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Five Linux Companies Buy Software Patents
An anonymous reader writes "In order to protect themselves against patent grabbing 'trolls,' major Linux companies are buying software patents through a nonprofit company called Open Invention Network. This nonprofit company will then offer royalty-free licenses to companies and individuals that agreed not to assert their own patents."
Or can you agree not to assert future patents?
I guess what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Whilst frivolous patent are inherently bad and shows the system doesn't work in the real world it might be a necessary defence to avoid future legal problems. So just hope they can stay non-profit :)
The five companies are :
1) International Business Machines Corp. (IBM)
2) Sony Corp
3) Philips Electronics NV
4) Novell Inc. (SUSE)
5) Red Hat Inc
I gave up even caring about dupes long ago. I'm now waiting for the day when an editor dupes his own story. I'm putting my money on Zonk for that one. Or maybe it has happened already, and I missed it because dupes are now just part of the /. background noise.
Fresh from yesterday/a
... on http://dupes.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/10/ 1321238&tid=136&tid=233&tid=106
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Okay, so the way to get modded up for comments to this post, is to pick a +5 comment from the following post, then give it a slightly different spin to account for the 23 hours passed since then:
/ 1321238&tid=136&tid=233&tid=106
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/10
I guess it's not a complete dupe... the linked article for this post is different.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
The story the other day seemed to indicate they were just going to try to protect their customers from litigation. I read that as "providing legal backing" etc., as opposed to actually buying all the patents!
IBM, Sony, Phillips and Novell aren't really Linux companies - they know that Free/Open/Libre software is the only way they are going to utilize the vastly under-utilized creative urges of the hackers of the world to fight their own enemies. GNU/Linux is just a primary weapon in their arsenal and they just want to keep it sharp.
Even more sadly, the more we use patents to fight patents, the less backing the fight against software patents is going to get. To quote:Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
So are there any safeguards built in to prevent the holding company from charging for the licences in the future?
One certainly hopes so.
The company will buy Linux-related patents and offer royalty-free licenses to companies and individuals that agreed not to assert their own patents, the paper said.
...
I wonder what this new company's policy is relative to individuals and companies that *DO NOT* agree "not to assert" their own patents [ed note: this sentence should be taken out and shot]. Note that 2 of the "investors" are IBM and Philips - two companies with massive patent portfolios. Do they, by virtue of being investors in this group get special privileges relative to the formed company's patent holdings? Or, are they waiving their current patent rights (I seriously doubt it)? Interesting
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Doesn't that mean that IBM, Sony and Novel are socialists now????
OMG, they're taking over!!!11!!!1111
King Aethelred of Wessex announced that he had purchased protection from the Viking raiders that have plagued our shores. "It was really easy," announced Aethelred, "all I had to do was pay money to another bunch of pirates to protect us from the first bunch. Now the problem is solved for ever, and I can't see any potential downsides." On the news, shares in PlunderCorp rose 35% in anticipation of a rich and ongoing new revenue stream.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Color me cautiously hopeful.
...for preventing dupe posts!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Additionally, patent trolls are immune to this kind of patent pool since they tend not to create any software themselves and are therefore not vulnerable to software patents.
The real fix here is to wrestle the patent system back from the "intellectual property maximalists" and get rid of patents on software which do not motivate innovation (just try to name one useful innovation in software we wouldn't have were it not for software patents - they are occasionally a by-product of innovation, but never a motivator for it).
If the current business climate includes tons and tons of dubious patents which can threaten your livelihood, your best defense is to get as many of your own as you can so when they come after you, you go after them -- a kind of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). IBM has been doing this for years and most companies (except for SCO) seem to not try to assert IP issues with IBM.
I think the real reason for software patents was the LEA -- Lawyer Enrichment Act. (Attorneys are the main ones getting rich of of these BS patents.)
Well?
...
Looks like a non problem to me.
In other Novell news:
Novell Vice-President for their Linux Platform now said that future Novell enterprise products would have the option to choose to install and use KDE. While Gnome will be the default option KDE will now continue to be supported.
