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.'"
Go ahead, make my day. (Score:5, Interesting)
since when do users pay royalties? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:since when do users pay royalties? (Score:5, Interesting)
And an even more interesting connection, how do they intend to collect these said royalties?
Shows you the fear (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux is just a kernel (Score:2, Interesting)
so far it seems like a generalization or FUD spewing, unless specific infringement is shown & proved i call it FUD...
Re:Software patents (Score:5, Interesting)
If FOSS were somehow limited to the US, maybe they could hire enough lawyers to mount an offensive. But with the extremely strong chunks of the community around the world they literally have no chance. At best they can just fuck things up and make themselves look even more "evil" than they already do.
Dell? (Score:3, Interesting)
Pushed M$ into a corner and they get the itch to stand up and to what they were internally talking about for years and collecting nonsense patents up to the wazoo...
Maybe another SCO show coming?
Re:Too late (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Later the article manages to imply that there's only one license that all FOSS projects use. You get three guesses which license it is, and the first two don't count.
Does anyone know where we can find out the 235 patents that MS claims are infringed? TFA didn't give any examples.
Re:No problem. What are they? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:If they're slam-dunks... (Score:3, Interesting)
Problem: most FOSS projects don't have the resources to make sure they don't violate patents. Even the SFLC probably doesn't have the resources to help anywhere near the number of FOSS projects that are potentially affected.
The Microsoft School of Business (Score:2, Interesting)
By having an article like this in Fortune, Microsoft is using FUD to keep that market group too nervous to make the switch. Even if it's only 10% (or less), it's still a very cheap way for them to retain their current customer base.
None of this will hold up in court (and Microsoft knows it wont), but it makes good business sense to keep people thinking that they need to be paying you because the alternative is illeagle.
I wouldn't loose any sleep over it. Free Software is something that is too big to die now. We have delt with software pattents before (LZW). If there is a legitimate pattent we'll either find prior art or we'll replace it with something that hasn't been patented (zlib) and in the process probablly come up with something better anyway.
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Show it. (Score:5, Interesting)
The point about software patents is that the only way to protect yourself is to counter sue or to move to Europe.
Re:The big fight LIVE! (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, look at the number of potential customers Microsoft might potentially alienate by making this move. The fact that given that knowledge they're still electing to push on with this threat essentially confirms the fact that they know how obsolete their products have become.
SHOW US THE CODE MONKEY BOY (Score:2, Interesting)
SHOW US THE CODE OR STFU.
I'm looking forwards to the day when someone in the FOSS community takes M$ to court for deformation, and wins, and subsequently all these corps that signed patent covenants come knocking on their door with lawyers demanding their money back.
Re:So then (Score:3, Interesting)
I grazed over the article for a while, and didn't find mention of what patents were violated, but I can think of only a few cases:
A) Wine/Cedega/etc
Makes the most sense, as far as I can see though, Cedega is really the only one in any remote danger. But I have to ask, whats the point? Wine is just making your windows software get used more, granted its not on Windows, but it's still getting bought. I understand that the OSS communities implementations of Windows API wrappers is maybe a touch on the "your touching my patent places" side. But Wine alone couldn't make up the 235 some odd violations you're talking about Microsoft.
B) Lower level stuff, driver level stuff.
The classic anti-free patent argument. "You can't write your own (driver|kernel|etc), we sell those, so we must have invented it." It's like saying "You can't sell cars, we sell cars, and it would hurt our business if you, god forbid, tried to make money!" Honestly, I've seen these arguments over and over, they piss me off. From Apple's "Look and feel" suits to the whole issue of who owns Unix, and all this other silly stuff. I think the principle issue is that companies like Microsoft and Apple all call themselves capitalists, but when push comes to shove, they expect competition to get out of there way, because they're big. In the Corporate world, this works, Companies smaller than MS/Apple run away, or they'll be crushed. Companies like IBM don't typically enter MS's or Apple's world, so they get more or less left alone, and everyone's happy. But then there's (F)OSS, which sit directly in MS's and Apple's Path, but unlike small companies, they don't move, because theres effectively nothing MS can do about it. Even if someone were to successfully stop a large set of OSS projects, they would immediately spring right back up somewhere else. It's like trying to sweep up smog, it just wont work.
