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He's going to go and work for Acacia. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071011205044141

As others have said, you have to use the name in a trade or business in order to claim it as a trademark, although you do not have to register it with the USPTO; registering the trademark does provide you with some additional legal advantages.

The Groklaw page has a number of useful links that provide more in-depth information.

Read this if you think iPlayer is a good idea - http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071021231933899

Mark Taylor of the UK Open Source Consortium makes the point that the BBC has spent 100 million pounds on the iPlayer project. They're also going broke and will have to sell their flagship London headquarters building for - guess how much?

So, this project has already beggared the BBC. Am I too paranoid in seeing this as the first step in yet another Microsoft 'embrace and extend' play? They've had ambitions to own broadcast TV for ages. If they can prove their DRM works for a major broadcaster over the net, next step will be to DRM the broadcast TV. After that, if your TV doesn't have Windows Inside, you'll be shit out of luck.

The link to the press release on the KDE myths page is broken, so here is an alternate one:
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20050524172943589

I'm confused if this was meant to be for my comment or the GP, but regardless, its not about the Unix Liability, that has been proven that SCO has nothing. They literally declared bankruptcy the morning before (on a sunday) the determinations to amount owed were to be handed out (which would have nullified any later bankruptcy options). They had already made the determinations that SCO has no IP in Unix for their claims. So we know that they have no IP for unix, however this has been about dodging money. They have been basiclly expending Novell's money via lawyers, and bankruptcy is simply adding to that. However, even the court appointed debt trustee is having issues with the way things are going.

I agree with you completely in that the IP follows, but I don't think thats the issue, it seems to be more about shifting the cash liabilities out of Novell's reach. Novell doesn't have a suit against YCM even if YCM "controls the Unix IP" because SCO says "here, we'll still keep the liability". YCM is just getting their money back from their investment in SCO (YCM = Microsoft owned Acacia - see other posts in this thread). Sorry if this is worded in a confusing fashion, I do that quite a bit lol.

I'm confused if this was meant to be for my comment or the GP, but regardless, its not about the Unix Liability, that has been proven that SCO has nothing. They literally declared bankruptcy the morning before (on a sunday) the determinations to amount owed were to be handed out (which would have nullified any later bankruptcy options). They had already made the determinations that SCO has no IP in Unix for their claims. So we know that they have no IP for unix, however this has been about dodging money. They have been basiclly expending Novell's money via lawyers, and bankruptcy is simply adding to that. However, even the court appointed debt trustee is having issues with the way things are going.

I agree with you completely in that the IP follows, but I don't think thats the issue, it seems to be more about shifting the cash liabilities out of Novell's reach. Novell doesn't have a suit against YCM even if YCM "controls the Unix IP" because SCO says "here, we'll still keep the liability". YCM is just getting their money back from their investment in SCO (YCM = Microsoft owned Acacia - see other posts in this thread). Sorry if this is worded in a confusing fashion, I do that quite a bit lol.

Look, I just stated you were wrong. With the "limited information" you had, you were wrong. Could I have been more polite? Sure, absolutely. You decided to open a Bevets style flamewar with the "god comment". I would not have given you an insult had you not earned one by firing the first shot and making it sound like I cared about my ego or someone else's. I said you were completely wrong. Is that bad to have an opinion that your information was incorrect, or did you already state that for me?

I don't have problems admitting my mistakes, in fact I enjoy asking for information when I am wrong, whereas you defend yourself. I think you might want to learn the difference between welcome criticism and provocation of others. If I am wrong, sure, call me on it. Also, I do care about +5, because I wouldn't want someone to have misinformation as a top post because other people will be misinformed. That wasn't aimed at you, that was aimed at correction of data. I've had it happen to me and I asked mods to mod down my posts when I did.

I didn't address your critique because I didn't want a flamewar. It's not that I am 100% right, I may or not be, and thats immaterial.

I also didn't claim it was MS FUD. I claimed that YCM has ties to Microsoft. The correct company is JGD Management Corp. d/b/a (doing business as) York Capital Management. Know who owns JGD and also has a board of directors straight from microsoft? JGD (Acacia) (SEC link).

So yeah, sorry if you got offended, but try not to start an insult fling and you might not get called a douchebag next time. I welcome snarky comments, not elitism.

Look, I just stated you were wrong. With the "limited information" you had, you were wrong. Could I have been more polite? Sure, absolutely. You decided to open a Bevets style flamewar with the "god comment". I would not have given you an insult had you not earned one by firing the first shot and making it sound like I cared about my ego or someone else's. I said you were completely wrong. Is that bad to have an opinion that your information was incorrect, or did you already state that for me?