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/66011
This nonprofit company will then offer royalty-free licenses to companies and individuals that agreed not to assert their own patents.
... broken.
And if they refuse, the nonprofit will have to assert its own patents thus disbarring it from ever dealing with itself ever again.
It's like what the GPL did for copyright, except
this looks like so called open source is moving towards GPL3
I have seen so-called open source presentations by several of these companies. These people have no interest in open source idealism, except as a way to promote their profits. These companies are doing what they have always done, they are simply colluding with their marketing department to present this under the rubric of "protecting open source". Bullshit. They only thing these people are protecting is themselves. If these people really cared about FOSS ideals, they would be lobbying for patent reform. Where is the hew and cry from these folks for modernizing our intellectual property laws to bring them in line with the epic changes wrought by the always connected internet? Right. Complete silence.
If you think what these people are doing is good for FOSS, congratulations, you have just swallowed on big load of horse shit. Taste good?
Patents aside, I wonder how much of current global economy is fueled by this kind of nonsense. $A_COMPANY gettin money from $ANOTHER_COMPANY, as long as $A_COMPANY's lawyers don't do $LEGAL_ACTION to $ANOTHER_COMPANY's lawyers while they are litigating $YET_ANOTHER_COMPANY about what they shouldn't have done to $A_COMPANY according to an agreement which wasn't to be disclosed except in front of $REGULATOR_BODY's lawyers... and so on ad nauseam. Maybe a lawyer could find a sense (wrong, of course) in the previous sentence, but it was intended as an example of the insanity of an out-of-control system where wealth is exchanged on the basis of what one doesn't do.
Nuffsaid
________
Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
ibm is in there, good! ... ... almost anything 30 years into /me thinks?
sony's in there, bad!
-
not to troll, but it might not "only" be good
maybe they're geeting "scared" of all the
open-source creativity?
anyway
computing has a prior-art analogon somewhere
The patent office never wanted to grant patents for software. They were forced to do so by the supreme court in the 1981 Diamond v. Diehr.[bitlaw.com]
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
It looks like Sony is in it just for some positive PR, to cover for the DRM mess they made.
Google - here's your chance to support open-source even more.
Or maybe they don't want to touch software patents, because these are evil.
It is to rewrite current Copyright Laws into a system that diferenciates between different forms of Intellectual Property, and restrict Patants to actual physical objects and not abstract things like software.
I know this is just a pipe dream, they'd sooner be selling parkas in Hades before this happens but hear me out.
Restructure the Copyright Laws into different sets of rules that effectively protect each different variety of IP:
* Print Published Copyrights - These rules and laws would over only cover printed materials; ie. magazines, newspapers, books, etc.
* Digital Media Copyrights - These rules and laws would only cover digial media like videos, audio, and images, but not software.
* Software Copyrights - There rules and laws would cover software, and allows similar software to be written in competition as long as its different enough from the original product. Thus protecting innovation.
* Name Copyrights - Would replace the current Trademark system.
* Public Domain Bylaws - These would be a set of rules that determine if and when a certain IP becomes Public Domain, and enforces that status to prevent a company from cashing in on a Public Domain item in the future. Basically, if MS stops supporting an OS like it has with Win95/98 and soon ME then by the rules in the Bylaws that software would become Public Domain and MS cannot enforce any copyright protection on those products. Adding a provision that requires all Public Domain software to become Open Source would be wonderful.
Administering these new Copyrights in a way that mimicks the GPL would also be a good way to fix things. That way a vendor/publisher would be able to select the kind of copyright they need. Current laws are too narrow for the broad range of products out there today.
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
What concerns me about this is what happens when a company changes its mind.
There have historically been no shortage of bad actors (ex: SCO, Rambus, MSFT, etc). I can envision a scenario where a company might join until their encumbered tech gets into the guts of Linux, then change hands/die off/spin off divisions/etc. so that the entity bound by the agreement is no longer the one holding the patent rights.