All in all, MS is just barking because they want to spread some FUD and _maybe_ scare some of the newer, more skiddish OSS dev's from doing something the MS already does.
The argument is over, but I came up with this quip at one point during the post, and just wanted to share it because I though it was good:
MS argument really is: "You can't sell cars, because we invented wheels!"
Meh, Sillyness.
But software patents are acts of fraud against.... (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a human characteristic about software that make its not patentable.
MS has teamed up with CMU on a project that distorts the origins of computation and gives credit to the machine rather than the humans who have made the computer all that it is. Do a google on "Computational Thinking".
At any rate the human characteristic is that if the natural ability to apply Abstraction Physics [threeseas.net] and as such software is really not of patentable nature.
All the software patent law suits are fraudlent. It s really rather ignorant due to the fact that copyright is more appropriate and terms are longer. Patents on the other hand try and be what copyright doesn't cover, and that is broad claims.
Re:And the strategy comes through (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that's what's coming in October and why Apple delayed the release. Lot's of drivers to get ready.
There's now enough key applications that are running on OSX that the move now makes sense.
Look how the "I'm a Mac" ads are now focusing specifically on Vista, not just PCs in general.
Re:Why does this scare me? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps the strength of open source is that since it's free, the programmers surely can't be considered professionals, and if they can come up with that code, then it's obvious. As far as I know obvious solutions to a problem were not patentable.
Re:Too late (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Most if not all patents on the list cannot be enforced (e.g. sudo, xml, smilies, content syndication, rss, jpeg, tabbed-browsing, etc, etc, etc.)
2) Microsoft probably picked opensource packages that aren't distributed in US distributions like Mplayer, which violatse potentiallt hundreds of patents (some of which microsoft owns). Again, no major or corporate US based distributions provides such software packages.
If MSFT were smart... (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course this is most likely due to the marketingdroids that run MSFT who have zero community experience and don't see how useful OSS can be. This is what happens when a tech company is run by non-technical people.
Tom
Re: reasoning me-self. (Score:1, Interesting)
Why have i to re-pay the 2nd time for the unspecified royalties of my ya buyed-and-payed product?
If so, i backs the unsatisfied product and returns my money!!! and returns from the payed tax too!!!
A product is not from M$, a product is a product, can be a Linux product, or a IBM product or a Dell product or
This kind of PR stuff is a double edged sword (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft, for credibility will have to produce a detailled list of said patent violations (and eventually a list of specific OSS application that they think are infringing).
And this, my friends, is a double edged sword.
On one hand, it will show that Microsoft HAS tangible proof that OSS are inferior because no company can be held responsible for patents infringement, and that patent lawyers will go after the users.
On another hand, such a list, and maybe a couple of days of work distributed across the whole community is everything needed to circumvent said patent and implement it either with a slightly different approach (see marching cubes vs. tetrahedron in 3D), using more generalised version (arithmetic coding vs. range coding in compression), or simply recycle some very old code in place - code who's age is a proof of prior art.
And suddenly, all this MS PR stunt is moot.
Just imagine :
This week press titles "Microsoft says OSS dangerous because patent mine field", "New microsoft sponsored studies proves TCO to by higher for OSS because of patent fees", "Microsoft to go after individual users MAFIAA style".
Next week press titles "238 patches and upgrades on Debian and Ubuntu repositories", "OSDL sponsored study proves that OSS has the highest reaction time in terms of patch release", "RMS & Linus to give speech about strengths of OSS development ; Ballmer responds throwing chairs".
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If they're slam-dunks... (Score:5, Interesting)
Problem: most FOSS projects don't have the resources to make sure they don't violate patents.
