Linux Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Red Hat/Novell 473
walterbyrd writes "Just months after the last nail in SCO's case, and on the same day as Red Hat's brave words about patent intimidation, a company filed the first patent suit against the Linux operating system. IP Innovation LLC filed the claim against Red Hat and Novell over U.S. Patent No. 5,072,412. PJ points out there is prior art here: 'You might recall the patent was used in litigation against Apple in April 2007, and Beta News reported at the time that it's a 1991 Xerox PARC patent. But Ars Technica provided the detail that it references earlier patents going back to 1984.'"
"...filled against Linux" (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:"...filled against Linux" (Score:4, Funny)
But would it apply to screen? lol
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Heck - Linux version 0.12 had virtual consoles circa 1992 ( around the time this thing was filed.)
It was old technology then.
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This was filed in 1987
Virtual consoles predate that. The System V-oid O/S on the Unix PCs had virtual console support. End of life for the Unix PC was around that time, so virtual consoles absolutely came first.
This patent seems to involve multiple desktops in a GUI environment and the first implementation of that that I recall was olvwm from Sun Micro. I don't think olwm, the single desktop predecessor of olvwm came that early. HP's Vu (spelling?) might have had multiple desktops by 1989ish, but I don't remember. CDE (whi
Re:"...filled against Linux" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"...filled against Linux" (Score:5, Funny)
Not your fault: "links" is poor name for a project (Score:3, Interesting)
It was because of this that I finally gave up trying to use, get docs for, or otherwise find out more about "links" and switched to elinks [elinks.cz], which is a fo
Whether we like it or not.... (Score:2, Insightful)
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(All the more so, because one of the companies Microsoft cut a deal with for patent lawsuit protection, Novel, is also named in this lawsuit)
Re:"...filled against Linux" (Score:5, Informative)
Gerry
Re:"...filled against Linux" (Score:4, Funny)
"ALL companies have ex-Microsofties on the payroll, with some recent hires. Microsoft is the largest software company in the world. Go ahead, ask around. I'll bet you have a former Microsoft employee on your team! :)"
None here. If there were, I'd be making their life miserable.
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There's also another problem - Microsoft has never been the largest software company in the world - that's IBM.
And then if you want to go further, with RIAA-style arithmetic (those CD burners count dobule because they're faster!), 1 IBM programmer has got to be worth at least a dozen MCSEs.
Re:"...filled against Linux" (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. They're not attacking GNU/Linux. They are attacking companies that make money selling Linux. They're not after the people who won't pay for an operating system, they're after the people who will. This suit is against Redhat and Novell, who provide a system with a GUI, that GUI infringes on the patent.
My question is, what product does this company sell that they can claim to have lost revenue on? Or is IP law so crap that there is no need to even have made an attempt at creating a product to be able to sue someone for damages? I mean, I can understand royalties, but damages?
Also, it will be interesting to see when they informed Redhat and Novell of the infringement since they are suing for willful infringement.
Re:"...filled against Linux" (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know what happened in this case. It could be that the patent holder asked Red Hat to license the patent for a fee and Red Hat refused. Given Red Hat's recent statements that suggest that they feel no obligation to honor patents (at least patents held by companies they don't like), it wouldn't surpsise me.
Re:"...filled against Linux" (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, this particular patent will be struck down on examination -- it fails both the novelty and obviety tests (to say nothing of being invalid in most countries in the world). Red Hat should submit a motion that the case is entirely without merit and IP Innovation LLC are being vexatious litigants.
Re:"...filled against Linux" (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's sad it will be the US IT industry that gets the most pain, but, in other countries, this "sacrifice" will allow life to go on and a case will be provided to show such stupid laws need to be completely avoided.
the US will
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Excuse me? Where can I buy a RedHat or Novell branded computer? They sell software[*].
Ironically, in the recent Supreme Court AT&T vs Microsoft decision, the Supremes found in favor of Microsoft that software per se is not a component of an infringing device, but infringement only happens when the software is run on a computer. (There are detail differences in the cases, of course, part of it including what was being
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Follow the money (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Follow the money (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe.