Even IBM's affection for Linux is unlikely to be eternal - are they equipping themselves with a big 'off' switch to use later?
This plan looks to have some nasty ethical & financial failure modes. Of course, I'm not a lawyer and haven't seen the details in any case, so my fears may be groundless.
I bet if Microsoft was the subject of discussion, you wouldn't be saying that.
> Well done those software patent promoting companies, this is like stamping down on pedophillia by abusing kids. Seriously, the world needs to be rid of software patents and this isn't helping!
If you are going to make a sensational comparison, at least make one that is within reason:
Imagine that the whole world is comprised by e.g. only the USA, or only the EU. Now imagine that the corporations within this world are "countries". Stocking up on software patents for defensive purposes is like stocking up on nukes. Ergo, Mutually Assured Destruction.
The main differences are that instead of victims you have settlements, and instead of nuclear scientists you have lawyers doing what lawyers do best: billing a shitload of money.
The unofficial
Dude A is a MicroSoft sales rep. He was foaming at the mouth about new workflow solutions pouring out of Redmond. I asserted that there haven't be any new ideas in computer science in decades; the real issues are organizational, not technical.
Dude A loudly protested that there was constant innovation.
So I asked Dude B, who is among the hardest-core propeller-heads I've ever met. Dude B thought that packet switched networks were probably the last genuinely new idea.
Clearly, as a working stiff, I have no idea about these things. The fact that the PTO keeps puking new patents for these ideas must mean that there is some basis for them, no?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I'm fed up with this stupidity. I'm ready for the abolition of all patents. Let businesses try to compete based on their own merits for a change. Clearly, the potential to abuse the system in the name of playing stupid games with our courts has far out-weighed the benefit of securing one company's exclusive right to manufacture a given design.
I anticipate that this will not sit well with two classes of people: Microsoft shills/stockholders, and lawyers. But those two weren't my favorite groups already.
The problem is, of course, that this will not work against patent trolls. Patent trolls have no use for the patents themselves, they are only interested in sueing others. So the OIN might hold off Microsoft, but it won't hold off sleazy extortionists whose only business is patent litigation.
Sony is the patent killer!
*Gets some chips and coffee, preparing to watch Sony committing suicide*
But, seriously, I also wonder what the requirements for membership in this group is. This is a "if you don't sue me, then I won't sue you" club. But what if a corporation wants to join without holding any patents? They would get a lot out of joining, but not really have anything to contribute. Would they still be allowed to join?
This is for DEFENSE.
This nonprofit company will then offer royalty-free licenses to companies and individuals that agreed not to assert their own patents.
Actually, it seems a bit silly to me. I assume they mean, "agreed not to assert their own patents based on our patent". If so, is that not absurd, since you probably should not get a patent granted when it is based off of someone elses patent anyway?
Isn't this almost a good idea which falls short when it comes to the final method of defence (you can't patent a derived idea)? Wouldn't it be better that the idea just simply be patented full stop and then carefully granted? Why not use patents for the way they were designed in the first place? Then perhaps an optional added agreement to use the patent be that it can be used for free in OSS or with royalties which came back to OSS for use in commercial software.
It just seems to me that a demand is being made for something you would get out of the patent system anyway. Why not extend it with something worthwhile?
Or am I missing something here?
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
Software Patents buy you!
Unless they are lying and plan to change that to selling royalty-full licenses later, I'm very glad to see this. This is very nice of them and will ensure that companies such as MS who just love to snatch up every little thing won't be able to slow down the linux developers from many potential innovations. Always a nice thing to hear. Let's just hope it's completely true and that they don't decide to start selling them instead a year or two in.
...Manfred Macx from Accelerando!.
TFA only says that they pay undisclosed amounts of money to that organization. But where's the legal stuff? The company's policies?
In any case, this initiative, with the appropriate safeguards, is exactly what the patent system needs.
IANASE (I Am Not A Sony Employee), but I think Sony has many divisions, their videogames (PS2) division, their hardware (CD players, radio, etc - ever heard of Xplod?) division, and of course, their evil music division.
