogs about licensing their Office 2007 user interface IP. It's abundantly clear that some of the bigwigs in management there are not lawyers, and haven't even read about their own company's history in this area with Apple and others in the past. Some of them really do believe that just because they spent a significant amount of time and money researching something, they automatically get perfect monopoly protection of that research under IP laws.
new law needed? (Score:1, Insightful)
Anyway, at least how come the EFF or whoever doesn't campaign for it?
Large snowballing fines should have some effect even if you're a hypocrite corporation.
Re:So how can MSFT proceed if they don't list them (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been 4 years since this came out. SCO didn't have any facts to put into the case, and it's still banging around after 4 years. The only thing that will really limit them is their bankroll, which is running out.
MS has a much larger bank roll.
Pull over, you've just broken 235 traffic laws... (Score:5, Insightful)
When someone points out a mistake I made, I appreciate when they tell me exactly what it was, or tell me where to look if it's in my best interest to learn how to be more diligent with my work. I don't suffer fools, and being a smart-ass doesn't help.
What MS is doing is simply saying "hey you guys, there are 235 things you're doing that's going to get you in trouble, but we won't tell you what it is"
Will it make us go away? It has definitely incensed a bunch of us to either be even more anti-MS in our stance at their sword waving, (hopefully we can do the Indiana Jones thing from Raiders')
Re:SCO (Score:3, Insightful)
Until MS lays it all down on the table, just consider it more FUD using the SCO model.
Re:So how can MSFT proceed if they don't list them (Score:3, Insightful)
They'll be able to repeat this process as for as many patent violations as they can come up with. Should be able to do a lot of damage.
Begun this patent war has (Score:5, Insightful)
It also means they have decided the odds of getting Europe to adopt software patents had become too low for it to make sense on holding their fire any longer. Because this will almost certainly put the pro patent forces in the EU on defense while everyone decides that waiting to see how this afair shakes out is the prudent course.
It also means they feel threatened. Now normally that would be sorta good news, but Microsoft is paranoid and fearful as a matter of policy, always afraid of being knocked off their perch. They never choose to wait and 'hope for the best' when attack is an option for dealing with any real of imagined competitive threat. I suspect the only reason they have held their fire for so long was they felt they could use SCO to buy time to come up with a better plan that risking a Patent War that will have unpredictable results.
But SCO is used up and they only came up with the one twist to a plain patent fight, the Novell deal. It a) takes Novell out of the fight and b) offers an escape path for any corporation who decides the risk is too great, just throw Novell money and opt out of the fight. It will probably clear the field of everyone except the principles, which was the plan. Before it is over we will be following, at a minimum, RedHat V Microsoft, probably IBM v Microsoft and since this will probably trigger another anti-trust action we will also get DOJ v Microsoft.
Re:Where's Novell? (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing I think is interesting is MS's deal with Novell. If MS really had this big patent portfolio on which Linux was infringing, then Novell would have been in a very weak bargaining position.
Instead we see the opposite - MS paid Novell a lot of money for that deal. To me this says that MS is full of shit, its patents are hollow (or uninfringed), and they were paying a lot of $$$ to Novell to try and add credence to their dubious claims.
But what would I know - I'm just a hippy Linux user
Re:I might respect Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
The singularity OS is basically a
The comparison between the assets that Microsoft have, such as Singularity, the
Microsoft have held back the general state of computing in order to preserve their monopoly. It's absolutely clear. Yahoo for Douglas Crockford and watch his Javascript videos. It stands out like a sore thumb how many examples of Microsoft throwing a spanner in the works of Javascript. Repeat this across a whole industry, many times a year and it becomes clear that FOSS and contributors to FOSS are going to be how this industry is driven forward.
Any time there is even a sniff of a state legislating for open standards and Microsoft goons pop out of the woodwork.
GNU/Linux and the web have now cracked Microsoft, the water is starting to flow in, and the whole edifice needs to start bailing, or flounder. Start using your research. Cooperate with open standards, and start to compete on merit, and maybe Microsoft will have a chance.