IP Innovation LLC is a subsidiary of Acacia, and Acacia recently appointed Brad Brunell, who worked for 16 years at Microsoft as general manager, intellectual property licensing. He's now a senior vice president. Other ex-Microsoft executives have also recently migrated to Acacia.
Acacia are known as patent trolls.
Re:Follow the money (Score:4, Interesting)
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It seems to be time for IBM to sell a few hundred patents to a bunch of Patent troll companies, which then sue Microsoft...?
The start of the patent wars seems to be similar to the cold war, when the super powers fought by proxy.
Re:Follow the money (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, after hearing that Acacia has anything to do with this, I am not surprised at all. I worked in the distance education department for a University a few years back. At that time, they were making rounds among the education industry, and sending letters asking for several hundred thousand dollars, or 5% of all profits made from a series of patents.
The patents? "A system of distributing video and/or audio information employs digital signal processing to achieve high rates of data compression" over cable, tv, telephone, and as they were implying, the internet. Their claim was that anyone streaming video or sound needed to pay up. I mean, honestly, transferring compressed data over a medium!? And of course they didn't go after larger University's that flat out told them they wouldn't pay...
Acacia is one of those companies at the bottom of the barrel. Even worse than SCO, because their whole business is suing over patents, like NTP.
Here is the link if anyone's interested: http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=8559&c=13 [streamingmedia.com]
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1.) Redhat loses the case, pays big money, Microsoft loses a competitor
2.) Redhat wins the case, patent is invalidated, one less Eolas type threat to Microsoft's bottom line.
Re:Follow the money (Score:5, Interesting)
However, there is a principle in law (or Equity) that one cannot do indirectly what he cannot do directly. An interesting question for practicing lawyers (I am a retired one and not up on all of this) would be, is there a way to attribute the Plaintiff's actions to Microsoft, canceling their GPL rights? Would it in fact be too late to do this based on their provable support of SCO (the massive loans arranged by MS to keep SCO afloat)? I'd sure like to hear what Eben Moglen has to say about this.
Re:Follow the money (Score:5, Insightful)
Since these Acacia people don't actually do anything other than patent troll defensive patent portfolios are useless against it.
Too Late (Score:5, Insightful)
...Or Timely (Score:3, Insightful)
Saved me some effort (Score:3, Informative)
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And no, the intraweb can't bring me coffee. My coffee maker ain't wired.
Its about time! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Its about time! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Its about time! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly what Mr Ballmer said would happen and is the best weapon Microsoft can use in pushing their "Linux infringes patents" attack. Obviously if they were to bring any cases themselves they would be swamped under a wave of counterclaims from Linux friendly companies such as IBM and Novell so this way they have a proxy which cannot be stopped in such fashion and which on the face of it has nothing to do with Microsoft should there be any negative repercussions from the action. I'd expect to see a lot more of this sort thing from now on.
Even if Red Hat go to court, win and have the patent thrown out ( which we hope they will ) it's still going to cost them a lot of money and quite likely drag on for a good long time sapping money and resources which Red Hat would otherwise be using to expand its business. This obviously is to Microsofts benefit and gives them a hook to hang their "Linux is tainted by illegal patents" hat on.
In the worst case scenario Red Hat go to court, lose and the patent is validated costing Red Hat lots of money for damages and an on-going outlay if they're allowed to licence the patent. Even worse than that since Red Hat no doubt use a very similar version of whatever component of the Linux system that everyone else does it's going to be a lot easier for this company to get money from them too. Even worse than that is the situation for freely distributed Linux, obviously there's no one to pay licence fees to use the patent so it's possible that restrictions would somehow be placed on such free distributions ( not sure of the legal situation with one ). Clearly this would be a huge win for Microsoft.
If this patent is thrown out then you can bet there will be hundreds more coming out of the woodwork each one carrying the risks outlined above if they're not thrown out and each one costing Linux companies money to defend against.
As PJ says the real solution is for the US to harmonise it's patent rules with the rest of the world and cut support for all software patents because if what we're seeing now continues the US is going to lose out to other countries where such patent laws are not in effect and Linux can flourish.
