Microsoft Says Free Software Violates 235 Patents 1217
prostoalex writes "Microsoft told Fortune magazine that various free software products violate at least 235 patents, and it's time to expect users of this software to pay up patent licensing royalties: 'Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and licensing chief Horacio Gutierrez sat down with Fortune recently to map out their strategy for getting FOSS users to pay royalties. Revealing the precise figure for the first time, they state that FOSS infringes on no fewer than 235 Microsoft patents.'"
It won't only be the little people (Score:4, Informative)
Last paragraph
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If push comes to shove, would Microsoft sue its customers for royalties, the way the record industry has?
"That's not a bridge we've crossed," says CEO Ballmer, "and not a bridge I want to cross today on the phone with you."
"
Tech company sue it's own customers?
Re:If they're slam-dunks... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:And the strategy comes through (Score:4, Informative)
Ubuntu is *definitely* easy enough for a n00b if it comes pre-installed and fully configured.
Re:Linux is just a kernel (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The big fight LIVE! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The big fight LIVE! (Score:2, Informative)
Initial analysis (Score:1, Informative)
Re:The big fight LIVE! (Score:5, Informative)
Yes and No. When I worked for a big corporation (not IBM) we had an agreement with MS; we could use their patents, they could use ours. But Microsoft made it clear in the agreement that if we used open source software the cross-licensing didn't apply.
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No problem. What are they? (Score:3, Informative)
Look, if you're going to lump "intellectual property" together* for your politics, you should be aware of the difference between them.
A trademark is the right to keep anyone else from using a particular name or logo. Like it or hate it, there is only one IBM in the computer world.
A copyright is the right to control who can make copies of a work of art. You cannot simply take the Lord of the Rings, wrap it as an e-book, and sell it without the permission of the Tolkien estate. You can, however, re-write its story into your own novel. ("Specific implementation" and all that.)
A patent is the absolute monopoly on a particular idea. Magic: The Gathering came up with the idea of turning cards 90-degrees to mark them as "played", and no one else can use that idea. Period.
Now, these three have some overlap and blur -- a graphic logo is likely copyrighted, in addition to being a trademark. The individual cards and rulebooks of Magic are copyrighted, in addition to the "tap" being patented. However, they are very distinct things nonetheless -- you can get around copyright with a clean-room implentation, but you can't clean-room a patent. (You can, however, just wait it out.)
(*: Note that "personal" property includes everything from a slave, to your underwear, to your family company.)
Re:The big fight LIVE! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Informative)
If MS sues someone for that particular patent, "prior art" will be shown, and the patent invalidated. It matters not a tiny bit that they have a patent, if the patent is invalid.
Re:This kind of PR stuff is a double edged sword (Score:0, Informative)
Now, is this a stunt by Microsoft in order to further some agenda? Time will tell. However in the meantime, it would be wise to explore and understand what options are available to blunt a very real and possible menace to how OSS operates.
Re:Big Blue Gorilla (Score:2, Informative)
William Gates II was born in 1925. Mary Gates was born in 1929. OSes didn't really come about, AFAIK, until sometime in the 50's. Before that, a computer would only run one program at a time, and it had to do everything needed whilst it was running; having complete access to all the system resources probably helped some.
No, the previous post wasn't being serious about that, and yes, I'm being pedantic. What of it?
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:5, Informative)
Note the word "uses". That means that if you use a device that is in violation of a patent, you could be found liable for that use.
The patent owner can go after the manufacturer of a device infringing his patent, those selling or offering the device for sale, and the end users.
As I understand it, they couldn't generally collect from everyone involved because that would be double or triple dipping. For example, if the manufacturer settles, then that makes the patent owner whole and absolves the others.
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Informative)
And even if we switch to "first to file," prior art will still invalidate the patent. Specifically, see section 135 - "Inventor's rights contests" [cornell.edu]
Or start at the beginning, and patch it with [cornell.edu] the ammendments H.R.2795 would make [loc.gov]
Will it be substantially easier for MS to abuse patent law under H.R.2795? Absolutely. Will it make "prior art" invalid? Not at all. And, like I mentioned, it's not even out of committee yet
Users? I think not. (Score:3, Informative)
If the playstation III violated your patents, you go after Sony, not the users. You would never have the suit get passed a judge.
