Microsoft, Apple, EMC, and Oracle Form Patent Bloc 113
An anonymous reader writes "When Novell finally sold itself, part of the deal included the sale of 882 patents to a consortium backed by Microsoft. Thanks to a tip from Florian Mueller, it turns out that Microsoft's partners are Apple, Oracle, and EMC, which raises questions about where these companies are heading and what it means for the rest of the industry."
First Post (Score:1, Insightful)
SOVIET PATENT BLOC LOLOL
Ahh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
What do all these companies have in common? (Score:5, Insightful)
More interesting is who's not on the list (Score:5, Insightful)
Strange that almost everyone involved in the consortium has some kind of axe to grind with Google. Both Apple and Microsoft have been involved in lawsuits with phone manufacturers who make Android devices and Oracle is suing Google over their JVM. EMC has fingers in several pies and some of those pies are ones that Google could conceivably want to sink fingers into as well so it's not inconceivable that they might target Google in the near future.
Could just be a group of companies looking to ward off patent trolls, but I foresee that one or more of these companies will be bringing one or more of these newly acquired patents into the fray before too long.
Re:Any doubt about their intent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if they could somehow "own" Linux, it wouldn't stop the FOSS community from removing the offending parts and moving something new that can't be shutdown.
Re:Maybe not to court (Score:4, Insightful)
They probably just don't want to worry about getting sued.
I think I heard that line before... And then APPLE went after HTC waving ridiculous software patents, while their buddies at Microsoft covered the other big player: Motorola. Oracle is attacking Google directly...
The Corpocracy must defend itself (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, somewhere in near the future...
- War Is Peace
- Freedom Is Slavery
- Ignorance Is Strength
- Monopoly Is Competition
- Fools Are Wise
- Drugs Are Health
- Torvalds Is Goldstein
- Assange Is An Unlawful Informant
Re:What it means (Score:5, Insightful)
There's also a horrible feedback loop because a few people have been burned by patent suits over asinine patents. To prevent this, companies patent everything and anything just so they can avoid patent trolls. If the company starts to go belly up it can bust out its patent portfolio and become a patent troll itself and the vicious circle goes around once more.
I think that most of the
Re:What it means (Score:5, Insightful)
just license the patents.
...and when Apple decides to compete with your new product, they will simply stop licensing to your company to shut you down. Remember Lala.com? Me neither.
Cats sleeping wtih Dogs... (Score:4, Insightful)
...which raises questions about where these companies are heading and what it means for the rest of the industry.
Total. World. Domination.