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Mueller calls OIN a scam
,----[ Quote ]
| Much of what Mueller has been doing of late
| is setting himself as an active FOSS
| advocate, and thatâs a good thing.
`----
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/mueller-calls-oin-a-scam/6613
Harmfulness ranking of ways to use software patents
,----[ Quote ]
| That trend isn't difficult to imagine. Just
| look at the current situation surrounding
| smartphones, a field in which there's now a
| number of lawsuits and countersuits among big
| players as well as different non-producing
| entities ("patent trolls") targeting large
| vendors.
|
| In light of all that's going on, which ways
| to use software patents are more harmful than
| others? After giving it some thought, I have
| arrived at this harmfulness ranking:
|
| 1. most harmful: malicious strategic
| patent holders pursuing exclusionary/anti-
| competitive objectives
|
| 2. second-most harmful: non-producing
| entities ("patent trolls")
|
| 3. least harmful: cooperative strategic
| patent holders granting licenses to entire
| portfolios on acceptable terms
|
| [...]
|
| "Trolls" are a feature -- not a bug -- of the
| software patent system
|
| The above subhead is a summary of a statement
| that Carlo Piana, a leading European FOSS
| lawyer, recently made on identi.ca/Twitter.
|
| If one believes that certain general ideas
| should be "monopolizable" through patents,
| then it's a natural consequence that some
| will obtain (or acquire) patents and try to
| derive commercial benefits from them without
| ever creating their own products. Far be it
| from me to defend the concept of "patent
| trolls" -- I just want to point out that it
| wouldn't be practical to impose an obligation
| on every patent holder to make actual
| products. At the most it might be possible to
| limit the procedural rights of a non-
| producing entity to the right to be
| indemnified (excluding injunctive relief).
`----
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2010/06/harmfulness-ranking-of-ways-to-use.html
Recent:
Open Invention Network (OIN) demystified
,----[ Quote ]
| Only six companies call the shots
|
| The OIN's name starts with an utterly
| misleading term: "open".
|
| In reality, the organization is owned and
| run by a closed circle of six companies,
| some of whom have a terrible background
| concerning software patents:
|
| * IBM (the world's largest patent
| holder and one of the most ruthless
| ones, recently in the news for
| betraying its own "patent pledge" by
| infringement assertions made against
| open-source startup TurboHercules)
|
| * Philips (a company that once
| benefited from the temporary abolition
| of patents in its country but later
| lobbied extremely aggressively for
| software patents, left the World Wide
| Web Consortium because of the latter's
| royalty-free patent policy, and
| threatened politicians with killing
| software development jobs in Europe if
| they weren't going to allow software
| patents, even though patents are always
| related to a target market in which
| they're valid and 100% independent from
| where in the world the patented
| invention is made)
|
| * NEC (a large patent holder)
|
| * Sony (a large patent holder)
|
| * Novell (which never supported any
| serious push against software patents
| and instead told EU officials in 2004
| that it liked software patents a lot
| except that a proposed EU law on them
| appeared to limit "customer choice" a
| bit too much)
|
| * Red Hat (which lobbied to keep the
| aforementioned EU bill alive when we
| had already formed a majority for its
| rejection, and which partners with IBM
| on a number of initiatives that appear
| to protect FOSS but are either
| ineffectual or even potentially
| harmful)
|
| [...]
|
| So what is the OIN good for?
|
| The fact of the matter is that today,
| almost five years after its foundation, the
| OIN still hasn't proven its ability to help
| any Linux (or other FOSS) company in any
| meaningful way. Totally unsubstantiated and
| illogical claims by propagandists aren't a
| substitute for a single convincing success
| story. That success story would have to
| consist in some company potentially hostile
| to open source (and with a dangerous patent
| arsenal) accepting the OIN's licensing
| terms. That hasn't happened and I have
| serious doubt that it ever will.
|
| The OIN continues to buy patents at
| auctions that might otherwise be acquired
| by regular trolls. At first sight, that may
| sound good. But given the intransparent and
| arbitrary structure of the OIN, it's not
| clear whether that's actually the lesser or
| the greater evil than a conventional troll.
| In the end, the OIN is under the control of
| those six companies who could decide to use
| some of those patents against competitors,
| including FOSS competitors. By controlling
| the definition of what the OIN calls the
| "Linux System", they can always ensure that
| their competitors don't benefit from it,
| even if they were or became OIN licensees.
|
| Buying those patents at auctions is really
| expensive. So far the OIN has spent
| hundreds of millions of dollars. Given the
| way businesses operate, that's not the
| amount of money that one would spend
| unselfishly. Instead, that level of
| investment, intransparency and unbalanced
| rights suggests ulterior motives, if not a
| long-term hidden agenda.
`----
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2010/05/open-invention-network-oin-demystified.html
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