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Has Microsoft's Patent War Against Linux Begun?

Posted by timothy on from the begun-this-clone-war-has dept.

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?"

38 of 644 comments (clear)

  1. Patenting mistakes by alain94040 · · Score: 5, Informative

    3 patents relate to car navigation systems and I can't really tell who's right...

    But patent 5579517 is very simple for all to understand: it's the infamous way of Windows 95 to offer long file names (32 characters) over DOS, which only allowed 8-character names.

    So Microsoft patented the way to store a cross-reference between the nice, readable filename, and the ugly, DOS name.

    Does Linux do that? Sure, there might be a FAT driver somewhere... But I hope TomTom doesn't use FAT. If so, Microsoft is abusing the patent process.

    And am I the only one to see irony in the fact that Microsoft patented a software defect?

    1. Re:Patenting mistakes by Computershack · · Score: 5, Informative

      Tomtom does indeed use FAT on the memory cards the maps are stored on.

      --
      I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
    2. Re:Patenting mistakes by poetmatt · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not really, it's been widely debated that the FAT patent would not hold up on a review....so I wouldn't be so jumpy.

    3. Re:Patenting mistakes by Directrix1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Doesn't this seem like anticompetitive behavior? I think we're needing a new lawsuit.

      --
      Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
    4. Re:Patenting mistakes by Artraze · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You jest (or at least the mods think so), but actually, you're not so far off the mark. As Windows does not come bundled with support for any file system that isn't patented by Microsoft, lording those patents over people is quite anticompetitive. Or, at the very least, more-so than the whole IE thing which started all this monopoly stuff to begin with.

      Then again, the entire point of software patents is to make monopolies, so perhaps this is just what's supposed to be happening.

    5. Re:Patenting mistakes by ximenes · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yes, all patents expire. Because of the date on which this patent (#5579517) was filed, it will expire 17 years after the issue date (Nov 26, 1996). So approximately November 2013.

      However, it seems clear that Microsoft, as with most companies in this position, will continue to develop new derivative work that can be patented in turn. This will allow them to continue to constraint the filesystem under patent as it will be implemented in 2013, which may or may not matter depending on how the world works in the distant future.

    6. Re:Patenting mistakes by smittyoneeach · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That, and the fact that Solomon's observation that "there is nothing new under the sun" was never more apt than when applied to software.
      Physical devices, with huge sunk costs in R&D and fabs make a patent a reasonable tradeoff to incentivise development.
      Software, not so much.

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    7. Re:Patenting mistakes by MikeBabcock · · Score: 4, Informative

      A Darwin award? For using FAT? Like every camera maker on the market? And every DVD player with memory card slots? And TVs that have them for that matter? Not to mention stereo systems with USB plugs.

      FAT is ubiquitous for flash storage.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    8. Re:Patenting mistakes by Cylix · · Score: 4, Informative

      They've been suing over FAT implementations for years so this one isn't new per say.

      Which is funny because it promotes interoperability for windows and doesn't require some funky file system.

      If you don't want to pay the microsoft tax... use ext2 and put some cycles into making sure the windows ext2 driver is working well.

      --
      "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
    9. Re:Patenting mistakes by DittoBox · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
  2. FAT32 patents by argent · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft has patented a bunch of stuff related to FAT32 and has aggressively licensed FAT32. They would have pursued this regardless of the OS underneath the TomTom software.

    1. Re:FAT32 patents by downix · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And where are the lawsuits against Digital Cameras, USB Flash Drives, portable HDD's, the iPod....

      --
      Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
    2. Re:FAT32 patents by palegray.net · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They're on the way, probably. This is most likely a shot across the bow.

      --
      512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
    3. Re:FAT32 patents by Fastolfe · · Score: 5, Informative

      USB flash drives are normally implemented as a USB disk, not a FAT32 "device", so the FAT32 implementation (and patent concerns) are pushed off to the host that reads/writes to the disk. Digital cameras and iPods could be considered hosts in that sense, and they probably already have FAT32 licensed.

    4. Re:FAT32 patents by Dolohov · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re:FAT32 patents by saleenS281 · · Score: 4, Funny

      You're assuming none of those people have paid for a fat32 license. Microsoft approached the entire CFA about licensing fat32 in 2006.

    6. Re:FAT32 patents by Threni · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > 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?`...