Re:Its about time! (Score:5, Interesting)
There is another alternative, which could happen ... all development moves off-shore. Heck, RedHat could just move almost everything to Europe and trade there. (Alan Cox refuses to visit the US because of the stupid software patent issues).
Sell the core system in the US with from RedHat US with no Window Managers, and a link to repositories to download all the Window Managers you want, from software-patent-is-bad countries. Sell the full system everywhere else.
This is just one more step for the US in its continual technological decline. Whole industries are already gone - ram, most hard drives, lcd screens. Why not almost all FLOSS development?
Re:Its about time! (Score:4, Funny)
I've information that I will hold for law suits that are dear to me,
I know the kings of software, and I sue them quite hysterical
From IBM to Red Hat , in order oh most technical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters about the SCO law suit,
I understand the law, both the simple and the theoretical,
About collecting payment I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the demise of software use.
IP Innovation LLC (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the great thing about companies with names like "IP Innovation LLC"....they don't have any products so they can't possibly be infringing on anybody else's junk patents.
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Because Oracle distributes an exact clone of Red Hat linux. If it the court finds that Red Hat infringes on the patent, then Oracle is in the exact same boat. And that boat is: paying big bucks to the patent troll.
Interesting. (Score:5, Insightful)
So they are Suing RedHat and Novell for using whatever it is that violates the patent. Isn't that a bit like suing Dell because Microsoft's OS infringes on a patent and Dell distributes it?
Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean like investigating Dell because they sell hard drives that might infringe on a patent [slashdot.org]?
Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's good to see that the original inventors and holders of this patent will finally be compensated for their innovation.
Oh wait... the company that holds the patent now (IP Innovation) has nothing to do with the original inventors? Well, I hope any damages they are awarded will encourage them to innovate.
Our patent system is broken.
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But still, I agree that companies like IP Innovation shouldn't be able to extort money from companies after waiting so many years for a technology to become ubiquitous.
Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've come to realize that this is a misconception. The patent system isn't broken, corrupt, or overwhelmed. Unfortunately, it is working exactly as it was designed.
From an early age we are taught idealist interpretations of patent law and how it is a wonderful tool to spur innovation, research, business, etc. and provide a level playing field for the little entrepreneur. However, when confronted with the reality of what patent law is, a forced impedement on human nature to invent and create which turns out to be contradictory to the idealistic intent, it is assumed it must be because it is broken.
http://www.movingtofreedom.org/2006/08/31/ben-franklin-on-patents/ [movingtofreedom.org]
An ironmonger in London however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own, and making some small changes in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little fortune by it. And this is not the only instance of patents taken out for my inventions by others, tho' not always with the same success, which I never contested, as having no desire of profiting by patents myself, and hating disputes. The use of these fireplaces in very many houses, both of this and the neighbouring colonies, has been, and is, a great saving of wood to the inhabitants.
- Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
If Ben was around today I'm sure he would approve of the open source movement and he would likely be called a smelly long haired communist and have chairs thrown at him.
Re:Patent markets DO reward original inventors (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the problem is that patents are being (c) sold to people who have no intention of (a) manufacturing the product themselves, nor (b) of licensing the patent to someone else. In which case, the patent doesn't promote innovation in any way. Sure, the original inventor is monetarily compensated, but if the invention isn't being used at all, what's the point? If the sale of the patent is to someone who is actually going to do something with it, instead of just sitting on it for a decade and then suing people, I wouldn't have a problem with that.
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Patent troll rule #1: Go after the deep pockets.
Patent troll rule #2: Go after the high profile lawsuit. When more notable companies get sued, you get more press, and therefore more respectability when you enter the negotiating table (their bread and butter is settlements).
It should be noted, however, that a very decent amount of Gnome development goes on at Novell, so that target isn't so ba
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Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Informative)
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I don't think KDE supports that feature with Kicker, so KDE appears to be fine, but Gnome will have to defend themselves. (Or anyone using Gnome.) I've heard people wishing KDE supported it and wondered why they didn't. Now I wonder if this is why... I somehow doubt it, though.