You can't always work around patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider the MS FAT file system patent. There is no way you can work around the patent and still provide FAT functionality (required to work with cards from cameras etc.). For such patents there are three choices (i) Keep infringing, (ii) pull support or (iii) challenge the patent and get it overturned. With these types of patent, MS will have to weigh up whether it is worth exposing their patents to challenge, especially since many of the claims are probably quite unlikely to succeed.
Re:Where's Novell? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Devil's Advocate (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:new law needed? (Score:3, Insightful)
political process. The politicians worry about getting reelected,
and corporate money is crucial to that goal.
Re:I might respect Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
They're monopolists and their ideas about systems programming are at best ill-conceived, but you'll be more credible if you give credit where credit is due.
MS would do very well to clone a few of the OSS utility apps that are totally user-friendly. Kolourpaint, for instance, as a replacement for Paint. It might not make a big splash, but the millions of people upgrading to Vista would be pleasantly surprised by the fact that their bundled bmp editor had become more usable without losing approachability. (the grabbies that resize the canvas would be large enough for easy use on screens with resolution higher than 800x600, you could zoom to 300% in addition to 200% and 400%, you could zoom out, you could add text while zoomed in,
Re:I might respect Microsoft (Score:2, Insightful)
The PR regarding Microsoft is so effective that Bill Gates is regarded as the savior among the clueless (as in all my relatives), and Microsoft is the Orthodox Church.
It really does NOT matter that I think that he is a greedy weasel, and always has been (since the Homebrew Computer Days).
My last great hope in the SYSTEM is that the Supreme Court of this land will recognize that software patents are as nonsensical as making mathematical formulas "IP" or patentable (if that is a valid word).
This isn't the first disgusting display I've seen of a monopoly scrambling for that last nickel out of the tire treads of the parked cars - I witnessed "THE PHONE COMPANY" doing the same thing.
SAMBA infringing on networking protocol patents? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personal note: I'd be glad to get rid of Samba in Linux - it would be a push in the direction of getting rid of M$ on the client/workstation side, which is a good direction. There are plenty of Linux servers in business, and if M$ made everyone stop using Samba, a lot of business owners would sooner replace the network filesharing protocol to something better like SSHFS, or something similar.
2008 Elections (Score:2, Insightful)
Declaratory Judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
And if MS refused to tell you then couldn't you get a declaration from a court that your product doesn't infringe? IIRC, this is similar to what RedHat is pursuing in its case against SCO (which is on hold while SCO v IBM drags on).
Maybe a small Linux distributor with no assets and not much to lose could pursue a case like this against MS.
the only reason to be scared about this (Score:3, Insightful)
Money MS has available? Nope.
the tenacity of Ballmer? Ha.
The real reason to worry is that the big thing the US still exports is...IP. We don't export televisions, computers, cds, dvds, toys, or anything else. We export how to make those things, what music and movies to put on the cds and dvds, etc. That is our largest remaining industry (since food is too cheap to make money off of really anymore).
Part of me, therefore, worries that the feds will come HARD to the rescue of MS, because to do otherwise would be to give up a large part of the US IP. Not that MS is, by itself, such a thing...but it is certainly a figurehead for software patents, and the fall of MS would domino many other falls, all dramatically hurting the long-term export portfolio of the US.
Re:Where's Novell? (Score:4, Insightful)
Please look up laches. [lectlaw.com] While it is true that you don't automatically loose if you don't defend, you still can loose.
The patent system wasn't created for this (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, they shouldn't be allowed to continue their predatory and intimidating ways because they are a convicted monopolist. Where's the oversight?
Re:You can't always work around patents (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Earn a living with closed-source software (Score:2, Insightful)
In the smaller OSS ecosystem, the OS and tools (web servers, databases etc.) are a commodity that cost little if anything. Customers pay less, and can get local developers to provide exactly what they want. Local developers get most of the money.
