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Microsoft Says Free Software Violates 235 Patents
prostoalex writes "Microsoft told Fortune magazine that various free software products violate at least 235 patents, and it's time to expect users of this software to pay up patent licensing royalties: 'Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and licensing chief Horacio Gutierrez sat down with Fortune recently to map out their strategy for getting FOSS users to pay royalties. Revealing the precise figure for the first time, they state that FOSS infringes on no fewer than 235 Microsoft patents.'"
Last paragraph
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If push comes to shove, would Microsoft sue its customers for royalties, the way the record industry has?
"That's not a bridge we've crossed," says CEO Ballmer, "and not a bridge I want to cross today on the phone with you."
"
Tech company sue it's own customers?
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
does Microsoft already hve some patent license agreement (presumably some sort of blanket agreement) with IBM to cover them
Yes and No. When I worked for a big corporation (not IBM) we had an agreement with MS; we could use their patents, they could use ours. But Microsoft made it clear in the agreement that if we used open source software the cross-licensing didn't apply.
Note the word "uses". That means that if you use a device that is in violation of a patent, you could be found liable for that use.
The patent owner can go after the manufacturer of a device infringing his patent, those selling or offering the device for sale, and the end users.
As I understand it, they couldn't generally collect from everyone involved because that would be double or triple dipping. For example, if the manufacturer settles, then that makes the patent owner whole and absolves the others.
H.R.2795 hasn't been passed. "prior art" is still a viable means of invalidating something. And if MS is going to start leaning on the highly flawed patent "reform" before it even makes it out of committee, they'll likely just be digging the H.R.2795's grave next to their own.
;)
And even if we switch to "first to file," prior art will still invalidate the patent. Specifically, see section 135 - "Inventor's rights contests"
Or start at the beginning, and patch it with the ammendments H.R.2795 would make
Will it be substantially easier for MS to abuse patent law under H.R.2795? Absolutely. Will it make "prior art" invalid? Not at all. And, like I mentioned, it's not even out of committee yet
they couldn't generally collect from everyone involved because that would be double or triple dipping. For example, if the manufacturer settles, then that makes the patent owner whole and absolves the others.
That depends entirely on the nature of the settlement. There was a case few years ago where Timeline settled with Microsoft (some database technology issue), then announced that the deal with Microsoft did not cover end users -- and the courts agreed.
-- Alastair
Both are right. "Cajón" is the augmented form of "caja", which is box, so it literally means "large box". However, spanish speakers don't really use it that way, if they want to describe a large box they'd say "caja grande", the word "cajón" is really only used for medium to large drawers. Small drawers, like those on a jewelry box or some such, are called by the diminutive form "cajita".
The various modifier suffixes that can be placed on nouns is one of the coolest features of spanish, IMO. -ón (big), -ote (even bigger), -ito (small, cute, precise), -ejo (big and ugly) ... and others that I can't think of at the moment. You can make nice words like "cojoncitos" and "cojonejos", and there are thousands of really awful puns that can be constructed by noting that one word with a suffix sounds the same (or close to the same) as another word. Spanish is a great language.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
It's not quite the clear cut. In the US you are (now) not allowed to claim damages that occurred between first discovering that the patent was being infringed, and taking action. This was introduced to prevent people from waiting until the defendant had more money before suing, rather than letting them know.
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Apparently Smith didn't pay much attention in his equity classes in law school (not surprising since most people find equity boring and difficult - I on the other hand topped my year so :-P to Smith). This behaviour is going to give rise to a proprietary estoppel against Microsoft, and he has now publicly stated the hardest things a defendant would have to prove to get the estoppel. This is just about rule #1 of equity - if you know somebody is violating your property rights, and you let them expend time, effort and resources building something in violation of those rights without them having knowledge of the breach of your rights, the courts will not let you enforce your rights against those people or anybody who claims through them.
It would be a different matter if Microsoft had no knowledge of the breach, but having investigated it and found the breach, if they don't tell the projects affected what the alleged breach is in fairly short order, they are not going to be able to enforce their rights at all.
Even if he did not pay a lot of attention in his equity classes it seems unlikely Smith would not have some awareness of this. This suggests to me that Microsoft have no intention whatsoever of using the patents to pursue open source projects or even users who are building businesses based around open source products. If they did intend to do this, they would give specific notice. This leaves them with only intimidation as a strategy for exploiting their patents against open source.
It is a shame we have no examples of another company that turned to using unspecified intellectual property violations as an intimidation strategy against open source. Such an example might give us an indication of the ultimate result.