Slashdot Mirror
Linux Violates 283 Patents, says Insurance Company
Apro+im writes "According to this article over at ZDNet:
'Linux potentially infringes 283 patents, including 27 held by Microsoft but none that have been validated by court judgments, according to a group that sells insurance to protect those using or selling Linux against intellectual-property litigation.'
Dan Ravicher, founder and executive director of the Public Patent Foundation, conducted the analysis for Open Source Risk Management. OSRM is like an insurance company, selling legal protection against Linux copyright-infringement claims. It plans to expand the program to patent protections."
Kind of like an auto insurer producing a report on which car locks are least secure, and how to pick them.
Phil
Well if these are big issues then OSRM will go bankrupt at the first patent attack of doom. And all your money paid to them will be useless.
On the other hand if the patent claims are bogus then your investment will be useless, too, as there is nothing to defend.
The money would be better invested in a real legal insurance which covers being sued by teh mad discrimination laywers of NAL-p'ThUK-NZer-RaK etc.
Im a little skeptical when the news comes from selling protection against the same problem. Hey look, there is a problem here, but guess what I will sell you protection agasint it.
Interestingly enough, at least one person works for both orginizations, Daniel B. Ravicher.
What does everyone else thing? is it something to be concerned about or is it a ploy to sell insurance and drive up the cost of linux adoption?
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
Since its the same company that is selling insurance saying there 'might' be a problem... Sounds like they are just trying to scare up some business for themselves..
Either that, or OSS is screwed, and the other shoe is about to drop. ( don't think it would stop with the Linux kernel, much more is vunerable if its taken that far.. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If they are selling insurances againt it, then they won't believe it would be a problem. Otherwise, they would loose money. Simple as that.
Anyone believe that is they really thought this could happen, they would sell insurances against it ?
morcego
dare i say the words "prior art"
hopefully this will lead to the courts regarding software patents with the same contempt that I do.
An idea doesn't belong to a person, nor does it belong to a company... ideas belong to us all; it's society that inspires an idea, it should be scoiety that reaps the benifits!
That's irrelevant, unfortunately. The software patents are already here (30,000+ of them), they're just not yet enforceable. If the software patent directive comes through like the Commission/Council wants it, it will suddenly become quite easy to enforce them in courts.
Donate free food here
This whole thing might be a nice way for companies to pool together for a legal fight.
If someone does sue the OSRM insured companies, the insurance company's best interest is fighting the battle with its resources (insurance money) pooled together instead of each companies having to fight on their own.
It might not be that bad of thing.
Sure, Linux may have some features that are listed in several registered patents, but to me the question is: Who has prior art?
My guess is that very few companies will persue any litigation in this area because of the possibility that the OSS community came up with the concept first, thereby invalidating the patent they claim to be protecting.
Seriously - can anyone think of the kind of thing that anyone could have patented? Disk I/O? Threading?
Remember that anything already presented to the public cannot be patented. You have to file before presentation. For example, if you present your concepts to a conference before filing a patent, you're screwed. I'm wondering how many of these "patents" were filed after Linux was released with the incorporated code? Granted, the USPTO is back-logged and can't do prior art searches.
The purpose of patents is to encourage innovation by protecting the income for the developer/innovator to recoup the cost of innovating/developing, not to discourage innovation.
If Linux truly violates patents, why are they only bringing it up now that Linux is becoming a viable alternative for mainstream america?
Besides, the whole thing is suspect simply because it comes from a company selling insurance for patent suits.
Karma, We don't need no stinkin' karma!
Seeing how m$ gets every and more both obvious and non-obvious patents granted, soon everyody and everywhere will infringe some m$ patents when writing more then 2 lines of code.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Why limit it to open source? Their patents are a weapon against COMPETITION.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
...whether Microsoft has an explicit strategy of using patents as a weapon against open source.
And the US is worried about other countries having weapons of mass destruction. What about weapons like this, that harm the whole of society, and even Progress itself?
must...stop...rant....
