Microsoft Too Busy To Name Linux Patents?

bob_dinosaur writes "According to The Register, Microsoft's Patent Attorney Jim Markwith told the Open Source Business Conference that the reason they hadn't named the supposedly infringing patents was that it would be 'administratively impossible to keep up' with the list. 'According to Ramji, the executive tasked with the difficult job of straddling Microsoft's growing support for open source in server and tools, and aggressive and unpredictable statements from management on patents, made a jaw dropping attempt to explain away the Forbes article. "The reason we disclosed that, is because there was a request for transparency following the Novell deal Iast November. This was a response to that transparency," Ramji said. It was at that point the OSBC audience erupted.'" That transparency apparently extends to multiple levels. ZDNet is reporting that Novell will share the details of its agreement with Microsoft sometime in the near future.

Comments

Microsoft didn't come up with that number

[Chris Burke]

The number 235 didn't come from any Microsoft internal research or MS funded research. It came from an independent research paper that examined patent vulnerability of various software. Microsoft saw the paper and decided to run with it, saying that the paper proved that "Linux violates 235 of Microsoft's patents".

Then the paper's author spoke out, saying that MS was misrepresenting the results. First, it was 235 potential infringements, in part because none of those 235 patents had been tested in court and could be invalid. Second, these were not all Microsoft's patents.

Frankly I think he was far too kind. Microsoft turns "potential" into "actual", and "235 patents" into "235 of our patents". That's not "misrepresenting", that's fucking lying, especially when it comes to implicitly claiming ownership of patents which are not theirs.

Oh yeah, and thirdly the author said that Linux was not atypical compared to closed source software in how many patents it potentially violated. The fact is, and one of the conclusions of the study, was that software patents are such a minefield that pretty much every piece of software potentially violates some.

This was all on /., I think about a week ago. I'll let someone else dig up the link for some karma.

By the way, this probably means that the best source for finding out which patents Linux hypothetically violates would come from the original paper.

Re:Microsoft didn't come up with that number

[Chris Burke]

Whatever, here are links: The slashdot article, and the first post in it links to this article covering the paper author's rebuttle..

I can't help but notice how the numbers keep changing. The study says 283 patents, Balmer at one point said 228, and now it's 235. Frankly since they aren't substantiating any of these claims anyway I think MS just makes up a number to keep people confused. Maybe they'll think that further research turned up another 7 patents, even though it's still all based on a completely braindamaged intepretation of someone else's work.

Re:Microsoft didn't come up with that number

[illuminatedwax]

Mod parent -1, Wrong. That study not only 1) says the number of patents is 283, not 235, but 2) isn't talking about just Microsoft patents, that study was talking about all software patents, and 3) that study came out 3 years ago.

http://news.com.com/Group+Linux+potentially+infrin ges+283+patents/2100-7344_3-5291403.html