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Microsoft Details FOSS Patent Breaches
CptRevelation writes "Microsoft has released more detailed information on the patents supposedly in breach by the open-source community. Despite their accusations of infringement, they state they would rather do licensing deals instead of any legal action. 'Open-source programs step on 235 Microsoft patents, the company said. Free Linux software violates 42 patents. Graphical user interfaces, the way menus and windows look on the screen, breach 65. E-mail programs step on 15, and other programs touch 68 other patents, the company said. The patent figures were first reported by Fortune magazine. Microsoft also said Open Office, an open-source program supported in part by Sun Microsystems Inc., infringes on 45 patents. Sun declined to comment on the allegation.'"
Have some people at IBM tally up publicly how many patents Windows and Microsoft Office violate. Then have them say, "what's the point, are you going to actually sue someone over this?"
What we have is a great opportunity for a Lessig or a Moglen to lead a peaceful overthrow of a sorry state of affairs.
The software patent issue needs to be driven to the front of 2008 election politics.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Maybe if Microsoft were a little more "open" we would find just as many if not more "borrowed" ideas. This is gonna get messy...
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
I don't really like to jump in the "OMG M$ SUX" bandwagon, but this is pretty telling.
Free Linux software violates 42 patents.Competes with Windows
Graphical user interfaces, the way menus and windows look on the screen, breach 65.Similar interfaces make it easier to switch to FOSS products.
E-mail programs step on 15Outlook
and other programs touch 68 other patents the company said.This probably covers stuff like IIS and .Net
Microsoft also said Open Office, an open-source program supported in part by Sun Microsystems Inc., infringes on 45 patents.Microsoft Office
I think that covers all of Microsoft's cash-cows doesn't it? Very telling.
The owners of these projects should make a deal with Microsoft to give them 30% of the revenue from the open source code in return for licensing the patents. 30% of 0 is still 0.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
A Google search will help...
Microsoft Patent Could Hamper E-Mail Authentication Group
John R. Levine provides an analysis
Microsoft patents E-mail addresses as clip-board objects
Microsot patents eternal E-mail
Another link
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I'm confused. How many Xerox patents does MS infringe, then? All of them? Or maybe Xerox couldn't file any patents because software patents did not exist at that time? And what about Apple's UI patents?
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
Anybody else see parallels between this & Disney whining about infringment after they made movies based on long standing folklore?
I expect most of the kernel infringements are in optional kernel modules. I've heard rumblings about vfat having patents in the past, and I expect there are some in the SMB client code. Unfortunately, it may be impossible to re-implement those to avoid the patent issues, because the patents may cover core aspects that are required for interoperability.
If we ever get a full detailed list of patent issues, I can foresee the day that one of the first questions in the kernel configuration is whether to include portions that may violate patent rights, and the help text on various options would cite specific patent numbers that have been claimed. Or, perhaps more generally, it could ask what legal jurisdiction you're in, so that it can block the modules that are protected in that country.
Until they tell us specifically which patents are being violated by what software, we cannot take any remedial action.
There are two possible cases: 1) no free software violates any MS patents; and 2) some free software violates some MS patents, but we don't know what software violates what patents because MS refuses to tell us.
Ergo, it is reasonable to assume that since MS has made it impossible for potential infringers to take any action to avoid infringement, that they have an interest in any infringement that occurs. That is, MS is promoting infringement of their own patents.
Indeed, the article says, "But Augustin also acknowledged that it's not in Microsoft's interest to do so: Open-source programmers could rewrite their code to avoid infringing on specific patents, or the courts could find that Microsoft's patent isn't valid."
I am not a lawyer, but when a party promotes the infringement of their own patents it might be reasonable to assume that they may be estopped from ever enforcing those patents in the future.