I don't have problems admitting my mistakes, in fact I enjoy asking for information when I am wrong, whereas you defend yourself. I think you might want to learn the difference between welcome criticism and provocation of others. If I am wrong, sure, call me on it. Also, I do care about +5, because I wouldn't want someone to have misinformation as a top post because other people will be misinformed. That wasn't aimed at you, that was aimed at correction of data. I've had it happen to me and I asked mods to mod down my posts when I did.

I didn't address your critique because I didn't want a flamewar. It's not that I am 100% right, I may or not be, and thats immaterial.

I also didn't claim it was MS FUD. I claimed that YCM has ties to Microsoft. The correct company is JGD Management Corp. d/b/a (doing business as) York Capital Management. Know who owns JGD and also has a board of directors straight from microsoft? JGD (Acacia) (SEC link).

So yeah, sorry if you got offended, but try not to start an insult fling and you might not get called a douchebag next time. I welcome snarky comments, not elitism.

Let me try to explain better. YCM is accepting the company, but SCO is retaining the lawsuit liability of this specific case with novell for themselves. Meaning they have all this money but the money has nothing to do with the liability. Novell may have money owed to them by SCO in far excess of 36M or even 46M. We're talking 10+ years of business that got 0% royalties instead of 100% royalties as owed (note: not 96 or 95%, they were supposed to get 100% and return back a percentage after).

If you did some damn research instead of being a typical slashie with bad information, you would have gone to groklaw as mentioned and seen more details than the original website. Part of being a smart slashie is doing your own research in addition to articles posted because we all know they aren't always correct, summary and article for that matter. Don't attack my ego because you didn't do research and are thusly a moron because you got a +5 with incorrect information.

Regardless, if you had read at grok, you would have seen: "Among the excluded assets are "Seller's litigation with Novell and IBM, and its claims and choses in action other than the Linux Litigation." The total purchase price, SCO says, consisting of cash and non-cash components is "in the estimated aggregate amount of up to $36,000,000". SCO has to reimburse up to $50,000 of York's fees and expenses in connection with the deal. And if York is designated as "stalking horse" under the Bid Procedure Order, and if others outbid York, SCO has to pay them a $780,000 breakup fee and reimbursement of all expenses incurred by York up to $300,000."

So yeah, I'm not god, but I do my due dilligence and don't post out my ass (you forgot to wipe).

"JGD Management Corporation has its principal executive offices at 1118 East Green Street Pasadena, California 91106 (http://www.secinfo.com/d12TC3.v51a.htm)

If you google the address the first match is a reference to a page on Edgar which provides the Form 4 (any of you US business types know what that is?) for a comany known as Arrowhead Research Corp which has one R Bruce Stewart as its CEO and Chairman of the Board.
(http://edgar.brand.edgar-online.com/EFX_dll/EDGARpro.dll?FetchFilingHTML1?Sessi onID=T-hII2bI2EHwHrP&ID=3669175)

R Bruce Stewart founded Acacia Research Corporation in March 1991. (http://www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/personinfo/FromPersonIdPersonTearshe et.jhtml?passedPersonId=927443).

Has anyone heard of Acacia Research before?

Hmmmm.

It has to be a coincidence."

But can Samba (Microsoft's only competitor here) use the information?

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071022114731199

Not if you don't want to be paying Microsoft for each copy

Good thing you can't copyright an experience.

Some people certainly appear to be trying. A couple years ago, somebody tried to patent a story line.

Ah, this is a repeat of a number of patent lawsuits. It's too bad that Alan Kay's group with Dan Ingalls et. al. invented overlapping windows in a GUI in the 1970's. Woops, forgot about the prior art. How about that.

http://news.squeak.org/2007/10/12/smalltalk-to-the-rescue-microsoft-ex-execs-sue-red-hat/

http://users.ipa.net/~dwighth/smalltalk/byte_aug81/design_principles_behind_smalltalk.html
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071011205044141

Yogi Berra once said 'it's too coincidental to be a coincidence', and this story just gets more coincidental - first Ballmer presciently insinuates that patent suits will be headed to open source, then a company that has some recent ties to MS goes and files suit against Red Hat and Novell (lotta good that MS deal did Novell, huh).
It gets even more coincidental, as Novell just announced they have updated their indemnity program - and the weirdest part is, Microsoft will extend their patent covenant to GPLv3 according to Novell.
What does it all mean?

