Ubuntu Founder Says Microsoft Not A Big Threat

Golygydd Max writes "Who says that Microsoft and open source developers are enemies? It's not Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. He says that Microsoft is not the patent threat Linux and open source developers should be worried about, and that the software giant will itself be fighting against the software patents system within a few years. 'He said the most dangerous litigants are companies not themselves in the software business, small ventures or holding companies that get their principal revenue from patent licensing. He singled out former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold and his company Intellectual Ventures, which is stockpiling patents at a rate that alarms large companies such as IBM and HP, as an example of such a potentially dangerous company.'"

Comments

Reform the System

[teknopurge]

Why not just (common sense)reform the patent system, thus crushing this holding companies?

Re:Reform the System

[lixee]

Because your governemnt would prioritize the interests of corporations over those of regular blokes.

Re:Reform the System

[Kadin2048]

I'm not convinced that any sort of software algorithm should be patentable, but if we are going to allow patents on some narrowly-defined "implementations," which might involve software at some point in them (but not being wholly comprised of software), I think it's pretty clear that the term of the patents needs to be substantially reduced.

The term of our patents was set in an era when sending a message from one city to another took days, or if it was separated by an ocean, weeks (potentially months). The flow of information moved at a completely different pace. Ten years then would have been a very brief time in which to bring a product to market. In today's world, I think it would be about 12-18 months: just enough to give the patentee a slight advantage over the rest of the marketplace, but not enough for them to amass an arsenal of patents with which to destroy all competition.

Now, perhaps there's something to be said for somewhat longer patents on pharmaceuticals, because of the long government-mandated review process that they have to go through, before they can become profitable (and which mandate disclosure of the ingredients, meaning that keeping it a trade secret isn't an option). However, I think this should clearly be the exception rather than the rule.

A patent length of a year -- five or at most ten for pharmaceuticals -- non-renewable, would do wonders towards improving competition and the production of new ideas in the technology sector. (While we're at it, lets have a 20-year copyright span, too.) Unfortunately I think by the time the major players come around to realizing that the system is hurting more than it's helping, the U.S. will be increasingly irrelevant.

Re:Reform the System

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Why not just (common sense)reform the patent system, thus crushing this holding companies?

I've explained this before. I used to work for the US government many years ago. Look at it from Uncle Sam's perspective.

1) The patent office makes money. A lot of it. Unlike other government agencies who consume tax dollars, the patent office makes a profit. Profit = good. Why would you "reform" an agency who is making you a ton of money and thus make less money?
2) Businesses have yet to scream en masse that patent reform = a good thing. Until Microsoft and IBM and Cisco and Intel and lots of Fortune 500 companies say "The system is hurting us and costing us more money than you are making under the current system. A reform would actually bring you more money." then it will never happen.
3) Government bureaucrats are outstandingly good at protecting their own turf. Expect patent office mangement to fight tooth and nail against reforms.
4) The government is convinced that this is win-win for everyone because it's like Mutual Assured Destruction. Everyone has patents, so nobody will use them unfairly. Unfortunately, the reality is that Shuttlesworth is right. The company everyone should fear is the company that has nothing but patents, like the guys who went after BlackBerry.
5) Most people in Congress are lawyers. Most lawyers like patents. It provides easy work for other lawyers on both the "infringing" companies and the IP holders doing the suing. If everybody is being sued, lawyers have lots of work and earn lots of money. Win-win!

Re:Reform the System

[TemporalBeing]

I'm not convinced that any sort of software algorithm should be patentable, but if we are going to allow patents on some narrowly-defined "implementations," which might involve software at some point in them (but not being wholly comprised of software), I think it's pretty clear that the term of the patents needs to be substantially reduced.

Yes - we do need to have terms that match the industries the patents are for. And perhaps we need to even break patents down to be more like Trademarks, i.e. you can get a patent for use in one industry (e.g. Telephone Switch Networks) that does not affect another industry (e.g. Internet Routers).

