Has Microsoft's Patent War Against Linux Begun?

Glyn Moody writes "Microsoft has filed a suit against TomTom, 'alleging that the in-car navigation company's devices violate eight of its patents — including three that relate to TomTom's implementation of the Linux kernel.' What's interesting is that the intellectual property lawyer behind the move, Horacio Gutierrez, has just been promoted to the rank of corporate vice president at Microsoft. Is this his way of announcing that he intends going on the attack against Linux?"

Comments

The right answer to this

[WindBourne]

is to get companies to start using a different FS on memory cards. In particular, it might be useful to pick one of the OSS FS and see it dominate the industry. All it would take is several large companies to decide to change NOW, and the rest would follow.

Re:The right answer to this

[Miamicanes]

> is to get companies to start using a different FS on memory cards

It's not going to happen, and here's why:

* The royalties are capped. Beyond a certain point, it costs SanDisk, Minolta, and the others nothing in additional royalties for cards produced during a given year.

* As a practical matter, Microsoft can only force you to pay royalties if you sell the card preformatted. Leave it up to the end user to format the drive himself, and Microsoft can't make you pay them a cent. Technically, the end user would be responsible for paying the royalties himself if he formats the card with FAT32, but as a practical matter Microsoft isn't going to come knocking on his door.

Thus, it's self-limiting for large users, and there's a de-facto escape hatch for small users. The limit is high enough to make Microsoft lots of money, but low enough to not be worth the development and support costs of any alternate filesystem for the large users.

In any case, I'll be shocked if Microsoft ever launches into an all-out assault on Linux. Frankly, Microsoft BENEFITS from having a small & noisy group of people loudly insisting there are alternatives to Windows. It lets them point and say, "See, we aren't REALLY a monopoly!

Re:FAT32 patents

[Threni]

> What makes you say that? The people who understand software and software patents well enough to understand what's going on already dislike Microsoft. Those who don't
> aren't going to change their mind over this.

Because people who aren't patent/tech nerds but who have tomtoms are going to hear about this and go `what the fuck?`...

Re:Patenting mistakes

[DittoBox]

I think what's really fucked up about this is that Microsoft is just now deciding to do something. FAT has existed for almost two decades, and the FS driver in Linux for quite some time as well. They waited for their FS to become a de facto standard so they could drop the hammer on people.

If you own a trademark you have to actively defend it, lest it become a standard term for the product type. Shouldn't technology and patents be the same way? If you allow entire industries to adopt your patented method without defending it you should lose the patent. Coming in after the fact just so you can grab your competitors by the balls is just crooked.