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Microsoft May Become Major Opponent of Patents?
UltimaGuy wrote to mention a story positing that Microsoft may one day be a major opponent of over-reaching patents. From the article: "Speaking at the LinuxWorld conference in London on Wednesday, Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, said that although Microsoft is seen as being very pro-patent at the moment, if every other software maker enforced its patents in the same way then Microsoft would find it very difficult and expensive to do business. 'I think in ten years you will see Microsoft become a major opponent of patents and we will see very large software vendors turn around their position on patents,' Shuttleworth said."
I would think that almost all software vendors would be opposed to software patents. When every obvious method of doing something is patented, no one will be able to do anything.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Anyway, bottom line is that XML is going to be a huge patent minefield down the road; and the problem with landmines is that even the big boys step on them.
Good Luck Microsoft if you want to use Open-XML 2.0 without paying us.
Software patents are in the very fabric of Microsoft. They will no more oppose them than they would oppose advertising, exclusive OEM contracts, or no-compete clauses.
The culture is built around selling software based on its features, and denying others the ability to have the features (whether developed internally or acquired). In order to sell the software they either have to copy the features of someone else, buy/coopt the inventor, or come up with the feature internally. They can't rely on trade secrets, contracts, or copyright to protect them from other people using the features Microsoft uses. They have to rely on patents for that.
Being denied access to a software feature by a particular patent, Microsoft will attempt to cross-license it, buy the patent owner, convince the marketplace that the feature is useless or harmful, or ruin the patent owner.
It's not in the nature of Microsoft simply to make their product and see who likes it. The company was built on having some useable product and _marketing_it_ with exquisite skill, timing, and ruthlessness. They have always used any tactic they could to lock in OEMs, consumers, and ISVs, while locking out competitors. It's their way.
It would take a complete culture shift for them ever to oppose software patents. Instead, they will attempt to use the patents they have as leverage in whatever way they can, whether it's cross-licensing other patents, FUD, or to lock in whomsoever needs locking.
sigs, as if you care.
And making sure the playing field is heavily slanted in their direction - by foul means more often than fair - is how Microsoft has always achieved success.
In particular, MS is against patents held by other companies. Have we all forgotten that MS just lost its appeal on the Aoleas/UCB patent for plugins?
they mounted an expensive legal effort because there's a 500 million dollar
royalty overhead for their browser product. Thats just one patent, one product. there are so many more out there.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
What is not mentioned yet is MS get so much hassle from patents due to them ripping people off/copying and claiming as their own - we have all seen it over the years - entering an agreement, signing NDA, getting the IP, then shitting on the [usually small] Company so they go out of existance.
Also, why are MS patenting over 3000 'patents' a year, if they do not like them/use them? It is their arsenal, and with the cash pile they have, over time nobody else will be able to compete, even if the IP is original - as MS will have some fingers in the that patent pie already.
Of course, money to buy what you need from Government etc. needs to be said no more.
The guy from Ubuntu is dangerously mistaken (Neville Chamberlain: "I have here in my hand a piece of paper...")
We are talking about the same Microsoft here, aren't we? Major multination software house, Billion dollar war chest, annual profits in excess of many nations' Gross National Product?
The one with the extensive political lobbying machine? The one which lobbied hard for the DMCA, for instance. And for software patents in Europe too, (though they didn't win that one).
It seems to me that if the world isn't just as MS would like it to be, then they damn well set about changing it. As far as I can tell, it seems to be corporate policy.
In our present environment, patents are a fact of life. MS and its competitors have evolved to take that situation into account.
That's very much the Redmond party line, isn't it? Poor little microsft, struggling to make its way in the cruel, cruel world with only forty billion dollars, an operating systes mononpoly and a couple of dozen senators and judges in their pocket.
How will they ever survive?
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Microsoft has cross-licensing agreements with many of the major players in the software industry. Minor players can be coerced by Microsoft to license whatever patents Microsoft wants because any small software company likely violates many of Microsoft's patents and can be shut down by the mere threat of a Microsoft lawsuit. The only people who can claim infringement against Microsoft are patent lawyers and IP firms with no product, and there aren't enough of those around.
Open source probably comes out best in this regard. Open source projects generally don't infringe deliberately and have licenses that expressly prohibit the use of patented technologies. They also usually have no direct revenue stream against which to assess damages. Except in really unusual circumstances, a FOSS project will just fix infringement upon notification and go on as if nothing has happened. Hopes by Microsoft to be able to shut down or significantly affect FOSS projects through patents are a pipe dream.
Microsoft may eventually lose interest in patents because they are only effective tools against smaller competitors and there aren't a lot of those around anymore, but I doubt Microsoft will ever actively oppose patents.
Parasites, indeed.
The bigger companies can't just go and sue each other without fear of countersuits, as they're all infringing other companies' patents. A small company doesn't need anything else than money and a patent to go sue-happy. If they don't produce or do anything, they don't infringe any patents so they can happily litigate everyone. No need to fear patent countersuits.
Now, that's what I call useful business. They can create abstact ideas, go to stealth mode, wait for the others to actually implement "their" ideas and then sue them.
The problem with today's bad patent laws is that the only way to protect yourself is to patent everything. Saying "I don't believe in software patents, so I won't patent my program," won't work because someone else will patent your idea and sue you.
No, I will not work for your startup
To me this makes 100% sense. I once had the very nice pleasure of talking to a Software patent lawyer. We talked all kinds of things and the basic underlying point is this:
Companies like microsoft are for patents but against companies that make buisness modles out of patent infringement.