No, those are not the problems you're looking for.
There are roughly 1,400 (Patent Storm Search [patentstorm.us]) Microsoft patents covering OS kernels. Microsoft says Linux is infringing 45 of them. A quick look through those patents will bring up gems like Patent 6711625, found on the first page of results;
Microsoft currently has about 24,000 Patent Storm [patentstorm.us] patents in its portfolio, a significant proportion of which should never have been granted. Microsoft is using those dodgy patents to generate FUD, and make businesses less likely to use software which competes with its own products. That's the real problem.Re:The big problem is that... (Score:3, Interesting)
So even though Microsoft sees like it has lots of money, this could change as soon as they start legal actions. If SCO goes under, all the industry annalist will be Leary of holding microsoft stock for fear of the same thing. Already there is a bunch of speculation that SCO was a proxy for microsoft. The one with the most money 1 year into the fight might not be the same one in the beginning.
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:3, Interesting)
As it is, this cat an mouse game needs to stop. We need to know about possible violations to validate them and we need to be able to program around them to avoid future problems. It isn't like anyone is saying "lets violate someone's patent or IP", this could be the farthest from the situation. So lets kick it in gear and get it done.
Re:no patents (Score:3, Interesting)
The existence of software patents goes back to a Court of Appeals-level ruling which allowed patents in the case of machinery (patentable) that included software, as much new equipment (seen the specs on a new car lately?) does. That sort of makes sense. But it was taken to mean that a general-purpose computer running software is such a machine, so software patents are written with language that mentions that it is running on a computer. Without running on a computer, it's more obviously not patentable.
This goes well beyond the spirit of the original ruling, but the USPTO takes the money and approves pretty much anything that comes before it, apparently assuming that the courts exist to strike down patents. This leaves us with the Supreme Court to make the final ruling.
In the recent Teleflex case, which struck down the Court of Appeals' previous standard for obviousness (which was very hard to meet; the new standard of obviousness is more, uh, obvious), the Court ruling actually stated that they have not decided the issue of whether or not software can be patented. It was an explicit clue that the issue is open, and ruling was in effect a dope-slap for the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, which had been the patent trolls' friend for years. Microsoft knows this, and as a result the powder in their patent arsenal is looking rather damp.
Re: reasoning me-self. (Score:4, Interesting)
US$ 50 for many lawyers + US$ 50 for the judgement coasts + US$ 50 for the tons of papers + US$ 50 for the fueling + US$ 50 for the food diets + US$ 50 for SCOX's NASDAQ + US$ 200 for my pockets = US$ 500!!
US$ 300 - US$ 500 = US$ -200!!! And no money to pay to the M$ developers!!!
Conclusion: the M$'s software is bad software for the users.
Global Shut Down the Internet Day (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, there goes Microsoft's Rep... (Score:2, Interesting)
That being said, I'm all for royalties and patents for truly innovative work--but I suspect most of the "infringed" patents are fairly obvious things. (Consider: In the anti-SCO suit, IBM accused them of stepping on, among other things, IBM's patent for a "hierarchical menu system." That was a defensive use of something so obvious it ought not to have been patentable, but expecting people to pay royalties for it is ridiculous.)
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's an interesting bluff Microsoft is making. Let's see if anyone wants to call it.
In the meantime, could it be considered libel with the explicit intention to damage a competitor's business? Does someone have the money to bring a lawsuit against MS to force them to state clearly their evidence or STFU?
Microsoft flunks global test (Score:5, Interesting)
Faced with serious issues in Australia, China, nearly every emerging market and even much of the EU, Microsoft wants to play "us vs. them" with open source? Even much of the Fortune 500 has been investing significantly into Linux (such as the corporation I work for, which is one of the larger global financial companies). Our company didn't take previous patent trolls lightly, and Microsoft's reliability issues don't give it a reliable foundation on which to make life any more difficult for us.
