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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.
Try physically impossible. You can't list what isn't there.
I realize that there would be a lot of paperwork involved in defending those patents once groups start having to verify with MS as to specific infringements, but isnt this overhead a cost of doing business concerning protecting your IP? Can companies infringing on patents that companies refuse to disclose information for even be considered to be infringing?
Ignorance of the law may not be a defense, but being told that you CANT know what the law is sure seems different. Mind boggling, unless i'm missing something key.
Perspectives are necessary, someone point out what i'm missing.
Ice Cream has no bones.
Microsoft patents attorney Jim Markwith told OSBC it would be "impossible" for Redmond's bureaucrats to respond to the volume of responses that would result from disclosure.
Do they really believe they'd have less work to do if they acted on their threats to deal with it in the courtroom? MS is just trying to keep the FUD of "using teh Linux may get you sued!!!11```" alive.
Trolling is a art,
Not the list. There's a big difference.
Actually, despite what so many other people may think, I for one say Microsoft is 100% right in their reasoning: this list might be just too hard to administer.
After all, how many hours do you think it would take for the open source software to re-write their code to work around a patent after it was added? The effort of removing patent after patent is just more than Microsoft could ever bear.</sarcasm>
Do you like Japanese imports?
Impossible and contradictory tasks, answers depend on who you ask, infighting, these are the hallmarks of a company in trouble. Vista took too long to develop, does not work and is not selling. Office is being escaped by real standards based productivity apps which can no longer be fought off. Those are their flagships and their money makers. GPL 3 prevents them form stealing free software, so they will soon have to compete honestly. Not only won't they be able to grow as promissed, their revenues will collapse.
This is good because M$ is an enemy of free software and has made trouble for everyone else far too long.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It's funny, because that figure has three significant figures. They didn't say "over 200" or "about 230" but that there were 235 patents.
So, the only way to count them was to have a list. A list they could very easily share with us if they wanted to. Of course, as everyone else has said, we'd code around them, challenge their validity, etc. And no, it wouldn't matter if the list wasn't 100% correct. It'd just be useful to say that, hey, we really don't infringe that one, but whatever, while fixing all the ones we might infringe upon with OSS.
Of course, that's exactly what they don't want us to do. They don't want us to stop their FUD. And therein lies the problem: promissory estoppel (they promised not to sue), laches (they knew about the infringement and did nothing), unfair competition and anti-trust actions, as well as a whole host of other things you'd see a real lawyer argue if they actually tried to bring a patent infringement suit. Of course, IANAL, so get one if you ever want to make claims like those in court.
BTW, you know why I think they gave that promise not to sue? To keep any of us from bringing a declaratory judgment action against them. I seem to recall that case law is mixed on that point, but it gives them some wiggle room to avoid having anyone bring a lawsuit over this. I wouldn't be overly surprised if Red Hat or someone had their lawyers send a nasty letter to Microsoft over this and they realized that they had to cover some ass and pump out a little more PR as a smokescreen to hide their backpedaling on this issue.
Don't get me wrong, they'll probably still use the FUD they've created as another way to strong-arm vendors, but I bet they'll do it a little more quietly and they'll do it to people they already have some hold on.
At some future time Microsoft will press an existing patent against someone. The first defence will be Estoppel. Microsoft is once company that cannot claim it did not have the resources to defend itself. If Microsoft fails to defend at this point, especially after making the pubclic claims it is effectively estopped from raising those claims in the future.
IANAL but I like to try on the hat
...Microsoft's Patent Attorney explained that the reason they hadn't named the supposedly infringing patents was that "we know what the U in FUD stands for".
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Sigh... There is a bit of a misrepresentation of what was said. The MS lawyer actually said, "'Most people who are familiar with patents know it's not standard operating procedure to list the patents,' Markwith said. 'The response of that would be administratively impossible to keep up with.'"
This is significantly different than "it would be 'administratively impossible to keep up' with the list."
I agree with the lawyer that the response to revealing the patents would be enormous and probably too difficult to keep up with. There would be all kinds of questions like "*How* does it infringe?", "Will this change help?", "What about this prior art?", etc, etc. There are thousands of Linux/GNU/whatever developers who are implicitly implicated by their accusations. Many of these are associated with large organizations which have teams of lawyers themselves. There are probably only a few lawyers dealing with this issue at MS. Thus, it *would* be administratively impossible to handle the response.
My feeling is that if you don't want to deal with the response, then shut up. But I guess they don't agree. But it is an interesting comment none-the-less.
BTW, I'm not being sarcastic in this post, but it's pretty difficult to tell given the absurdity of the issue.
Couldn't they let the rest of us know about SOME of the patents? How is that administratively impossible for the biggest software corporation?
If it is impossible, then doesn't it seem like there is something really wrong here? Isn't a patent supposed to be tangible enough to warrant a claim or some sort? Then, how can it be impossible to list what the patent violations ars?
One more possinle naive question: didn't Linux borrow heavily from UNIX, much more so than from anything Microsoft has done? And didn't UNIX predate Microsoft?
I am more baffled than ever.
Didn't Joe McCarthy use the exact same tactic in the 1950s? Claim you have a list but then don't let anyone see it? Worked out great for him, he's one of the most beloved figures in US history! Where'd I put my my "Tailgunner Joe" T-shirt...
It's not just that we dislike software patents in general (though we do). We also dislike FUD, and we dislike lies.
Microsoft says that Linux infringes on a bunch of Microsoft's patents, but they won't tell us which ones. There's no attempt to present an issue and get it cleared up. There's only an attempt to tar Linux as publicly as possible with the "patent infringer" brush while providing nothing concrete that can be refuted. That's FUD.
Microsoft says that it can't tell us what the patents are that Linux infringes because it would be too much work. But they can count them and tell us what the number is. That excuse sure looks like a lie to me.
Being hostile to FUD and lies is not the same thing as being in favor of infringing Microsoft's patents, and that's why the original post was a strawman. If Microsoft tells us what the patents are, we'll either break the patents or fix the code. Until then, there's really nothing to talk about, except to tell Microsoft to put up or shut up.
I hate Microsoft, but I have no doubt that these patents do exist, and that GNU/Linux systems do violate the patents. This isn't a problem with GNU/Linux, it's a problem with the patent system. With all the ridiculous software patents granted every year (and most/all are), there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that hundreds, if not thousands, of Microsoft's rubbishy patents are, in fact, violated by GNU/Linux systems.
Then again, the same goes for Apple, Google, Compaq, Dell... they all violate each others' patents, and when company X gets pissed off at company Y, they whip the patents out and sue. Patents are no longer used to "protect innovation", they're used as stockpiles of weapons to attack one's enemy-of-the-moment with.
This isn't so much evidence that MS is evil (honestly, do we need more evidence of that?), but rather evidence that the patent system is evil.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?