Bring it MS, I dare you.
FUD spreading cum stains.
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:5, Informative)
That depends entirely on the nature of the settlement. There was a case few years ago where Timeline settled with Microsoft (some database technology issue), then announced that the deal with Microsoft did not cover end users -- and the courts agreed.
McCarthy underestimated the number (Score:3, Informative)
A few years later a Senator from Massachusetts (initials were JFK) claimed that the Soviet Union had close to 200 missiles ready to launch against the US - the truth was that the Soviets had 6 ICBM's ready by mid-1960. So maybe it is safe to say that Microsoft is to software what Kennedy was to politics?
Re:cAjones != cOjones (Score:5, Informative)
Both are right. "Cajón" is the augmented form of "caja", which is box, so it literally means "large box". However, spanish speakers don't really use it that way, if they want to describe a large box they'd say "caja grande", the word "cajón" is really only used for medium to large drawers. Small drawers, like those on a jewelry box or some such, are called by the diminutive form "cajita".
The various modifier suffixes that can be placed on nouns is one of the coolest features of spanish, IMO. -ón (big), -ote (even bigger), -ito (small, cute, precise), -ejo (big and ugly) ... and others that I can't think of at the moment. You can make nice words like "cojoncitos" and "cojonejos", and there are thousands of really awful puns that can be constructed by noting that one word with a suffix sounds the same (or close to the same) as another word. Spanish is a great language.
MS and patent violations (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, it seems that nobody wants to rock the boat like that, for fear of the brutal retaliation that MS would provide for them. And MS has already cross-licensed their IP portfolio with many of the companies that they payed off in the anti-trust lawsuits, so they've taken away that avenue of attack.
Red Hat and Google are the only ones I can think of right now. Red Hat would probably be crazy to try such a stunt, and I'm not sure they're big enough to scare MS or their big customers anyhow. Google has the motive (MS has basically outright stated they want to kill Google), but do they have the resources to fight MS in the IP arena? I'm not so sure.
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Begun, the troll wars have (Score:2, Informative)
The real risk to Microsoft is that some other OS becomes as good as Windows. Almost every other OS is a lot cheaper than Windows, most are actually given away freely, so the only reason people buy Windows is because it's better, i.e. supports more hardware, has more applications available, etc. If Linux ever catches up with Windows, everyone will switch to it, since it's free, and half of Microsoft's business will disappear.
Re:This kind of PR stuff is a double edged sword (Score:3, Informative)
One of the problems with the SCO case is that the litigant is SCO. I can't think of a single live SCO installation which isn't in the process of being migrated to something else. To put it bluntly, they weren't exactly overflowing with credibility to begin with.
I agree with the GP that this is in essence the latest round in the FUD war - and a rather predictable round at that. IBM may have invented FUD but it's Microsoft who've perfected it. Time will tell how effective it is.
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And the strategy comes through (Score:3, Informative)
Unless your new monitor can handle more than 1280x1024 or is widescreen. Then it's back to editing obscure text files.
Nothing to see here (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently Smith didn't pay much attention in his equity classes in law school (not surprising since most people find equity boring and difficult - I on the other hand topped my year so :-P to Smith). This behaviour is going to give rise to a proprietary estoppel against Microsoft, and he has now publicly stated the hardest things a defendant would have to prove to get the estoppel. This is just about rule #1 of equity - if you know somebody is violating your property rights, and you let them expend time, effort and resources building something in violation of those rights without them having knowledge of the breach of your rights, the courts will not let you enforce your rights against those people or anybody who claims through them.
It would be a different matter if Microsoft had no knowledge of the breach, but having investigated it and found the breach, if they don't tell the projects affected what the alleged breach is in fairly short order, they are not going to be able to enforce their rights at all.
Even if he did not pay a lot of attention in his equity classes it seems unlikely Smith would not have some awareness of this. This suggests to me that Microsoft have no intention whatsoever of using the patents to pursue open source projects or even users who are building businesses based around open source products. If they did intend to do this, they would give specific notice. This leaves them with only intimidation as a strategy for exploiting their patents against open source.
It is a shame we have no examples of another company that turned to using unspecified intellectual property violations as an intimidation strategy against open source. Such an example might give us an indication of the ultimate result.