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
If there's copyright infringing code that you're using, you're liable, period.
We're talking about patents.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
And because PJ works for them, the entire company is comprised of saints?
For all I respect PJ and Groklaw, this does look like a pretty grimy attempt by OSRM to stir up business. Just the headline gives it away: "Results of First-Ever Linux Patent Review Announced, Patent Insurance Offered"
I mean yes, there may be patent issues with OSS. Yes, it's good that someone did the research. And yes, it is important that someone have answers ready for when the CIO raises the issue. But there are obvious vested-interest questions about OSRM's research.
I'd like to see it replicated outside OSRM. Or at least some disclosure, with right-of-reply to OSS developers. Spill the beans OSRM: what are those 283 patents?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Seem to me that this is no more than just some "terra-fying marketing" campagin, no different than Symantec's Vincent Steckler saying "If 90 percent [of software] was open source there would be just as many attacks, only worse. Imagine smart hackers with [access to] source code". OSRM, like Symantec, is trying to use scare tactics to try and CREATE A DEMAND WHERE THERE IS NO MARKET for their products and services - only a "potential" market.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
What is a shame is that an organization that is purportedly pro-OSS (they are the owners of Groklaw.net) is pushing the idea that there is an unacceptable level of liability in using Linux, for the purpose of selling their insurance product (which is of negligible value due to the extremely small coverage amounts). It's FUD, and surprisingly it's coming from "our side". PHB THINK: If a large enterprise is considering Windows vs. Linux, but wait! Linux requires user insurance because of its questionable pedigree, and Windows does not, the choice is obvious. Lot's of people have suggested that SCO and the various M$ toadies are trying to deep-six Linux. I think ORSM is doing quite well at this also.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
That is the difference between noble altruism and fear-mongering. I understand the fear can be an effective sales tool, but that doesn't mean I can't call it like I see it. As for Bruce and PJ, they are well respected, so the company initially obtained the benefits of their reputation. If the company's management stops acting in a way that people respect, they will eventually lose that goodwill. I don't think this means everybody is a mindless Slashbot.
Probably true, but remember that Microsoft's strategy isn't based on winning lawsuits. Their behavior is based on the understanding that they can drag the case out for a decade or more, so the legal fees will bankrupt you long before you win.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
There are plenty of copyright infringements in proprietary code
Patents are another story. Given right now the patent system seems to suck (even though it's supposed to serve a valid purpose) -- is patent infringement truly patent infringement in many cases? I would argue a lot of the patent cases will be thrown out because of prior art, no merit, etc. I'm not advocating patent infringement, but just saying that a lot of the existing problems are most likely not really problems at all. Only some will be huge problems.
And this won't change, either, since it benefits large corporations at the expense of smaller entities, and large corporations are the only entities the U.S. government responds to anymore.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
I'm tired of all these "+5 Insightful" comments about how this is a protection racket.*
/who/ would get what, when (it's like life insurance -- everyone will die, but no one knows how much money will be paid into insurance before that date. But, statistically you can get a good idea and charge people accordingly. That's where actuarial tables and increasing rates come in. But I digress).
Look, insurance is not some crapshoot. It's highly dependent on using statistical analysis to mitigate risks. Stats require data. Insurance companies are ALWAYS trying to get more data to understand the risks they need to hedge against.
Why does the insurance industry fund Underwriter's Laboratory (you know how everything under the sun is "UL Approved"?)? So they understand (and, by engaging in the process, can minimize) the risks associated with using electrical appliances (electrocution, fires, loss or damage). They then price insurance accordingly.
Ideally, an insurance company will contract (or fund) a third-party company to do the analysis. The insurer gets the stats and determines their rates, while the 3rd party works to minimize the risks. The UL label program has dramatically reduced house fires, for example.
This is exactly what's going on here -- OSRM engaged PubPat, a group dedicated to FIGHTING bad patents, to do the analysis. They get their data, while PubPat can work to get those patents invalidated.