In an era of unprecedented foreign confiscation of pharmaceutical intellectual property, can Microsoft be this utterly ignorant and stupid? Does Microsoft not realize it has zero leverage outside the U.S., facing serious penalties in the EU for its disregard for their law and even worse conditions elsewhere? Does it really believe it can force Brazil, China, Mexico, India, Malaysia, emerging Eastern Europe, Russia and countless other markets to pay excessive royalties for a bunch of questionable patents it had its attorneys sneak through? The only certain outcome is that U.S. intellectual property law will be even further ignored and real issues like drug patent confiscations more common.
Apparently SCO was only the warm-up act. This certainly is going to be an interesting train wreck for us to watch if they venture down this path.
*scoove*
Big Blue Gorilla (Score:2, Interesting)
The opressor opressed? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:keyword is used (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Patent holder decides not to go after them. This is purely at the whim of the patent holder.
2. Indemnity. Manufacturer foots the bill when the end user is sued. Note that the end user is still sued in this case, it is just they don't have to pay the (full) bill.
Re:Begun, the troll wars have (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't believe it will be Linux. It is more likely they will fork their own copy of one of the BSD's, probably FreeBSD, and then port all their own proprietary stuff on top of that.
In other words, once again, Apple will show them the way.
Re:Users? I think not. (Score:1, Interesting)
SCO used threats of lawsuits to get a number of companies to cough up settlements for their Linux usage.
Interesting Mom test (Score:2, Interesting)
expert and uses windows on her home system (solitaire). She knows I
use something different and that it's 'open-free-something'[1].
I told her that Microsoft was threatening this sort of software with
patent lawsuits. Her reaction?
"Those greedy sons-o'-bleep, don't they have enough money without
attacking free stuff?" And so on. I admit I was a little shocked
and, now that I think about it, if she recognizes this as a bully
tactic, so will an awful lot of other people.
I now feel slightly better about the whole thing. Thanks Mom!
[1] I mainly use FreeBSD, cue the eulogy.
Re:Software patent games are the new McCarthyism. (Score:5, Interesting)
start referring to Balmer as the new McCarthy, paint them with that nasty brush, it's a PR nightmare if it catches hold.
Emphasize the chair tossing, all the nasty things MS has done to the competitors over the years, what politician/lawmaker would want to be identified with the new McCarthy?
Say, Apple OSX has BSD unix under the hood, but I bet they don't go after apple with this smear campaign.
Much easier scare small businesses out of using linux.
Oh, and Hah!, to the novell people who claim they didn't sell out.
Re:This kind of PR stuff is a double edged sword (Score:3, Interesting)
Just like Darl (Score:3, Interesting)
- I don't see blue screens of death with Linux.
- I must have rebooted my wife's new Vista laptop a dozen times while setting it up and installing the updates. I only reboot Linux boxes when there's a new kernel.
- I don't have to worry about trojans and other malware with Linux.
- I don't have to do "theraputic reboots" on my Linux boxes to keep them stable; they just run.
- Linux has mature technology for limiting program actions called SE Linux. It would make the intrusive actions of UAC seem laughable if they weren't so annoying (UAC is kind of like clippy but able to stop programs from running).
- etc.
The only way the quoted assertion could be true is if Microsoft has such patented technology but it doesn't put into Windoze. Darl McBride of SCO fame claimed Linux couldn't have matured and become "enterprise capable" unless it infringed SCO's IP for it's OS that doesn't scale and that is rapidly becoming ever more obsolete. Wouldn't Linux incorporating Microsoft IP mean that Linux should be the same sort of unstable piece of bloated crap that Windoze is?Cheers,
Dave
Re:Software patent games are the new McCarthyism. (Score:3, Interesting)
What a PR piece that would make
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:5, Interesting)
If Having Patents... (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, if having patents equated to high quality software, Microsoft would have high quality software as well, rather than exploit ridden code that causes problems for millions of users that Microsoft disclaims any responsibility for.