I prefer the OSS ecosystem. My customers can afford applications customised to how they think and work, and I actually DO make a good living developing my own code. And it's far more fulfilling than earning a margin on MS software that I've shoe-horned the customer's requirements into.
heroes spoilers WTF!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Now that the SCO case is tanking .,.. (Score:4, Insightful)
then they ridicule you,
then they fight you,
then you win." -
????
then you profit
Just kidding. I have my own view of this quote. I personally believe that the key to this strategy is the "then they fight you" part. In the case of Gandhi, you had a bunch of well armed British soldiers brutally killing poor Indian people for very nebulous reasons.
He correctly surmised that the easiest way to fight this battle was simply to make people aware of it. Generally speaking, people consider themselves good. They won't allow that kind of injustice to continue if they are not able to turn away from it.
But understand that in order to win this war, people had to die. They didn't just sit around say "Ha ha! We're going to win because you fight us". To Gandhi, the people who peacefully refused to accept British rule were soldiers. And soldiers die.
To bring this back to Free software, can we use this tactic? First, if we do, we become soldiers. And soldiers die. Do we believe in our cause enough to die (at least an economic death)? Second, if we are slaughtered by the likes of Microsoft, will anyone care -- even if they are forced to watch? And how will we force/entice them to watch? 200 poor people getting gunned down by well armed soldiers is newsworthy. Joe Blow getting sued out of existence for patent infringement may not be quite so interesting to the average person.
I truly believe that the best and only way to win this battle is to make it matter to the average person. And to do this we must write software. Good software. Software that people *want* to use. If 200 million people are denied the ability to use their favorite programs, then something will break. Then it will be news that the average person will want to read about.
Then they will join us.
Then we will win.
Patent Search Counts... (Score:2, Insightful)
Querying for IBM, turns up 91,006 patents with IBM's name on them. My guess is that Microsoft probably infringes on more than 1% of IBM's patents. Oracle has 5,584 with their name on them (I threw that one in as a bonus just for reading this far!).
So, for Microsoft, it's either tell what patents are infringed on to allow the alleged infringing parties to mitigate Microsoft's damages and have them proved obvious, prior-art'ed or simply worked around OR don't tell and have them invalidated for failure to protect them. Hmm, nothing works very well. Also, this activity will generate a lot of negative press. But, they have to protect the value of their IP as embodied by US patents or risk lawsuits by their shareholders. What a shame... Live by the sword, die by the sword, huh?
Re:It seems unfair (Score:2, Insightful)
However, I am still infringing on their patent, which describes how the LZW compression algorithm works and guarantees Unisys, the patent holder, a thankfully temporary and now expired monopoly on any implementation of said algorithm, in any language, by any developer.
So all a company or person needs to do to determine if Microsoft (or any other closed-source company) infringes on its patents is to look at the program and ask, "does it do the thing I've patented in the way outlined in the patent?" If you have reason to believe that it is so, you can sue them, and demand that they license your patent or stop providing the infringing functionality. This was actually done quite recently by Eolas, a pure IP company, with respect to some sort of plug-in functionality in MS's Internet Explorer browser. They certainly had not seen the IE code when they sued (and won, by the way).
It's important that Eolas was a pure IP company because, well, there are so many patents out there that it's impossible not to infringe on some that don't belong to you, unless you're unreasonably vigilant (like the Ogg Vorbis people). So without any doubt, MS infringes on say, IBM's patents. The catch is, IBM most likely also infringes MS's patents, and they both probably infringe on Sun's patents, who in turn infringes on theirs. This is what we call IP MAD, to borrow a term from the cold war: mutually assured destruction. IBM doesn't sue MS because MS could counter-sue and both would be destroyed in the process. But with a pure IP company, they produce no software, and so there is no MAD: Eolas couldn't infringe on MS's patents, because it had no software product.