MS needs to tell us specifically which free software is violating what patents. If they do not tell us that we are justified in assuming that either no free software violates any patents, or that MS is entirely ok with all the free software that violates any of their patents. If they were not ok with it, they would tell us exactly which free software violated exactly what patents.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
I think Apple and Microsoft have a patent cross-licensing agreement. (They certainly seem to have an informal one, but I suspect it's been formalized at some point, maybe in one of their lawsuit-settlement stock trades.)
From the NY Times: "In Its Case Against Microsoft, U.S. Now Cites Note From Apple," Oct 28, 1998It's been widely alleged that Microsoft got the patent cross-licensing agreement, and the IE-preinstall deal, by threatening to kill Office for Mac back in the late 90s, when a lot of people were ready to stick a fork in Apple.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Note that many of these are for things we may not care about (like mice, keyboards etc) so the number to analyse will go down. Still non-trivial, but all it needs is persistence, the help of a few law students, and the IT crowd to hunt down prior art. And lets put it all in one place where anyone that gets sued can go to for a definitive reference.
BTW, I am not aware of such a thing being out there already, if so then please let me know, my quick search didn't find it this morning.
What do you all think?
It would be smart of the FSF to file a suit right now for slander of title against Microsoft. They need to put up or shut up... doing otherwise is "tortuous interference" with Linux and other OSS vendors' businesses by making legal accusations that aren't true to stymie their business. It may be good to deal with 200 patents at once rather than one at a time. Microsoft has money to play that game, the FSF does not. Also, patents en mass in court can show a clear misappropriation of the patent system in the field of software and business model patents that one-at-a-time can't prove effectively in separate non-connected cases.
first to file means nothing if the invention is already PUBLISHED... then NOBODY can patent it. I've often thought that Sourceforge would be a good place to convert to a software "patent-free" house. Sourceforge is a public forum, that counts as published.. if we took all the crazy ideas posted in slashdot, fleshed them out to be usable, and posted them on sourceforge that would quickly make vast swaths of programing permanently unpatentable.
All distros certainyl have their own style and have definitely not copied MS, but it is hard to say that they were not inspired by the layout and form of Windows (and OSX too).
Layout and form aren't patentable or even copywritable (aside from specific logos and words). That's how Microsoft got away with copying Apple.
This is all settled law; it was beaten to death in the 80s and 90s. The fact that Linux uses some of the same general design elements that Windows (and in many cases the Classic Mac OS, and OS X, and AmigaOS, and god knows how many other GUI OSes that are now basically extinct) doesn't necessarily constitute infringement.
What Microsoft probably has are some very overbroad patents that were granted in error, and they're hoping that they can use to rustle up some protection money with, because the cost of challenging them and getting them invalidated, even with lots of prior art, is so ridiculously high.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Objection. So far MS hasn't actually specified any patents which they claim are infringed. They've given numbers, but they've declined to say which patents are on the list. I think I'll have to borrow the phrasing from IBM's very first few interrogatories to SCO: Please identify with specificity which patents held by Microsoft are alleged to be infringed, and which code (by software project, file, version and line) is alleged to infringe upon those patents.
Despite their accusations of infringement, they state they would rather do licensing deals instead of any legal action.
A prerequisite for licensing is to identify exactly what the licensee will be paying for a license to. Until MS places that on the table, why should I pay good money for a pig in a poke?
I really wish what you said ("permanently unpatentable") were true. Alas, it is not. Rather, what can and will happen is that people will get patents, and it will take literally millions of dollars to get them undone.
C//
Ford doesn't sue the soccer mom that drives a Chevy Suburban if the Suburban violates patents Ford owns - Ford sues Chevy.
Funny you should bring that up. You should take a look at this page, in particular, to the broadside that's reproduced about 1/3rd of the way down the page. The "Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers" (holders of the infamous Selden Patent) frequently threatened to sue not only the manufacturers of unlicensed autos, but also their owners, since "use" of (not just manufacturing) an infringing device constitutes patent infringement by law. I don't know whether they ever actually bothered to do it though, because like Microsoft, their aim was to funnel business into the coffers of their financiers.