There's another benefit here to the Linux community: companies should feel more free to adopt Linux now that the risk is known and there's a way to minimize it (i.e., insurance). Which is more likely to keep you in the house, knowing that if you go outside you can be violently murdered, or that there's a less than 1% chance of being murdered that can be made to almost zero if you avoid certain behaviors?
Put another way: Companies don't mind taking risks (it's what they do), provided that they're identified and can be hedged. Unknown risks that can take down a company, however, are untenable.
Everyone knew that patent suits were a huge risk to Linux, but it was an amorphous big deal that was unquantified. Now it's known. I'm surprised that people who so violently disagree with "security through obscurity" are against the public release of risk information around patents. Understand the problem, make it public, then address it quickly. It's the same situation, just a legal one and not a programming one.
As an aside, this is not to say insurance companies can't be evil -- dropping people after genetic testing shows a proclivity for a disease is just wrong, IMHO. But, economics dictates that if everyone knew exactly what chance they had of contracting diseases, there would be "genetic protection insurance", since no one knows
In short, what you're seeing is a responsible insurance company going about their business.
* Full disclosure -- I only read the comments on this article at +5 before writing, so sorry if this is redundant.
I see a lot of posts saying that these 280+ patents are invalid or ridiculous. Are we burying our heads in the sand? It only takes one well placed patent lawsuit to disrupt Linux development. Look at the SCO case, they used the scatter shot method and it has distracted Linux development and adoption. Not severely, but enough for the FUD machines to have companies and persons re-evaluate their Linux adoption. The enemies of Linux and Open Source will use patenets against us. Have we all forgotten what happened to the companies that stood in Microsoft's way? Once they do find a weakness, they won't hesitate to exploit it.
What can we do to counter act software patents? Can we create some sort of "prior art" / "idea" database online that holds instances of prior art or ideas for software programs that the community could build up and use as a weapon in defense of the open source software development? If we create a resource for prior art then it may be easier for the USPTO to deny some software patent applications...
Just my two cents...
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
No, the "purpose" of patents was to encourge the disclosure of knowledge. The "means" by which it does this is to grant a limited monopoly to those who publically disclose information.
Never do patents protect or grant the right for someone to make money, nor do they even grant the right to use/manufacture the idea that was patented. Patents only restrict anybody else from making money or otherwise using the idea.
This is why the "don't look, don't know" advice is so indicative of a really messed up system. In order to minimize your legal liability, you have to not look at patents...which means the primary purpose of patents (the disclosure and distribution of knowledge) is directly subverted by the very law establishing them.
"Yeah, the code just sort of suddenly appears on Linus's hard drive. *rolls eyes* Good god, this is unforgivable at this point -- by now, everyone should understand this open-source thing, it's been high-profile for long enough that these sorts of total fuck-ups should be a thing of the past."
We know who submitted the code (PGP signed or such), we know who committed the code (audit trail), but we still are not possitive where the code came from, we assume the submitter wrote it and did not break patent laws, copyright laws or non compete NDA's. You take it literally and miss the forest for the trees.
Many Linux supporters like to pretend that if they just get rid of the code, all will be forgotten and forgiven. If you rewrite the code you still have initial damages to pay for and you have to get that code out of commission (or at least make a best effort to do so). Depending on the circumstances (eg. copyright infringement) other parties may have contributed to the infringement. How many parties (especially the mirrors of opensource repositories) could be hit? How would that affect the open-source world? Now multiply this by many different jurisdictions and this is a nightmare senario at best unless the whole shebang can somehow be disproved. Just rewriting the code or making jokes about code creating itself fails to really think and prepare for the possibility.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Linux almost *certainly* infringes on software patents. This is true of almost any large software product these days, including Windows. It is no longer possible to legally write a significant piece of software without infringing on software patents. I'm sure every major piece of Internet-using software I have infringes on some patents.
This is not a sign of "Linux is broken", this is a sign of "software patents are broken and it's fucking insane that the US allows them".