(A) refrain from using a linux desktop for more than a year, or

(B) do whatever IP InnovatioN LLC or its holding company Acacia Technologies wants them to do. (I'm aware that this lawsuit is only targeted at Red Hat Inc. and Novell Inc., but once IP Innovation LLC has some money why couldn't they repeat the trick to everyone else?).

Oops sorry i'm not allowed to say X-windows anymore, am I? I meant: the X window system(TM).

IIRC the GIF patent lawsuit went in a similar vein: sue just before the patent is going to run out, then the defendants are more likely to give in because the lawsuit might last longer than the remaining lifetime of the patent anyway, and they'll be able to use the technology again soon.

If you live in a country that tolerates software patents, I'd suggest you go do something about it (if you like multiple desktops, that is).

PS: who t.f. is "Technology licensing corporation", anyway?

PPS: I'm surprised Intellectual Ventures didn't bring this lawsuit.

PPPS here's the complaint (from Groklaw, see if you can get it from Pacer if you don't trust that).

And here's Acacia's announcement that IP Innovation LLC is "a wholly owned subsidiary" of theirs, for suing with GUI patents.

at Groklaw.
As usual ,PJ sets it out cleanly and succinctly.
SCO II has arrived.

"We are also aware of no patent lawsuit against Linux. Ever. Anywhere,"

I presume that was written a day or two ago, because Groklaw is currently reporting precisely such a suit. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071011205044141

I don't think it is a direct patent suit from Microsoft that is likely, but rather suits from patent trolls, possibly with "moral" support from Microsoft.

"Acacia subsidiary IP Innovation LLC and fellow patent troll Technology Licensing Corp sued Red Hat and Novell in Marshall"

In July 2007, Acacia Research Corporation announced that Jonathan Taub joined its Acacia Technologies group as Vice President. Mr. Taub joins Acacia from Microsoft

Acacia Research Corporation .. has named Brad Brunell as Senior Vice President .. Mr. Brunell joins Acacia from Microsoft

--

Is there any disinterested law official anywhere on the planet that is concerned with what is going on here. A seller of inferior software facilitates the formation of a patent troll and extortion racket. It then uses threats from said same company to intimidate people into using its own product and scare them away from using competitors product.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071011205044141

"During my time at Red Hat, I came to understand that open source developers perform their best work when sound legal advice is available to them," said Webbink. "I look forward to working with an organization that provides this essential role to the Free and Open Source Software community."

• Understanding Open Source Software - by Red Hat's Mark Webbink
• The Man with the Shovel
• LinuxWorld Bio

This quote from Ballmer that is posted on Groklaw under the section "[Update 2]", appears to be the Microsoft explanation:

But he doesn't stop there. He immediately continues by directly contradicting himself, and talking about the differences in the FOSS and Microsoft business models:

In other words, FOSS should be required to use the same wastefully expensive business model that Microsoft uses.

I don't think he gets FOSS. I am beginning to wonder if his commitment to the traditional corporate culture of 1982 is so great that he truly cannot see that FOSS is based on an entirely different cultural platform. FOSS is a kind of gift economy where those involved are saying "Hey, since it doesn't cost me to share what I'm doing, I'll gladly share it with everyone, and I expect others to give something back to all of us, too." Where traditional capitalist cultures like Ballmer's see product improvement as a way of getting a bigger slice of the pie, FOSS focuses on making the entire pie bigger so everyone gets a larger slice.

To those who are less culturally advanced, the clear successes of FOSS must seem to be magic. Apache, Blender, Firefox, and the others must all seem to have been created out of empty aether, and to be without any solid foundations. Clark's observation about advanced technology seemingly also applies to business models: if they are significantly advanced, their mechanisms of operation will seem to be magic to the businessmen of twenty-five years ago who haven't bothered to keep up.

As matters stand, SCO is trying to put together a debtor's committee which does not include Novell. The debtor's committee is supposed to be composed of SCO's biggest creditors, but -- since Kimball's court hasn't set an amount yet -- SCO has been claiming that Novell isn't on that list. Keep in mind that the top dollar amount on SCO's list is around half a million. Novell claims that SCO converted (a.k.a. "stole") about $25 million of Novell's money. By excluding Novell from the list, PJ over at Groklaw has been complaining that SCO's list looks more like a "list of perps" for SCO's Linux shakedown. SCO's lawyers make the list, as do both Microsoft and Sun. And the Canopy Group. Conspicuously absent are IBM and Novell, either one of which would become the lead creditor if it wasn't for the automatic stay. And, in bankruptcy, the person who is owed the most has the most to say about what happens with the debtor.

If SCO gets their way, SCO's bankruptcy will be resolved without reference to the companies which SCO owes the most money.

