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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.
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.
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'
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.
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.
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.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
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?
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
-- MarkusQ