Re:Software patents (Score:5, Interesting)
Bert
Who believes that getting rid of software patents is an uphill battle with the upcoming revision of the European patent law (in particular because of TRIPS, which contains an innocent looking but very nasty clause, that patents must be obtainable in any technical field).
What if destroying Linux weren't the goal? (Score:5, Interesting)
What if Microsoft's direct goal were not harming Linux, but rather destroying the software patent system? Obviously, Microsoft would love for Linux to disappear, but they could be thinking much deeper. Microsoft has argued for patent reform before when they lost $521000000 to Eolas. Clearly appeal to Congress and the courts has not worked.
By creating complete chaos in the software industry, these legal threats could force changes to the laws to avoid a breakdown.
Re:Begun, the troll wars have (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not saying it's a good strategy, but in their death throes monsters can kill people...
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:2, Interesting)
If their claims are found to have any validity, they could probably force Google to pay a fee for every processor in their server farm. Existing agreements with IBM could be leveraged to keep them from entering the fray at all. There is no reason to think these things couldn't happen. Look what happened to Research In Motion. They almost went out of business. If Google were forced to pass such a cost on to the advertisers while still facing pressure from MS and Yahoo, that could put Google out of business.
The fact that people are already starting to think of Google as another evil empire doesn't help their chances either. This is where I would expect MS to be going with this.
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:5, Interesting)
If this comes to blows, IBM will have to a) provide non-infringing replacements, or b) indemnify their customers and go to the mattresses with their unparalleled patent arsenal. My guess is the MS just bit off more than they can chew. There are some rules you never break, and getting into a patent battle with IBM is right up there with starting a land war in Asia.
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe their plan is only to go after those they know are not and will never be their customers anyway, e.g. Google. Still, I can't imagine it won't anger some customers or potential customers too, even if they aren't directly targeted.
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd like to see IBM lean on Microsoft and point out that patent warfare is a multiplayer game. If Microsoft isn't out to raise the bar on corporate stupidity that should silence them quite fast.
By the way, notice something? Who just entered a patent agreement with Microsoft and thus can't participate in this fight? Right, Novell. For some reason I like that corp less and less...
Screensaver : patent could be circumvented. (Score:5, Interesting)
If such a trivial patent is valid, then the US patent system is realy b0rked.
But even, in such a case, the patent can be circumvented.
See, given the era when screensavers started to appear (i.e.: when CRT was the main method of displaying image for computers), so there a very high chance that such a patent will be formulated as the GP poster said : method in which the display shows random or non-random patterns in order to avoid screen burn-in.
See, the main point is that, as pointed-out by the Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], nowadays screensavers are primarily used for entertainment or security purposes, because LCD panels are a lot less susceptible to burn-ins than CRTs.
So the whole idea is to do exactly the same result, using slightly differently stated method. Call it a "screen protector". Define it as a piece of software that :
- Monitors user (in)activity.
- After a given time, turns the LCD panel of for power saving
- After a given time, switches from the user desktop to a different environment for security reasons (protect both the access to the desktop and the data displayed on the desktop from undesired intruders/eavesdroper)
- Switching back from protected mode to desktop mode requires that the user enters his log-in credential again.
- Password prompt conditions may be optionnal : one may decide to use auto-logon and only protect data visually (can't eavesdrop through window, but anyone could unlock)
- The protected mode may be just blank screen. As an added bonus, the protected mode may also display some sort of audio-visual entertainment.
It does exactly the same thing, but it is defined as a different product.
It's not just a flying toaster on the screen to avoid burnins,
it's a "screen protector" with "power saving and protection of privacy, with audio-visual entertainment option activated".
It's the same way the Arithmetic coding [wikipedia.org] can be circumvented by substituing it with the closely related Range encoding [wikipedia.org].
Or substituing the patented Marching cubes [wikipedia.org] algorithme for producing a surface from a volume, with the simplier but functionnaly equivalent patent-free Marching tetrahedron [wikipedia.org].