But then again, SCO hasn't shown any code to support their allegations at any time in the last 4 years

Even if the copyrights belonged to SCO, there are less than 300 lines of code at issue in that case in the end, and it's mostly standard interface code that many believe would be found to have no copyright protection no matter who owns it. That's 300 lines of code out of more than 6 million lines of code in the Linux kernel.

---cut---cut---
I'd like to repeat my unasked and unanswered questions that I posted when Bricklin first asked us what to ask Novell and Microsoft, because I'd still like them answered, despite realizing that there is no basis for "cautious optimism" that I'll ever get an answer:

        1. Both Nat Friedman and Miguel de Icaza are reported to have visited Microsoft to say that the patent agreement as written isn't acceptable, and Microsoft said itself publicly that a change was needed. Where is the rewrite? When might we expect it? What will the changes be?

        2. For Mr. Palfrey: If Linus or Groklaw or any FOSS developer sent a registered letter or published an Open Letter to Steve Ballmer, asking for a specific list of Microsoft patents that he believes support his claim that Microsoft has "IP" in Linux or FOSS, if Microsoft failed to provide the list, would the defense of waiver later be available? What other strategy might be successful, since no one in the FOSS community is interested in violating Microsoft patents, if any actually existed, but no one can ameliorate without specificity? How can such a specific list be forced out of them?

        3. For Novell: You promised the community that you would use your patent portfolio to protect Linux. Now you ally with this Microsoft statement, that the deal is "enabling both companies to recognize commercial value from their respective patent portfolios." Why did you break that promise? Do you care that the majority of the FOSS community is opposed to software patents? How do you reconcile the clear intent of GPLv2 that no restrictions, such as a patent license, can be added to the GPL and what you signed?
---cut---cut---

This is /.

If you want people citing legal precedent plus discussions of interesting, possibly viable legal theories- interspersed with at
at least a little of the same poo flinging you find around here on /., go over to Groklaw.

It's hard to engage company principals when the company won't take your calls. (Or your emails. And signs for a fedex containing your complaint and your contact info, but haven't replied at all a week later.) The message board shows they aware of the issue internally and that they are capable of responding.

Ok, hypothetical: When a company is confronted by users, they talk trash. Afterwards, when confronted by lawyers, they clam up. Is this a recipe for avoiding a lawsuit?

The SFLC may not quite be at IBM's "blacken the skies of Utah with lawyers" level, but they're not empty cease and desist letters with no resources to back it up either.

To quote lolcats: They are serious lawyers, this is serious lawsuit. (Against invisible defendant at the time...)

As for venue, the SFLC is located in New York, so it's convenient for them to ask for that as the venue. (There was some legal case noticing that the internet is everywhere that's precedent for this, they explained it to me on the phone but it's not my area.) Since copyright is federal this seems to me as much a matter of convenience as anything, but IANAL. :) (Yeah, I know, different precedents in different circuit courts. Not my area. This is why one _has_ lawyers. I happily defer to their expertise in matters of appropriate venue...)

P.S. Thank PJ for all this, she introduced Erik and me to the SFLC back when we declared the "hall of shame" a failure and turned to her for suggestions. We're pretty happy so far... :)

THE FIRST US GPL CASE TOOK TWO YEARS TO SETTLE

http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20050225223848129

Not exactly:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070921112733615

Really, this supposed infighting doesn't exist, and having these articles on slashdot just helps us be part of Microsoft's mouthpiece. Even if there was a lot of infighting among the kernel developers (there isn't, by the way - not in the sense of a civil war causing total annihilation), all you'd get is a fork and people would move in that direction. I believe that all these articles about Con Kolivas's scheduler are part of this FUD machine and are blown way out of proportion.

For the curious wanting to understand a bit better about Linus's tree not being the be-all and end-all, check out this gentoo kernel page that talks about some other branches and unofficial trees.

I won't hesitate to point out what PJ has already pointed out, that most of these stories about all the trouble with Linux infighting is meant as the next undermining tactic by a company with deep pockets in an attempt to further bolster its market dominant position.

I, for one, do not welcome our FUD-spewing, bad-software-making overlords.

Are you sure about all this? And are you a lawyer? I only ask because people who are lawyers (albeit ones who couldn't be said to be unbiased) would say that the GPL is a licence, not a contract. If you are a lawyer I would be genuinely fascinated in a detailed rebuttal of that article :-)

There was a case about four years ago involving code in an automobile computer and GM.