These have very different goals and their methods may vary. And this is interesting - Sony Xplod plays MP3 CD's, how can you explain that, if Sony is a member of the EVIL anti-mp3 anti-sharing RIAA?
Anyway if you want some heads to roll, blame these guys for the rootkit.
Perhaps there is a way to fight fire with fire when faced with a troll. You can't counter a troll with yet another software patent but what about a business method patent? These things are just as obvious and trite as most software patents. Surely some of these could be brought to bear against one aspect or another of the troll's firm. Just ratchet the fees such that every dime the troll squeezes from you comes right back. Make it crystal clear that this is what will happen. In addition prior art and invalidation can brought against the troll as defenses in addition to the business method offense.
hey dumbass, you don't think we can see the goat.cx in brackets? I've heard enough about this site to never want to click there. mwahahah...
nice try, numbnutz! (you get the obligaytory Gong Show "whah whah whah whaaaaaaah" as I finish typing )...
Google search
The have patents on CD, DVD, DRM, FireWire, Video coding (MPEG-4 was effectively killed by licensing fees) etc, and they have been litigating the hell out of those.
Just something to think about.
- 4r0g
IBM: I was at a roundtable hosted by the German ministry of justice where IBM's Fritz Teufel was radically in favor of software patents. Toward the end of the legislative process, IBM distanced itself a little bit from Microsoft's position, at least to an extent that annoyed MSFT, but there's no indication whatsoever that they really were politically on the side of the FOSS community.
Sony: I never saw or heard of any Sony lobbying activity concerning the EU software patent directive. However, they're a corporate member of EICTA, an organization that pushed for software patents all the way.
Philips: Radically in favor of software patents, even threatened to kill all of its European jobs in software development unless software were patentable in Europe.
Novell: Didn't do anything meaningful against the EU software patent directive, only some vague criticism. Recently a Novell spokesperson was quoted in the Economist with a pro-swpat statement.
Red Hat: Supported my NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign and took various initiatives on its own, including that Red Hat spent money on advertisements in EU-specialized publications shortly before the decisive vote in the European Parliament. The fact that they're involved with this Open Invention Network is, potentially, a good sign despite the political track record of the others.
Patents are not a shield. They are a sword. When a competitor tries to stab you with his patent, you draw out your own and, all else being more or less equal, he may agree to leave you be rather than risk you killing his business.
Patent "trolls" are not competitors. They are file-drawer companies that don't make anything and don't sell anything. You cannot kill a troll's business with your patent sword because they have no business.
OIN is a fine idea, but it is no defense against trolls.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
You can quite well patent an invention that builds on other patented inventions. The one problem here is that the holder(s) of the patented inventions you build upon can prevent you from actually using your own invention.
"I hate trolls!" ~ Willow Ufgood
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(just try to name one useful innovation in software we wouldn't have were it not for software patents - they are occasionally a by-product of innovation, but never a motivator for it).
Wasn't OGG created specifically as an open (and free) alternative to the mpeg variants?
Weren't Free BSD and linux created as a response to their closed, proprietary and heavily licensed competitors?
So, I get a patent and these nice folks hold all legal rights to it. Fast-forward 10 years when they run out of cash and get bought up for 1c/patent at a some judge's bankruptcy sale run by the latest/greatest SCO or lawsuit hungry company. Congratulations, you now own the innovations of open source. I think this is about as bad a move as I've seen in a long time - better to NOT have a 'repository' company that can get sued, assets siezed, etc. Remember the guy 2 days ago that got tricked into giving MS his program name? Open source strength is in its distributed writing. One hit doesn't knock the house down. I sure hope these guys are really good and smart lawyers to protect you - they all working for an open source community with no income and all...
There could be serious free time, which is serious freedom, which opens a path to enlightenment, if you're ready to pursue it.
So here's to fried air. May the fried air folks take time to think.
Oh yeah. One thing to think about. That part about fried air that interferes with freedom needs to be modified. IP is a failure of imagination.