100th Post: A Call for the Senate to Pass Patent Reform
,----[ Quote ]
| This is really the year of the patent troll. Last year, approximately 6,000
| defendants were sued nationwide in about 2,800 patent cases. This year, the
| 6,000th defendant was sued sometime in early October. With the number of
| cases up nationwide probably 5% over last year, we're still projected for at
| least a 30% increase in the number of defendants sued. More on that data in a
| later post.
`----
http://trolltracker.blogspot.com/2007/11/100th-post-call-for-senate-to-pass.html
Related:
http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03020.pdf
CEOs neglect patent portfolios, says M'soft exec
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| "Other than Bill Gates, I don't know of any high tech CEO that sits down to
| review the company's IP portfolio," said Phelps, who ran IBM's IP business
| before joining Microsoft four years ago.
|
| [...]
|
| Microsoft has struck six deals with open source companies, the biggest a
| recent deal with Novell, and more such deals are yet to come. In the past 18
| months, Microsoft has spent a whopping $1.4 billion acquiring intellectual
| property of various sorts, Phelps said.
|
| "The great ideas in technology will increasingly come from outside corporate
| labs," he said. "To me it doesn't make a difference if you got your portfolio
| through R&D or through buying it," he added.
`----
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202403071
How To Kill The Patent Threat Against Linux
,----[ Quote
| There are two solutions to this. The first is to work hard, and starting
| with Microsoft, seek out every patent that pertains or could pertain to Linux
| and Open Source, and simply find the needed prior art and invalidate the
| patent. The problem with this idea is that it’s time consuming and money
| intensive. The community has better things to do with its time and money
| right now, so this idea really isn’t viable, except when all other options
| are exhausted and fully explored.
|
| The second, and far simpler approach is to change patent law. There are
| enough people in the Linux and Open Source communities with a good solid
| legal background that could take up this fight, and groups like the Software
| Freedom Law Center, the Free Software Foundation and others could also join
| in and help draft the legislation that would fix the patent system and set
| things right.
`----
http://www.raiden.net/?cat=2&aid=319
The real issue in the software patent fight
,----[ Quote ]
| Good software is complicated, and patent law has no way to deal with this
| complexity.
|
| Patent law is designed to protect unique inventions, better mousetraps. You
| can’t patent the idea of trapping mice, and you have to disclose how you trap
| the mice so other mousetrap makers can seek new ways to trap the mice.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1552
Ballmer: "Number of patents Linux infringes on is declining"
,----[ Quote
| 16 May, 1991: "If people had understood how patents would be granted when
| most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry
| would be at a complete standstill today." - Bill Gates, Challenges and
| Strategy Memo
|
| Aug, 2004: OSDL releases a study saying Linux may infringe 283 patents;
| Ballmer leaves away the word "may"
|
| May, 2007: Brad Smith claims Linux potentially infringes 235 patents
|
| [...]
`----
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/93899/index.html
On Four-Pixel-Stacks, Vultures, and Bending Girders
,----[ Quote ]
| You know, those things that say you cannot stack four pixels on top of one
| another unless you pay money to the guy who invented four-pixel-stacks (or
| the guy who bought the guy who invented four-pixel-stacks).
`----
http://www.osnews.com/story.php/18767/On-Four-Pixel-Stacks-Vultures-and-Bending-Girders/
A Patent Lie
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft sang a very different tune in 1991. In a memo to his
| senior executives, Bill Gates wrote, "If people had understood how
| patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented,
| and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete
| standstill today." Mr. Gates worried that "some large company will
| patent some obvious thing" and use the patent to "take as much of
| our profits as they want."
`----
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/opinion/09lee.html
Bill Gates and other communists
,----[ Quote ]
| ...Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open Internet with protocols
| anyone can implement is communism...
|
| ...Mr. Gates' secret is out now--he too was a "communist;" he, too,
| recognized that software patents were harmful-until Microsoft
| became one of these giants...
`----
http://news.com.com/Bill+Gates+and+other+communists/2010-1071_3-5576230.html?part=rss&tag=5575731&subj=news.1071.20
Cringely the Unemployable on the fallacy of Web 2.0, Microsoft ruthlessness,
and the CB radio of our decade
,----[ Quote ]
| Davidson: Which software company would you hate to compete against? What
| makes you single them out?
|
| Cringely: Microsoft of course. They have the deepest of pockets, unlimited
| ambition, and they are willing to lose money for years and years just to make
| sure that you don't make any money, either. And they are mean, REALLY mean.
|
| Davidson: Why do you think Microsoft is mean? Are you implying some kind of
| malicious intent rather than just ruthlessness?
|
| Cringely: Maybe "mean" is the wrong word to use for Microsoft. "Ruthless" is
| good. The company is built in the image of Bill Gates and Bill is a guy who
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [patent troll at heart]
| gets caught-up in the game of business and doesn't typically see its personal
| cost. To use what might seem to be an obscure example, just look at all the
| various partnerships and industry consortia that Microsoft has announced
| through the years that never produced a product or even a usable
| specification. There have been literally dozens of these operations that are
| intended solely to freeze the competition until Microsoft can figure what the
| heck it actually wants to do. To Microsoft its a PR exercise that helps them
| compete but to customers it is just a damned lie. That's ruthless. There are
| plenty of other examples I can give but you get the point. I represent the
| concerns of users, not vendors, and Microsoft doesn't really care about
| users.
`----
http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2007/07/cringely-the-un.html
The Redmond Copying Machine?
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/the-redmond-copying-machine/
Commerce Secretary names Schramm to innovation panel
http://biz.yahoo.com/bizj/061206/1386414.html?.v=2
Do Windows users have an "undisclosed balance-sheet liability" too?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=216
NT influenced by Unix
http://aplawrence.com/Unixart/gates_quote.html
Microsoft patents BlueJ
http://www.bluej.org/mrt/?p=21
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