I'd love to see IBM lobby against them, but IBM, like all large tech companies, has their own healthy patent portfolio to keep competitors from entering their markets.
Very depressing. Every day that we continue to allow software patents is another day worth of patents that must be grandfathered in if any fix occurs -- the US legislature will never, *ever*, *ever*, even if they eliminate software patents, not grandfather in old ones. Lots of comopanies put a ton of money into getting them, and they won't yank assets from under their feet.
If we stopped allowing software patents today, we'd still have a two-decade-long software patent minefield to deal with. If you're fifteen today, you'll be thirty-five before the industry is free of software patents. If you're twenty-five today, you'll be middle-aged when the industry is patent-free again, and if you're forty-five today, you'll be retired when the industry is patent-free. Assuming software patents stopped today, which isn't going to happen.
May we never see th
Take a good look at the pharmecutical industry and the cost of drugs in the third world, and you will be convinced that patents do kill people. Doctors Without Borders has a good case on this, search them on the web.
The drugs protected by patents wouldn't even exist to save anyone if the pharmaceutical companies didn't think they could profit from developing them.
Do you think that brilliant research doctors and investors decide to develop drugs because they'll get a warm, fuzzy feeling in their hearts?
Do you think that a geneticist is going to work his tail off to develop some vaccine to save some people in sub-saharan africa, who can't pay for it, or work for a profitible company that will reward him so he can live comfortably and maybe even send his kids to college?
I certainly appluad companies that decide to play nice and sell drugs cheap to third world countries. I hold no ill will against those who do not. Either way, nothing would get developed without the profit motive, and no one, rich or poor, would benefit from the non-existent drugs.
And if you're going to bring up 'public funding', at least show me an instance where a government lab in the same field as dozens of private companies has managed to hold even a candle to private enterprise. I'm not saying such an example doesn't exist, but they will be few and far between.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
That is the difference between noble altruism and fear-mongering.
I thought it was the difference between copyrights and patents. The statements above are not mutually exclusive....
~Idarubicin
Most major ideas are basically bound to happen once a certain point of technological and intellectual advancement are reached. We celebrate the people who invented this or that, but the reality is in most cases of "major" inventions, there are actually several people who can lay claim to the invention and we just remember the one who happened to market it or get the patent. Radio,
Telephones, these are major inventions, but many people arrived at the same point more or less simultaneously.
In the distant past, things tended to get invented by one person at a time because few were educated and had the advantage of our species collective knowledge. Now with printing presses and near instant communication we've all got that benefit. Quite a lot of things get invented in several places at once.
Now, I'm not opposed to patents for real inventions. However, I think our patent system has gotten ridiculous. Business method patents are a mistake, as are in my opinion patents on software methods which should fall under the category of mathematical algorithms which are not patentable. In other words, lets start inforcing the provision about not patenting things that are obvious to people in the field and start requiring that you actually _invent_ something worth mentioning to get it patented.
I worked my ass off earning $8/hour, in a manufacturing job (wood products), in middle of f*cking August with no a/c to pay for my application. I did not get any 'help' from 'Society'; in fact, I was impeded by you idiots. "For the children" and "For the good of the people" bullsh*t. Get off your fat ass, quit complaining about your life, and actually do something.
As for this little rant: If you to sell your idea with government protection, you have to pay for the application. If you've really invented something unique, good for you. Go reap the fruits of your effort. On the other hand, if you've come up with the stunningly original idea of say, having a "buy it now at this price" button on an online auction, your sweating in a factory doesn't really justify my having to pay you to do that.
Why?
and the big pharmcos will ignore any promising drugs that can't be patented (see the book "green medicine"), and will actually lobby against drugs and techniques that are cheap. All they want is the control and the profits, peoples health is tertiary (or lower) to them in their rankings of what is important. They will actually go so far as to de-legitimize useful products like nutrional supplements-vitamins and whatnot, and try to get legislation to make them "prescription only". They have tried that scam several times now.