The only limitation is for a couple of things where, to achieve it's goal (interoperability with formats or network communication between microsoft and linux softwares), the software has to follow one specific implementation (ffmpeg may infringe on some of microsoft patent on VC-1 video) but the implementation can't be changed because compatibility will be lost (using alternative non-patented algorithms for video compression/decompression will result in incompatible data).
That hapened during the GIF and MP3 patent controversies. (Although in GIF's case the patent could be circumvented to produce legal GIF although not compressed).
But in the specific case of those 235 patents, some juridiction - mostly EU - will back the open source community as patents are used in ways to explicitely stop interoperation from concurrence. (See what happened with Samba)
Re:McCarthy underestimated the number (Score:5, Interesting)
> derived from Venona intercepts was even higher.
That is completely irrelevant. McCarthy pulled his number out of his ass. In fact, he pulled it out of his ass a few times and it was a different number each time.
Then he named names, which he also pulled out of his ass.
I can tell you for certain that there are murderers and rapists living in your city, out on the loose. I don't even need to know what city you live in. There are murderers and rapists loose in every city. However if I say there are 122 murderers loose in Philadelphia and I don't have a list of names and I start picking people randomly out of the Philly phone book then it really doesn't matter if later down the line a study finds that there are actually 375 murders loose in Philadelphia. McCarthy was not at all involved in the actual enumeration of communists in the US gov't. He was completely and totally involved in his own self-aggrandization.
> 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?
Also irrelevant. That is not at all what Kennedy is remembered for, while McCarthy is CHIEFLY remembered for pulling a "number of communists" out of his ass and then witch-hunting around all the while refusing to provide any documentation to back up his claims. McCarthy is not the only political figure ever to exaggerate or be wrong
If Ballmer can't back up his number of patent claims with actual documentation of same then the original analogy of McCarthy and Ballmer is apt and valid. If Ballmer says "238 patent infringements" and then he can't give you a 238 page memo to go with that then he will have "pulled a McCarthy."
If somebody shoots Ballmer in the back of the head over this, then he will have "pulled a Kennedy."
Re:McCarthy underestimated the number (Score:3, Interesting)
USA has about 1 homicide for every 17500 people a year, so assuming this is a constant (it ain't but I'm just doing OOM here) and people live for aproximately 75 years (they live longer, but population was lower earlier...), this should mean about one murderer pro 250 people -- but some of these are the same person -- multiple killings ain't that uncommon even disregarding serial killers.
So, I get in the USA, on the average, about 1 in 500 people is a murderer. There's significant local variation though, much MUCH higher in some ghettos, and probably an order of magnitude lower in some stable regions. There's probably ~10.000 people cities in the US without murderers.
Elsewhere it's an order of magnitude higher, since murder-rates are lower in most of the civilized world than in the USA, for example in Norway where I live its one homicide pro 120000 people, about 1:7th of the US rate. There's probably 50000 people cities in Norway with no murderers.
Re:This kind of PR stuff is a double edged sword (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Software patent games are the new McCarthyism. (Score:3, Interesting)
What about MacOS? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:2, Interesting)
And besides, just compare the two companies:
1. Microsoft is TWICE THE SIZE of IBM in terms of capitalization.
2. Microsofts gross margin is TWICE the size of IBMs
3. Microsofts profit margin is THREE TIMES that of IBMs
I know it was fun to watch IBM slap down SCO like a fat guy slaps at a gnat in his potato salad, but if you think that's an indication of how a legal fight between MSFT and IBM would play out, well, i think you're sorely mistaken..
except... Microsoft is vulnerable (Score:3, Interesting)
But: if Microsoft pisses of the wrong people enough and gets stuck with a bunch of patent lawsuits, their core businesses are in trouble: Windows, Office, Outlook, Exchange.
Re:This kind of PR stuff is a double edged sword (Score:4, Interesting)
I've seen a dozen or two other patents mentioned on Slashdot over the years and know of a few more cases, as well, so this is not a surprise.