I seem to recall that Windows can make the taskbar span all the desktops, but it's several views of the same item, but viewing a different p
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In other words (quoting again, this time from the description): "A display system object can be linked to more than one workspace, to provide a respective tool in each of thos
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Vtwm has had this since at least February 1992. Admittedly that's later than the 1991 patent date, but with some further digging into history, vtwm might stil become prior art. I have memories of using it earlier than that, at least.
In any case, the fact that nobody filed suit against the vtwm developers/distributors for over 15 years shows that the owners for a very long time didn't exploit their patent the way they should have.
Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, patent trolls go after the deepest pockets. A better analogy would be going after Honda because the third party that makes their windshield glass infringes on a glassmaking patent.
Re:Interesting. (Score:4, Informative)
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It's a common legal tactic that I believe is called the "Deep Pockets Theory". You sue the people with money (deep pockets) who are barely involved in the issue because the real offender can't pay you off. They know that they can't get any money from KDE and GNOME developers, so they go after the companies that use these products. Interestingly enough, they did not choose to sue Sun, who I believe distributes GNOME wi
If this doesn't stop EU swpatents nothing will (Score:5, Interesting)
There are lots of people in EU using linux distributions without any legal concerns that would be very damaged the very day that EU suddenly recognizes this troll patent.
Re:If this doesn't stop EU swpatents nothing will (Score:5, Interesting)
This way EU benefits from the extra tax from companies moving to EU and US might be forced to change their law or face loosing lots of tax dollars.
But then again, I might be dreaming...
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Gentlemen, start your editors... (Score:2)
The patent race has begun.
Anyone taking bets on how long it will take for the OS community to provide a workaround?
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maybe you can write a letter to the editor...
Start of a patent war? (Score:3, Interesting)
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What I have found, though, is astounding. Acacia has sued hundreds of defendants in 213 different patent lawsuits brought by 36 different Acacia subsidiaries. That's right - they have sued in 36 different names! By doing so, Acacia, a publicly traded company, has increased its market cap by tenfold, going from a 35M company in early 2003 to a 350M company today.
This company doesn't make anything, it is a patent troll pure and simple.
Re:Start of a patent war? (Score:5, Funny)
Edmund Blackadder summed it up beautifully:
Edmund: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs
developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the
Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two
vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way
there could never be a war.
Baldrick: But this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir?
Edmund: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.
George: What was that, sir?
Edmund: It was bollocks.
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Perhaps if one could patent patent-trolling? Can you patent business methodologies under the whacky-fun US system?
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In this case however the aggressor does not make software. They're just a paten
PJ points out no such thing (Score:5, Informative)
A couple of things I noticed (Score:4, Interesting)
But this patent was granted to Xerox, NOT "IP Innovation LLC". So why the hell is this 3rd party suing over a patent it wasn't granted?
The content of this patent is given in a language that is so obtuse that I can't tell whether it's describing something that was obvious, or if it's describing a single large virtual desktop, or if it's talking about something completely different than the "workspaces" we're used to seeing today. And I really don't have the time this morning to try deciphering it.
An Acacia subsidiary (Score:5, Informative)
Re:An Acacia subsidiary - More Info (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:An Acacia subsidiary (Score:5, Informative)
Mod parent UP (Score:2)
But wait... (Score:5, Interesting)
So you mean that making a patent deal with Microsoft doesn't really protect Novell from patent infringment suits? Well, isn't that the strangest thing...
I think Novell is about to figure out that no matter how you look at it, they got the short end of the stick in the Microsoft deal. They paid a lot of money so that firms other than Microsoft could sue them for patent infringement. Wonder if they'll just pay off this company like they did Microsoft. Wonder if they can afford to pay off all of the companies that will bring patent infringement suits against them.
What a way to paint a big, red, sue-me-for-patent-infringement-target on their company.
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They only pay money if MS generates them new revenue.
Are they building up a war chest? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, perhaps they are going after what they perceive as the 'weaker targets' in order to solidify this?
So, they go after red hat and novell, hoping they will pay...
IBM, etc have far more cash and they are not going after them because they would get pummeled into the ground.