So anyway, the reason Ford might sue Chevy for patent infringement, rather than going directly after Chevy drivers, is mostly because Chevy is a much bigger (and deeper-pocketed) target.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
We need to be proactive. Let's create a groklaw type service just for Microsoft Patents and start building prior art cases for any patent Free Software is potentially infringing on. They are gathering their troops, let's start gathering ours. See if they are as bold.
I think this is a result of the recent Supreme Court action that raised the bar for patentability. I suspect that a large number of Microsoft's software patents (and everyone else's for that matter) will not withstand scrutiny under the new test.
This is just a net being scattered far and wide to try and turn some of their (now worthless) patents into revenue before anyone has the chance to challenge the validity of those patents.
My suggestion? Don't take the bait.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
That may be the theory behind the patent system, but it is not how it behaves in practice. The high cost to prove a patent owner was not the first inventor is prohibitively high for most people to pursue, especially against a corporation.
Additionally, most patents (particularly in software) are issued for things that are not genuine innovations. That is, there is no net benefit to the country for these patents because what was created would have been created anyway.
The real issue with the patent system today is that it serves less as a means to encourage innovation, and more as a means for corporations to stifle competition. I am not proposing to eliminate the patent system, nor am I proposing to prohibit patents on software. Instead, I believe the patent system needs to be fixed in a way that requires every patent issued to show that there is genuine innovation that would not have come about, at least in a timely manner, without the opportunity of exclusivity driving the investment in the invention, or the coincidental intellectual creation beyond the routine.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Okay, really, and I'm being serious, not making a point obliquely - why is Alexander Graham Bell listed as the inventor of the telephone? I thought it was the first to file thing that was the difference.
Because the other guy -- Elisha Gray -- wasn't able to prove that he invented it earlier. It's pretty clear now, in hindsight, that Gray really did invent it first, and what occurred was really a miscarriage of justice on a grand scale, but at the time he couldn't show sufficient evidence of earlier invention, and Edison got the patent based on his date of filing. [1]
Although 'first to invent' is the rule, if you file a patent application which describes the invention, you've firmly established a date when you had invented it by. So then the onus is on someone else to present a whole lot of evidence showing that they had invented it first. Unless they had published it, or filed a provisional application, or somehow got their earlier version irrefutably dated, this is pretty tough to do.
So if you're an inventor or researcher, you have to be concerned not only with inventing stuff and patenting it, but also documenting your work religiously in a way that's tough to fabricate or backdate. There are several examples historically of inventors who have been essentially robbed of their inventions because they couldn't prove the date of invention with enough authority to overturn a later inventor's patent.
Today, there would seem to be a lot more ways to conclusively date your work as you go along than there were in the 1870s; cryptographic date-stamping would probably be my pick
[1] There is some debate even today as to who really invented it first; Bell's actual patent was filed on the same day that Gray was filing a "caveat" (basically a patent without any claims, a warning/notice that you're starting work on a particular area) on the same thing. IIRC there was a similar situation regarding the invention of the single-needle sewing machine.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I think the Lanham Act deals with trademarks not patents, but IANAL.
However using unsupported claims to weaken competition could be a violation of anti-trust law.
Of course since Microsoft Just sold thousands of copies of Linux to Dell, they have distributed any possibly infringing material under the GPL. As the owner of that material it is legal for Microsoft to choose the distribution license, but Microsoft now has to abide by the license they have chosen.
From this Groklaw interview with an EFF lawyer who has seen the MS/Novell dael under NDA:
These 'coupons' are called coupons, but are not what most people would consider a 'coupon'. They don't discount the purchase of something from Novell, they are actually a license for a complete copy of Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. Microsoft is like that kid who comes to your door and is selling magazine subscriptions. You'll get the magazine from the publisher, but you pay the kid.