MS has its sticky patent fingers everywhere - UI elements, some parts of RSS news feeds, numerous graphical features (which are probably paid for by card manufacturers), some parts of font rendering (e.g. Cleartype [microsoft.com], which can be added into freetype), application embedding, networking, filesystem and probably so many others it would take pages to talk about them all. Some of these patents may be frivolous and probably all but unenforcible outside of Marshall, TX [techdirt.com], like the SMB/CIFS ones (which are not used as described in Samba and likely obsolete).
If we really want to have fun, Microsoft badly violates these patents [cptech.org], but then again, so does Linux (but if IBM needed grounds to sue by, there are a couple nasty ones there). I doubt Apple will ever sue over their skinning patent, but that would really suck.
Microsoft doesn't need to sue to kill OSS projects - they could start off by sending a threatening cease-and-desist letters to the projects violating the patents and hope they voluntarily kill the project. If that wasn't enough, they issue a patent infringement lawsuit and get an injunction on the author(s) and have their ISP shut them down. Then its a matter of follow-through and do a cease-and-desist on hosting sites.
At least MS can't heavy hand it like Paramount did to a shareware author I knew in college (the game was a mac only trek game - I think Net Trek) - they basically sued the living crap out of him (he told me they asked for some ridiculous amount - I think millions of dollars - for use of the license) and then settled out of court including destruction of source and removal of the game from all servers (he was not allowed to talk about the settlement as part of the settlement, so I only know obvious).
Software Patent Fun (Score:2, Interesting)
I wish that we would have had software patents in the 80s. Then there would be no Microsoft. Apple and Oracle probably wouldn't exist today either. All of the technology they used to build their companies would have been patented by Xerox and we wouldnt have email, GUIs, pointing devices and many other things.
I wonder if anyone is going to realize that software patents dont work. I could tell 10 different developers to code a "desktop publishing app" and all 10 of them would come back with an app that would accomplish the goal in 10 different ways. Who do you award the patent to? The guy who finished first?
Software is an expression of ideas, like writing a novel or making a movie. Sure the ideas are structured, like math, but they are still an expression of ideas. We must protect them as such. We already have a mechanism for that, its called copyright.
Imagine what would happen if we could patent movies. A director could patent the scene "a girl in a bar sitting down" and now thousands of movies would infringe on that patent, even though the shot may be completely different. What about someone patenting "2+2". Many of you will probably think that is stupid, why would we let someone patent that, it's an idea. You would be correct, "2+2" is an idea and software is just a more complicated form of that same idea.
Right now, several incredibly creative developers are scared of releasing their own software because they have no idea whether they are infringing on patents or not. If you want to go back to the heydays of the early-mid 90s we need to get rid of software patents so that the software market can flourish again.
my $.02
--jake
Re:The big problem is that... (Score:3, Interesting)
No matter if Ms is found to be able to go against end users, software productions or corporations, USA is quite a big country: they'll find some suited target (it has to be somehow notorious, with some cash, but not big mountains of them, etc.), so the target settles for their own good. Then Microsoft will waive the hell out of it in press so other possible targets within that level will take the FUD quite seriously so they stop developing, distributing or using open source software.
So no, they'll avoid going against IBM, Apache Foundation or Chase Bank. They'll firstly will try a marketing campaing FUD'ing mid-size companies to see what happens but ir they decide to trial they'll go against, say, ComPiere, Inc., Slackware Linux, Inc. or Military Outlet Co. and once they settle they'll push their marketing mill saying "See? Next one can be you!" -quite alike what ie. RIAA is already doing.
Re:Simultaneous development (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft seems to be playing "catch-up" and naturally are behind the 8-ball. Instead of promoting innovation, they want to control it by making as though it was theirs in the first place, when in actual fact, they copied someone else's idea and decided to copyright or patent it, simply because they could afford to (and that nobody really cares that such an idea needed to be copyrighted or patented in the first place - read "common good").