Smells like a pump and dump, or a pump and sell deal with this patent troll, especially with the M$ goon with them.
For the sake of IP innovations LLC... (Score:3, Interesting)
comic strip idea (Score:2)
Reading over some of those patents... (Score:2, Funny)
Now wait for this (Score:2)
Anybody remember "Sidekick" for DOS? (Score:4, Informative)
Of course Sun had stuff that predates this too. Their Open Look Window Manager (olwm) was around for quite a while before this. Olwm was the first window manager that I used under Linux too. That would have been in 1991 or so which may or may not pre-date the patent.
--
This space for rent
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Something funny going on here (Score:3, Funny)
"I'm sorry your honor, but we do not produce a product called Linex. We do however have a product called Linux"
"Case dismissed!"
Worst case scenario IS the best case scenario? (Score:3, Insightful)
Read that again. Every copy that they sell.
Could this potentially be a really good precedent? It could end up setting the stage for an industry in which open source operating systems can freely include patented technologies, because the only parties who need be concerned about patents are the ones who are selling it. This could end up making the whole patent problem much less of a concern. Go ahead and put that MP3 decoder in, for example. Fedora distributes it for free. CentOS distributes it for free. Red Hat Enterprise charges for it, and pays the royalty to Frauhofer.
Yes, software patents are bullshit, including this one. But imagine how cool it would be if this precedent were established, and free operating systems like Ubuntu could bundle all those codecs by default, because the royalty requirement only applies when money changes hands for an operating system license.
Not to worry, much (Score:3, Interesting)
Reasons not to worry:
I doubt that Microsoft is behind this. It's not one of their patents, and it's a weak claim. If Microsoft does something with patents, it's likely to involve something that has to be Microsoft-compatible, like Samba or Wine.
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It's called a smoke screen. Anything to give Linux/Redhat bad publicity.
Isn't X11 itself prior art? (Score:3, Informative)
There was also a company called 3 Rivers Systems (I think) that was selling windows based machines somewhat before the Lisa was demonstrated. I just googled it - it was called the PERQ and appears to have come out in 1979, so looks like they had been around a while when I saw one. They were way ahead of what the Lisa could do, BTW. This may not be prior art because it seems the designer came out of Xerox Parc but it could also mean that it produces a timeliness of filing defense.
BTW, isn't there law or case law about defending patents in a timely manner? Can someone comment on how that applies here?
Yep, MS is behind of this (Score:5, Interesting)
It all appears MS is making up a new SCO.
A rational question is to ask "why also Novell"? Yes, we all know Novell and MS are buddies and all so this is a reason to think MS is not behind this lawsuit.
Imho what's going to happen is that Novell will be VERY collaborative and willing to accept to pay royalties for this BS patent, the game will be make Red Hat play alone. The expected aftermath (for MS-Novell) would be to make Red Hat look like a rogue company that does not respect IP. And yes, thanks to Novell the case will be much harder to solve for Red Hat than before, probably Novell will rush in making a deal so there's precedent...
Laugh at the ridiculous theory all you want, I just hope Novell does not prove me right on this one. But if they do, then I hope nobody will argue to me whose side Novell is playing for.
Novell cant make a deal. (Score:4, Interesting)
GPL prevents the distrubution without a license that would be passed right along to Redhat and its customers for free. Besided the patent is more about XWindows/KDE/Gnome than it is about Linux. Sun is the one going to be hurting on this; They use Gnome for Solaris and that is GPL'd. They wont be able to ship Solaris without a license that can then be used by everyone for free, even those who are not Sun customers. The Linux kernel doesn't have a workspace interface; thats a userspace program.
MS Patent deals, how they play a role in this. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Extra! Extra! Read all about it (Score:5, Funny)
This is a game of two halves and four quarters right? Hope they stop for some entertainment mid-trial.
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Second, citing anything by Xerox PARC as "prior art" isn't going to fly, becuase this patent was originally awarded to the very same Xerox. Somehow this new company obtained the rights to the patent, but you'll have a hard time convincing a judge that Xerox filed for a patent that isn't valid because of their own "prior art".
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Re:By this you will know... (Score:4, Informative)