This line of "reasoning" has gotten repeated so many times, people are starting to accept it as true without questioning it. So let's stop a moment to question it here. Yeah. And no one whould write an operating system from scratch if they weren't assured of making a fortune. Or, for that matter, a novel.
And, by the same logic, nobody ever makes food or thinks up new foods because you can't patent or copyright them.
No, the brilliant ones do it because they are obsessed. It's the dedicated ones that do it because they care.
Oh, and (in my experience) the ones that only do it for the money are the hacks that we'd be better of without. Pretty much the same as in any field.
Well, given the fact that they always seem to talk about the choice (again, in my experience) in terms like "selling out" vs. "doing what I love" the fact that many of them "sell out" doesn't mean they like it.
There are actually many logical steps here, all highly questionable if you stop to think about them:
- Nothing ever gets created without the creator being reasonably assured of a profit
- The more talented and creative people are, the more they are obsessed with money
- You can't make a profit at all unless you can crush anyone who tries to compete with you
- R&D is the reason companies need to make so much money, even though they spend far more on marketing, lobying, etc.
- The pharmaceutical companies profits are causing all the progress; and, by implication, general advances in science and technology have nothing to do with it (oh why didn't they think to give patents and promises of obscene profits to the alchemists! Think what they could have accomplished!)
...you get the idea
-- MarkusQHow does society inspire an idea?
You're confusing Society and Government.
While in the U.S. theoretically government represents society, many are of the opinion that bit does a fairly shoddy job of it.
As for how society inspires ideas, consider how you came up with yours. Would you have had your idea had you lived in a pre-agriculture society? Could your idea have even worked then? Did/do you need tools (that is, other people's inventions) to produce it?
Invention generally comes from the novel use of knowledge and ideas generally held by society. The level of that novelty varies considerably. That's why there are so many examples of parallel invention. While our history books tend to present a very cut and dried version of invention in the industrial revolution to the present, even the most cursory research will show that the question of who invented what is much hazier than that.
Under the current patent system one inventor 'wins' and the rest are effectively denied the fruits of their labor.
Consider, two inventors who have never heard of each other. Each spends a few years reducing the same general idea to practice. Since they both had access to the same body of knowledge and (of course) were constrained by the same natural laws, their inventions are significantly similar. Each believes that their invention is unique since they haven't heard from anyone else working on it.
According to patent law, one and only one of them is the 'original inventor' and the other is assUmed to have copied the invention. It may have taken 5 years to reduce the idea to practice, but whoever gets their application in first (even if the difference is minutes or hours) is the 'inventor' and the other is the 'copy cat'. No provision exists to issue a joint patent.
That is a fundamental flaw in the system. Even if the USPTO's implementation of patents perfectly matched the law, that flaw would exist.
To make matters worse, there is no decent system to search patents for similarity. That would require a search system that actually UNDERSTANDS the concepts behind the patent text and the query. So, the person who has a thought and says to himself 'I'll bet a zillion people have thought of that, but nobody did anything about it' and happens to be in a position to go into production does just that. A month later he is sued for patent infringement. The law pretends that he could have found the one patent out of millions that applied and avoided the infringement.
Unless or until we have a sufficiently sophisticated AI, that will remain as an intrinsic flaw in the implementation of patents.
Unfortunatly, there are many other flaws in the implementation that ARE correctable, but I see no signs of effort to correct them. The best example is the way that vague or frankly bizarre descriptions of ideas are being accepted. They are so vague and bizarre that a person of average skill in the art would have no idea that the patent even applied to their field. This is clearly a failure of the USPTO to perform it's legally mandated duty. The USPTO also seems to be in the habit of ignoring prior art. When it's actually possible to get a patent on using a laser pointer to tease a cat, it's time to rethink the system.
So, good luck on your patent. I hope for your sake that nobody renders the (literal) sweat of your brow meaningless by applying 5 minutes before you do.