Richard Stallman is right about the term "Intellectual Property" -- it refers to three completely different legal beasts, namely copyright, trademark, and patents, all of which are so different that it makes no sense to group them together. The term IP is used by the industry to encourage us to think of ideas as property; they reinforce that notion by calling copyright infringement (illegal in its own right) theft, etc. It's a game of weasel words -- you're best off not using the term "Intellectual Property", because if you use it a lot, you'll begin to think that Copyright, Patents, and Trademark are all "sort of the same" and become confused about things. For example, Slashdotters often say that if a patent is not defended for some period of time, it expires -- but this is only true of trademarks, not patents. Similarly, you apparently confused patents and copyright, because you felt that you would need to see the code to discover if someone is infringing.
Not using the term "IP" unless you're extremely clear on the differences is a good step to clarifying things in your mind. Remember that Trademarks, Patents, and Copyright share no legal common ground, are based on entirely different laws, and do entirely different things.
Re:Where's the Cease and Desist? (Score:3, Insightful)
Paul B.
Re:Declaratory Judgement (Score:3, Insightful)
Not limited to Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't just an attack on Linux, it's an attack on open source development in general. That is a spectacularly bad idea for Microsoft to pursue."
Microsoft's Unwinnable War on Linux and Open Source [roughlydrafted.com]
Re:How far MS has fallen... (Score:3, Insightful)
1988: Microsoft achieves name recognition with the useless, but pretty, Windows 2.0
1990: Microsoft releases Windows 3.0, enabling shared memory (aka crash-prone, but useful) multitasking for the PC. The PC world goes wild!
1992: Just two years later, IBM releases OS/2 2.0 with true workstation multitasking, and we realize how much we got screwed. Microsoft pulled out of the OS/2 deal. At this point, they are just starting to write the NT kernel.
The rest is denouement...
1995: Microsoft introduces the Start! button and the puke-green desktop.
1994-96: Two great programs, Word and Excel reach stability, and are promptly forgotten as the whole world gets buried in PowerPoint presentations.
1997: Outlook becomes the poster-child for complex, bloated, and virus-laden software design. Likewise, IE kills Netscape and replaces it with even more viruses.
2000: A full eight years later, OS/2 style multitasking reaches a home audience with Windows 2000. Whew! Thank God!
And since then?
Nada. Unless you count XP, which is...seven years old on the inside.
Re:will the Novell deal backfire? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Barrel is smoking, feet are bloody (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone high up at Microsoft has vowed to "f*cking kill linux". After long thought they decide that now is the time and that the best way to proceed is through patent lawsuits. This of course will anger the companies that have interest in linux and many of them hold their own patents which, by the nature of software patents, might or are infringed on by MS itself.
Of all of the patent holders it was novell's patents that would hurt MS more, should a patent war ensue. My hypothesis is that the rest have already been bribed or have little strategic importance.
I am puzzled by the role of IBM in this, they are either the big enemy MS will be going against (after having neutralized the rest of the threats), OR they have secretly agreed to share the profits of the outcome (for example, the invalidation of the GPL). This or the next year they will finally show their true colors regarding this issue.
And the fact that there is nothing wrong with that (Score:5, Insightful)
another reason... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And the fact that there is nothing wrong with t (Score:5, Insightful)
It's odd that you would bring this up in defense of BSD/Expat/MIT vs copyleft, because this is almost exactly the same reasoning behind the Free Software movement: the inability to modify software that is not freely available in source code format leads to us rewriting it. Having done so, we license the resultant works so that we won't have to do so again.
At the end of the day, though, most of us wouldn't care what licenser something is released under so long as we can modify it and combine it with other free works; the unfortunate nature of closed source software is the only reason that the GPL exists... if everyone gave away source code, we would never had left the halcyon days of the dawn of computing.
Re:Mutually Assured Destruction (Score:5, Insightful)
My goodness, how apocalyptic.
Take a look around -- there is a whole big world out there beyond the borders of the USA, and a healthy technical industry as well.
If the US decides to blow their own industry away, that's more for everyone else.