You can read about the earlier case, Drew Technologies, Inc. v. Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc., et al., Civil Action No. 03-CV-74535-NGE-PJK (E.D. Mi. filed Oct. 10, 2003), at Groklaw.

This is a rather poorly-researched submission. Stop spewing nonsense. You are ruining Slashdot.

Novell very definitely wants the Utah trial un-stayed. They do not object to the bankruptcy but I'll bet that it goes into chapter 7.

There are a couple of reports from the hearing over at Groklaw now: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070918115337281

The APA is very clear that SCO has a fiduciary duty to hand over SRVX license fees to Novell which will then return 5% as an agent's fee. So, the money is Novell's (assuming that the apportionment is more than 50%). SCO has no claim over the license money and therefore neither do the other creditors.

I still think you are wearing blinders and not considering the specifics of this case. Check the Groklaw link and see if you still think the same.

Ed Bott is no more an impartial, unpaid person expressing their opinion about things they like than Laura Didiot is.

Novell didn't prevent that testing. SCO's claims *were* tested in court.

The judges repeatedly ordered SCO to provide actual evidence of their claims. They repeatedly ... didn't provide any. That led the judges to remarks like "the vast disparity between SCO's public accusations and its actual evidence -- or complete lack thereof", and eventually to actually toss almost all of SCO's claims entirely (the order includes that quote).

Judge Wells didn't just dismiss the claims for lack of evidence. SCO told so many and such blatant lies about why they hadn't provided any that the Judge tossed their claims as a sanction for bad-faith or willful failure. If they had any evidence, the time came and passed for them to put up.

The only claims remaining are the kind that no amount of evidence could substantiate, e.g.

In similar fashion SCO argues that, "Under SCO's interpretation of the contracts at issue, IBM is prohibited from having former Dynix/ptx developers write source code for Linux." Thus according to SCO, "IBM has breached its contracts by permitting IBM developers exposed to Dynix/ptx methods and concepts to contribute to Linux in the same area where each developer worked." SCO then argues that item numbers 94, 186- 193, and 232-270 concern these types of contractual violations.

After reviewing item numbers 94 and 186-192 the court finds that they are supported with enough specificity to survive the current motion[...]

1. SCO's attempt at chapter 11 gets rejected on the grounds of bad faith. groklaw post
2. Even if they don't get chapter 11 pitched, they want the trial in Utah un-stayed.

I don't know who writes your material, but it is top class all the same. What a shame someone has to spend their time torturing the language just to earn a crust .. :)

"OOXML is ECMA standardized .. Yes, there are problems with the standard, but they are all minor"

'The goal of the Technical Committee is to produce a formal standard for office productivity applications within the Ecma International standards process which is fully compatible with the Office Open XML Formats '

"The OOXML XSDs are not proprietary. Microsoft has made them freely available .."

'Like the specification itself, the license contains a seIf-contradiction: it is a promise that is not, in practise, a promise'

"MSIE is "tied to the OS" for the same reasons that Konqueror is tied to KDE; it is a shared library reused by the Explorer shell to provide similar services. It's called modularity, and it's a good design. This was an inevitable result"

'modularity' must have a different meaning in your universe where in the modular MSIE can't be removed without breaking the OS. Konqueror can be totally removed from this Ubuntu or not even installed, without breaking the OS.

MSIE was first tied to the OS to kill NETSCAPE, remember to cut off their oxygen supply. There was no valid technical reason for doing so. That they later on buried part of it in the OS regardless of the security implications merely demonstrates the priorities at Redmond at the time.

The fines will increase (exponentially I believe) until they pay. The court can freeze and seize their European assets and they have much of their money within the EU in Ireland as a US tax dodge. Also, the EU is by far MS's largest market. Not complying would be a BAD idea.

BTW, the legal detail is over at Groklaw (basically the court sided with the EC except a minor point about the EC giving too much power to the MS appointed monitoring trustee) and there is a joint FSFE/Samba press release. Also, the the court published the full judgement and other court docs.

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That in their press release, they say "SCO owns the core UNIX operating system..." ? Maybe they missed what happened in August? Link to the article on Groklaw

Is Novell going to have an even stronger case against them since they never said once anything about bankruptcy? Beyond the judge having to make some calls on monday due to this, does this get SCO off the hook? (I'd hope not)

I find it VERY difficult to believe that the complaints list for ODF could be "even longer than the ones about OOXML".

perhaps if someone took the good bits out of both of these and made a better one everyone would be happy.

If anyone has time, can you please comment on this ODF vs OOXML (or maybe MS Office 2003 XML) comparison from November 2005? I don't know enough about XML to understand all of the finer points.