The best way I can think to do this is to require a business plan to be filed with the patent, and the two go hand in hand. The business plan then determines the basic term granted for that specific patent, and is limited by allowing the patentee to recoup costs and some percentage of profit above and beyond that (e.g. you spend $100K to develop the patent, and then you get to make $150K guaranteed by the granting of the patent). Additionally, by putting a review board in (comprised of members from SEC and IRS) to review the business plans on a periodic basis (e.g. annually, ever other year, etc.) the term can then be lengthened or shortened to meet the industry based on the performance of the patent.

This would allow high cost patents (e.g. drugs) to be around for a long time, while low cost patents (e.g. software patents) would go away quickly. Additionally, if the cost was low enough the patent would not be granted as it would be recouped before the patent was granted.

Patent trolls would also go out of business as they would not be able to submit business plans that would qualify, and be exposed for what they are.

So this is a real win-win if adopted. (BTW, I would get rid of the USPTO and replace it with a new organization that had arms in the IRS and SEC to do the job. A lot of the information required is already filed with the IRS and SEC, and if anything would only require a little more documentation in the files as some stuff might have to be further broken down. Point is, it's already there.)

Re:Reform the System

[nschubach]

Why not have Software patents "time out" after a preset time span if nothing was developed by the patent holder using that technology. If the patent holder doesn't take the patent to production in that time span, they forfeit the patent. It's kind of along your lines, but if the patent holder can't prove they used the technology in that time span, then they dissolve all rights to it.

Re:Reform the System

[TemporalBeing]

A reform would actually bring you more money." then it will never happen.

My reform mentioned in this post would make the gov't more money than they are making now. It would also (a) make lawyers a lot more money, and create a whole new class of gov't workers that deal with business plans, so people with MBA's will make more money too. How about we propose it up? That should take then, no?

Reality is that it is business and patent trolls that are fighting against patent reform. Even the USPTO has recognized a problem and been trying to reform some, and even Congress has been doing work towards that too. That's how we got the public peer reviews of patents going. So, yes, it is all about money, but it is more about whose money. Patents make a lot of money for a lot of people, gov't and business included; and until businsses get in line and say we need reform (which is starting to happen), then only have the stakeholders involved are for it, and the other half are against it and pay for the elections of the other half.

Lobbyists

[iamacat]

Nah, once big software companies feel threatened rather than empowered by patents, lobbyists will make sure that laws gets passed to protect them. One onerous requirement might be for a patent holder to maintain a credible product in commercial production in order to sue others for royalties. This will be phrased to stop patent-only law firms that skim companies without innovation themselves, but will take care of open source authors quite nicely.

Re:Lobbyists

[ronadams]

One onerous requirement might be for a patent holder to maintain a credible product in commercial production in order to sue others for royalties. Add "or be able to substantially prove ready plans in development to do so" to that, and you've got my vote. This idea of patents being some repository to hold ideas hostage is really detrimental to the technology market. Kudos to Shuttlesworth for pointing out our common enemy.

Re:Lobbyists

[SydShamino]

One onerous requirement might be for a patent holder to maintain a credible product in commercial production in order to sue others for royalties.

Really Bad Idea. This breaks the basic premise that a non-obvious improvement to an existing design may itself be patentable, even if the existing design is patented by someone else. You may be able to patent it, sure, but you would never profit from it.

Take the old example of the automobile. It's a good idea, and was at one point patentable. Then, someone else invests the automatic transmission. It's a non-obvious improvement to the design, and is separately patentable. But the guy who invented the automatic transmission cannot build cars, because that would violate the patent held by the car inventor. The guy could try to sell the automatic transmission alone, but he would probably go out of business unless the car inventor chose to buy those transmissions. Why would the car inventor do that? If he just waits a few years, the automatic transmission inventor will go out of business, and, using your proposal, the car inventor could exploit the patent without fear of repercussion.

The basic premise for patents is not just to grant a monopoly in exchange for publishing your data eventually. The data is published up front in part to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.

Your proposal breaks that incentive, because, until your patent expires, no one else can build on your design without forfeiting their improvements to you.

