Microsoft Will Not Sue Over Linux Patents

San Muel writes "In an official statement, Microsoft has said it has no immediate plans to sue after alleging patent infringements by open-source vendors for the time being. The company goes on to say that, essentially, it could have done that any time in the last three years if it wanted to. So what's the purpose of these bold announcements? '[John McCreesh, OpenOffice.org marketing project lead] added that while Microsoft may not have plans to sue, it could be using the threat of litigation to try to encourage corporate customers to move to those open-source product vendors with whom it had signed licensing agreements, such as Novell. "Microsoft has spent time and money accumulating patents. Maybe it has started using that armory to move corporate customers to open-source software that Microsoft approves of."'"

Comments

You see I have this big bat?

[monkeyboythom]

I could have used it upside your head but I choose not to at this moment. But I could.

This is worse than FUD, it's an outright threat. By simply announcing you could sue, challenges large business into accepting risk. To the person in the trenches, they know Microsoft's got nothing. However to the CEO and the CIO, the same people who move a company forward, this is a challenge to their capital expense planning. They see the threat of lawsuit and immedietely classifiy that as risk.

How to mitigate it? Unfortunately you don't. Because it is the idea of lawsuit you cannot work around this risk unless you avoid it altogether. And this is what Microsoft is banking on. And by avoiding Linux for this year and next in capital planning, you avoid implementation of Linux in a corporate environment for at least three years. And by that time, Microsoft is betting that you will have spent so much T&E in their shop that it would be very expensive and time consuming to leave.

Re:Open Letter to Brad Smith

[jimstapleton]

Also, another logic that probably scares them - MS's legal department probably is well aware that OSS groups are much more likely to play the prior-art/patent-invalidation card than other groups.