It's debatable whether any of the MS software patents would stand up in the EU anyway. Although the Europe-wide patent body has awarded a few patents that might be described in those terms over the years, as a general principle we don't currently have them, and the enforceability of the odd few in European countries is doubtful.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
It's modding like this that make me meta-mod. How can you even possibly consider this offtopic. The whole point of the linked to page is to try and clarify what patents MS is claiming are violated.
Smells like an astroturfer with mod points to me, and we all know that astroturfers are an unclean and heathen band of pansies who have sold out their freedom of speech rights for cash. Spineless chumps, I hope you choke on that paycheck.
I'm gonna meta-mod my ass off... YOU'RE GOING DOWN SHILL!
What makes you think Apple would fall on Linux's side? Apple has cross-patent deals with Microsoft that protect them from this kind of thing and Apple is very clear in the marketing materials that they are just as eager as Microsoft to see Linux go away. There seems to be this naive idea within the Linux community that Apple is a friendly company. Here's a clue guys, the enemy of my enemy is NOT always my friend.
Not sure I buy this. I wouldn't say that Apple is exactly #1 in the "Linux Fan Club," but they have a lot to gain via open standards, at least when it's a choice of "open standards or Microsoft's proprietary standard." (I'm sure they'd much prefer their own proprietary standard being the One True Way, but as long as that's not going to happen, it's better nobody own it than a competitor.)
I don't think you can sum up Apple or the Macintosh platform's relationship to open source in general, or Linux in particular, as just "love" or "hate." It's much more nuanced. Apple has a lot to gain by any slip in Windows marketshare and a loosening of Microsoft's hold on the desktop, particularly the home desktop (it's been a while since they've gone after the business desktop and I doubt they'll ever really try again). It's a lot easier for Apple to compete against Linux than it is to compete against Windows, because Linux has less lock-in. (I.e., you can switch a Linux user to Mac more easily than you can switch a Windows user to Mac.) However, at the same time, they compete with Linux in the smaller segment of "non-Windows OSes." (So, it's the converse of before -- it's easier to switch a Mac user to Linux, than a Windows user to Linux. Such is the double-edged sword of open standards.)
You see the same issue with IBM -- on some levels, IBM is (or was) competing with Linux; e.g. vs AIX. (For this to make much sense you really have to think back a few years before they jumped on the open-source/open-standards bandwagon heavily.) Some of their divisions I'd expect still do (maybe database software?). There are probably a lot of non-IT examples around that people could come up with, too.
Corporations, because they don't have a single controlling mind, can in many cases do things that would appear to be hypocritical or contradictory if they're anthropomorphized. There's a lot that's been written about this sort of behavior (Google "coopetition"), and it's a lot more complex than 'friends' and 'enemies.'
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
And the press has reported that they have gotten a fair number of OSS customers to sign licensing agreements. One theory is they started this again because the rate of those license agreements slowed down. If Microsoft establishes enough of a precedent with these license agreements they essentially control OSS (in the US) through the ability to not license the patents or at least make the license agreements cost more than going with Microsoft products. And the best part is with todays patent system in the US the patents don't even have to be valid. Just ask RIM. All Microsoft has to do is make the initial cost of the license agreement cost less than fighting it. Once they have a company on the hook there is very little chance of them successfully fighting so Microsoft can jack up the prices to the point that using OSS is cost prohibitive. Or even outright refuse to renew the patent licenses.
SCO was a major frontal attack on OSS that cost Microsoft mere pocket change of $40,000,000. It was a long shot and it probably didn't go as well as they hoped so they've switched from the frontal attack to infiltration tactics and guerrilla warfare. This could easily destroy the OSS industry in the US and in the process pretty much trash the entire technology industry there also. If you don't think so consider the fact that any tech company that becomes successful enough to show up on the radar immediately gets attacked and ends up spending more on the resource sinkhole of lawyers than they spend on R&D for improving their products. Given that in the tech industry things become obsolete in a matter of months Europe, India, Russia and China will be flying past them before the first hearings on the lawsuits start.
Who is John Galt?