Re:Lobbyists

[vtcodger]

It's not entirely relevant, but it seems not to be as well known as it ought to be. There actually was was a patent on the automobile -- the Selden Patent -- US Patent 549,160. It was issued in 1895 and was used to extort substantial royalty payments from early automobile makers. Henry Ford refused to go along and Selden -- a patent attorney -- not only sued Ford but threatened to sue Ford's customers. The case, of course dragged on forever with a lot of the antics that we are only too familiar with today. eventually, the courts narrowed the scope of Seldon's patent so much that it no longer applied to any vehicle made in the US.

This is only one of the numerous examples of how the patent system has impeded innovation and has mostly made a mess of things. Another shining example was the airplane. Most of the basic patents in the US were held by either the Wright Brothers or Glen Curtiss. The Wrights and Curtiss despised one another and engaged in a decade of pointless and expensive legal wrangling. Aircraft makers were unsure what to license from whom and often couldn't negotiate terms. The result was that when World War I came along, the US was far behind Europe in aircraft technology even though the airplane was invented in the US. In order to get the US back into the aircraft business before the huns or turks or whoever started bombing New York, a patent pool was established and litigation was put on hold. Thankfully it was not reinstated after the war.

Y'know what. We got along just fine without software patents for 20 years. I think we could do so again. I'd go further than that, and (carefully) dismantle the entire damn Patent system. It's pointless, doesn't -- so far as I can see -- encourage innovation, and doesn't even work very well. We've got enough problems with global warming, overpopulation, incompetent and mendacious leaders, corporations run amock, etc, etc, etc. Why go out of our way to create more?

Re:Microsoft to Ubuntu

[h2_plus_O]

what the fuck does Ubuntu mean?

it's actually a pretty cool concept, tho (as with any good idea) it's been variously interpreted and applied.
from Wikipedia:

"... the concept of ubuntu defines the individual in terms of their several relationships with others [...] while the Zulu maxim umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu ("a person is a person through (other) persons") may have no apparent religious connotations in the context of Western society, in an African context it suggests that the person one is to become by behaving with humanity is an ancestor worthy of respect or veneration."

In other words, it's a contextual view of humanity as being constituted of relationships. We are the relationships we have.

Patent Copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

I still think patents should apply only to tangible inventions or objects (i.e. say a new motherboard system bus design) and copyright should apply to software.

come up with ideas, do initial work-patent pool

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe OSDL has a patent pool. Can we expand it?

There are lots and lots of creative folks that work with GNU, Linux, *BSD, and who read Slashdot. It would be great if there was an open invention process whereby one could take an idea, do the basic stuff, then submit it to the OSDL (or another reputable group) who would get the patent in your name, but assigned to them.

Such a process would reduce the barrier to entry for getting patents on truly new ideas. (I would have a dozen or more if my employers had filed for patents on some of my ideas.) It would also allow you to have your name on a patent which looks great on a resume (finally something that is actually worth something to the inventor). But, most importantly it would expand the pool of patents available for open source and remove additional ideas, concepts, and inventions further out of the reaches of the patent-only law firms.

This should be a call to action!

Mark spoke at our conference last week...

[pieterh]

We (the FFII) are organising a series of conferences to discuss the European patent system, and Mark Shuttleworth was our keynote speaker last week. (The conference had over thirty speakers and panelists, including Bill Kovacic, the US Federal Trade Commissioner...)

Mark spoke for 30 minutes, and his keynote is available here. He provided this very elegant argument against patents on business methods and most software: patents are society's gift to inventors in exchange for disclosure. When an invention is self-disclosing, i.e. you understand it when you use it, society has no interest in granting a patent for it, indeed is penalised by doing so, and therefore should not grant it.

More on the conference here.

The Prime Example

[brunes69]

So.. I was curious as to what this company "Intellectual Ventures" had patented thus far, so I did a search on a href="http://www.google.com/patents>"Google Patents.

p>What is the #2 result? A patent on how to find and protect intellectual property (aka patents).

So, this company already has a patent on patenting patents. So all you slashdotters with the Step 1, Step2, .... Profit jokes owe them money.