Microsoft Frowned at for Smiley Patent

theodp writes "ZDNet UK reports on criticism of Microsoft's attempt to patent the creation of custom emoticons. 'I would have expected to see something like this suggested by one of our more immature community members as a joke on Slashdot,' quipped Mark Taylor of the Open Source Consortium. 'We now appear to be living in a world where even the most laughable paranoid fantasies about commercially controlling simple social concepts are being outdone in the real world by well-funded armies of lawyers on behalf of some of the most powerful companies on the planet.'"

Comments

Re:They want for us to hate them, it must be

[ThisIsForReal]

Here's something that just popped into my head:

What about capping the number of patents a single company can own? What if, in order to gain a new patent, one must release an old patent into public domain?

It wouldn't be too much different than our current use of the judicial branch to regulate monopolies. Any thoughts?

Re:They want for us to hate them, it must be

[Locutus]

1. If it's likely to make money for Microsoft, they'll sue. The only reason they won't sue it if it would probably fail in the courtroom.

Microsoft already makes tons of money off the Windows monopoly and that is what all of their actions are about. Since the early 1990's, Microsoft is more worried about protecting their monopoly than expanding in other areas. Expansion is secondary IMO. They spend a couple of $billion per year on losing markets outside the desktop/server but THAT is more about keeping budding technologies/companies from getting too much power and marketshare in the PC periphery sectors. Look at their recent earnings report. ~30% from MS Windows, ~30% from MS Office for Windows, ~20% from MS Windows Server/software, and until last year, EVERYTHING else was losing hundreds of millions each year. MSN advertising brought MSN into the black finally( popup ads maybe? ). Also, failing in the courtroom is not a big concern for MSFT since they'll be using much of this stuff as threats. It only has to LOOK like it has teeth in order to work as they intend it to. With $40 Billion in CASH, they can sue til the cows some home and not make a dent in that cash horde.

IMO, the current IP patent land grab is about protecting the Windows monopoly and very little about making money from new sectors or business markets. Never have I seen Microsoft support a none-Windows based product having over 50% marketshare. Even when Palm had 80% marketshare, every dbase vendor had a PalmOS based micro-dbase except MSFT. They came out with MS Access for WindowsCE when that only had 5% marketshare. The key to understanding Microsofts actions is to know their motivations and that is protecting the Windows monopoly. THAT is their business.

Everything else you wrote is right on target.

LoB