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Red Hat Enlists Community Help To Fight Patent Trolls

Posted by Soulskill on from the strength-in-numbers dept.

Stickster writes "Back in 2007, IP Innovation filed a lawsuit against Red Hat and Novell. IP Innovation is a subsidiary of Acacia Technologies. You may have heard of them — they're reported to be the most litigious patent troll in the USA, meaning they produce nothing of value other than money from those whom they sue (or threaten to sue) over patent issues. They're alleging infringement of patents on a user interface that has multiple workspaces. Hard to say just what they mean (which is often a problem in software patents), but it sounds a lot like functionality that pretty much all programmers and consumers use. That patent was filed back on March 25, 1987 by some folks at Xerox/PARC, which means that prior art dated before then is helpful — and art dated before March 25, 1986 is the most useful. (That means art found in a Linux distribution may not help, seeing as how Linus Torvalds first began the Linux kernel in 1991.) Red Hat has invited the community to join in the fight against the patent trolls by identifying prior art. They are coordinating efforts through the Post Issue Peer to Patent site, which is administered by the Center for Patent Innovations at the New York Law School, in conjunction with the US Patent and Trademark Office."

5 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Amiga 1000... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Linux just isn't ready for the desktop yet. It may be ready for the web servers that you nerds use to distribute your TRON fanzines and personal Dungeons and Dragons web-sights across the world wide web, but the average computer user isn't going to spend months learning how to use a CLI and then hours compiling packages so that they can get a workable graphic interface to check their mail with, especially not when they already have a Windows machine that does its job perfectly well and is backed by a major corporation, as opposed to Linux which is only supported by a few unemployed nerds living in their mother's basement somewhere. The last thing I want is a level 5 dwarf (haha) providing me my OS.

  2. Hello America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Please help me profit it is for the greater good! When I am wealthy everyone is happy, lets also slaughter Palestinians so I can drink their blood and you will all get golden mickey mouse buttplugs as a reward. I love you and you love me.

    1. Re:Hello America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      I'm glad I don't have a whole country full of deceitful, greedy kikes stealing all my water and land anywhere near me. Fucking Jews can't just live in peace. They have to steal other people's land. Our national economy is collapsing from the Jewbanks doing their usual Jewthing. You see, with Jews, you lose. That's how THEY win. They WIN by making YOU lose. So let's lose the Jews.

      Why in the fuck are our precious taxpayer dollars going to some shitty slit of land for some Jews? Global warming could be swiftly solved if we just incinerated all of them. Their ashes would be ejected into the upper atmosphere, where they would block some sunlight from hitting the earth. The international economy would improve thanks to the absence of Jewish predatory lending, and it would buy us time to deal with climate change. Two birds, one stone.

      All of our politicians bend over and take it in the ass for Israel because a bunch of fat, rich Jews whose parents were nowhere near Nazi Germany have guilted the US into giving away tax dollars to support an aggressive genocide. These Israeli bastards hide behind the cloak of "never again" at any cost. They are willing to even be as damning as the Nazis before them just to preserve their artificial state given to them by the then and always spineless UN.

      I don't see the US giving African Americans their own state and supporting it with billions in tax dollars. I don't see the Irish getting support in Northern Ireland by the US after being treated like shit in the US. It took a nuclear bomb on Japan totally unrelated to the internment camps in the US for the Japanese to get a US protected country. Why are the Jews so special? Their population in the US is 5 million, less than the total population of New York City, yet their influence is comparable to China diplomatically.

      I say fuck Israel and its racist Jews. Pull out all funding and weapons and let them work it out on their own. Perhaps then we could focus on actual third-world countries and at least lend a REAL helping hand instead of helping Israel engage in the annihilation of the Palestinians. Between them the blame and fault goes both ways but I'll be damned if I will support a bunch of crybabies with US grade weapons attacking what amounts to a third world country in their backyard by bringing the Nazis into it once again. Prominent Jews once again go on playing the victim no matter where in the food chain they are.

    2. Re:Hello America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      The Palestinians have Farfur, but they won't get any Farfur buttplugs since they already have their heads up their assess. No, I'm sure I don't like you.

  3. Re:Sorry, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    those hotheads get offended by anything. drawings of their paedophile prophet, portrayals of their fundamentalist killing sprees(see: Fitna by Geert Wilders, avail. on youtube/liveleak), other religions, modern science, etc etc.

    let em stay offended. last thing I'm gonna do is appease some backward babarian religion.