Re:And the fact that there is nothing wrong with t (Score:2, Insightful)
Need fair, cheap automatic patent license. (Score:2, Insightful)
patents delayed the development of safe mass production cars (Durea, hydraulic brakes, ignition systems),
patents delayed the widespread availability of hetrodyne radio receivers in the 30's,
patents delayed the widespread availability of copying machines (Xerox),
patents are currently blocking millions of people from cheap drugs for Aids.
The patent game is tightly connected to the merchantile theories of "what do high labor cost highly educated countries create and sell in order to buy what low labor cost countries make? They make "intellectual property", stuff protected by patent an copyright.
So that is the mercantilist clinch that prevents the United States from relaxing patent law. Neither of the major politicial parties can vote against "Keeping America competitive in world trade."
What we need is an economic analysis of the "monopoly costs to the world of unrestrained patent law" and a comparison with the global benefit of "automatic licensing of intellectual property at a sufficiently low user cost that patents enhance the quality and value of all production of the entire world."
The benefits of patents and patent revenue are the dream drug of a capitalist "Ahh, if I have enough patents I will not have any competitive pressures." Xerox rode a bunch of patents for 20 years.
But the reality of patents is the small guy is almost always screwed. The middle sized guys are gobbled up, and the big players play long, slow expensive games tying up entire industries with higher prices and inferior ideas.
Re:Where's Novell? (Score:5, Insightful)
JOHN CLEESE: "You've trespassed upon my property!"
GRAHAM CHAPMAN: "I did not."
CLEESE: "You did! You did! You owe me a toll!"
CHAPMAN: "I wasn't aware that I did. Where did I step on your property?"
CLEESE: "...I won't tell you."
CHAPMAN: "What? Why not?"
CLEESE: "If I told you, then you'd find a route that doesn't cross my property. That would ruin my chances of collecting a toll in the future, now, wouldn't it?"
CHAPMAN: "You are a very silly man and I have no intention of paying."
CLEESE: "THERE! You did it again! Now pay up!"
CHAPMAN: "No. Go away."
Re:Declaratory Judgement (Score:5, Insightful)
If microsoft is accusing you of breaking the law then they either have to prove it or retract the statement and settle. Sounds like it would be safer than that act since as microsoft has named a number, it would have to prove that number, even if a couple did stick then their original statement is still false.
More important during discovery you could get the court to force them list these patents and where the infringements are...
Since anyone supplying a linux appliance, system or server would fall foul of microsoft's claims then I suspect anyone with deep enough pockets could take up this cause.. or set up a company front to do so for them and let it take the fall if necessary
Re:And the fact that there is nothing wrong with t (Score:3, Insightful)
Not a very profound statement when you consider that freedom to license software the way you want is being exercised by virtually everyone who releases software. Observe these other courageous people taking a stand:
You've Got To... (Score:3, Insightful)
Know when to fold them,
Know when to walk away,
Know when to run,
You never count your money
when you're sitting at the table,
There'll be time enough for counting,
When the dealing's done.
-- Kenny Rogers
And yes, I think Microsoft is bluffing as to the number of patents, and is acting in bad faith: if indeed there is infringing code, they don't want it fixed, they want to use it as leverage to kill Linux. As we've all suspected would happen, Microsoft has finally come out from behind their hillock.
Re:Mutually Assured Destruction (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft doesn't matter (Score:2, Insightful)
The rest of the 'items' that probably don't even fall under their worthless invalid patents, can be easily re-written to avoid whatever routines, processes, methods etc, they think they have a right to "own".
With regards to the Novell deal, if it does turn out that projects cease to be developed, they are the only one who is immune to this monkey-fuck patent crap, so in order for Novell to continue using these things they would have to develop them internally, because I guarantee that after GPLv3 people are not going to develop things FOR Novell in normal community style ala OpenSuSE only to have them turn around and play Microsoft's games.
Re:"Dubious"? I'm sure Linux does infringe.... (Score:3, Insightful)