    7. Re:FAT32 patents by HangingChad · · Score: 4, Funny

      They're on the way, probably.

      Probably. Because when you can't produce value, then you're down to monetizing your patent portfolio.

      Bring it, Monkeyzilla!

      --
      That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
    8. Re:FAT32 patents by lorenlal · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This sort of thing boggles my mind. You, as a company, make a lot of lovely commercials talking about how easy your OS is to copy pictures, and do all sorts of cool things. You employ a kid to pimp your OS. Everything is clouds and rainbows.

      In the past, you made it so your OS *only* supports file systems that you hold patents for. It's sketchy, but that's what you did. It even seems convenient to the end user cause they don't need to decide what format to do. Camera and device makers are faced with a choice to either:
      A) Use your file system in the storage to make it easy to copy (like in the commercials you make later).
      B) Force the makers to create an interface and make the copy process a pain for the end user.

      So, most makers choose A since the standard's been published and things seem pretty calm and clear. Happiness abounds, and since the standard is readily available almost everyone else has employed usage of said OS. It's lightweight, does a simple job quite well. Device makers make plenty of products that directly support and utilize your FS and it seems to add value to your OS.

      Then, you decide it's time to enforce the patent. Against certain competitors, or you start charging licensing fees. Device makers and the competition has to suffer since your OS dominates the market and there's no way to go back and stop using the FS since that requires recalling your entire product portfolio.

      I guess the point I'm trying to make is: WHY DO THIS? Greed.. At least that's a simple answer.

      More importantly though, does this qualify as either abusive or anti-competitive? I certainly think so. IANAL, but even if it's neither the former, it's certainly un-ethical. It's certainly a great way to get more people to hate you. It's only a matter of time before someone with enough resources hates you enough to pull you into court or a governmental session and start killing you in the public eye and in the bottom line.

    9. Re:FAT32 patents by JWW · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Boy, you've made a very good argument for an ANTITRUST case. Perhaps the government will look at this and get the antitrust case against Microsoft right this time....

    10. Re:FAT32 patents by nabsltd · · Score: 4, Informative

      To my knowledge the iPhone/iPod no longer uses FAT32.

      I can't say anything about iPhones, but iPods can be plugged in to any Windows XP/Vista computer and be accessed as a plain old USB drive. In order for that to happen, they need to use FAT (of some variety), HPFS, or NTFS. If they are larger than 2GB, they must use FAT32, and to support long filenames, they have to use the VFAT variant.

      Which means, they have to have a file system that is patented by Microsoft.

      You can format an iPod using HFS+ on a Mac, but then it won't work with Windows until you re-format it.

  3. The right answer to this by WindBourne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    1. Re:The right answer to this by dpilot · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Look at it this way...

      Is your data SAFE in a Microsoft format?
      What other patents do they have that my not have been asserted in this case?
      Is your company future safe with anything other than pure, fully accepted and vetted open source I.P.?
      How about your documents, and your ability to manipulate them at will, without encumbrance or fees?

      Microsoft isn't the only company that can play the fear game.

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    2. Re:The right answer to this by Miamicanes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > 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!

  4. Actual complaint: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Skip the ads and get the PDF of the complaint:

    http://media.techflash.com/documents/tomtomComplaint.pdf

    A quickie read of it still has me going "WTF!?" a lot. Seriously - they patented such things like:

    "Vehicle Computer System with Wireless Connectivity"

    "Portable Computing Device-Integrated Appliance"

    A quick look at the dates these things were granted, and most gadget geeks' memories should spark something: Most of this crap shouldn't have been patentable in the first place (wish they appended the patents to the complaint, though... it'd make things a lot easier to eyeball and evaluate in one spot).

    I'm guessing MSFT is just hoping to force a settlement, so that they can then use it as a cudgel... thing is, Microsoft is using a lot of OSS code nowadays too (IIRC in MSN/Live Messenger, Visual Studio 2008, and etc - linky here).

    1. Re:Actual complaint: by Keyper7 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Refrigerators?

  5. Microsoft's last line of defense by dave562 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I know that it's always silly to try to predict the future, but here I go none the less. For the most part, all of the core computing applications have already been developed. Unless business processes change significantly, there are only so many systems that a company will ever need to deploy. There will be word processing applications, spreadsheets, databases, webpages, file servers, print servers and a slew of other devices. However the core of the network and the computing environment will remain rather static. Over the last decade, Microsoft developed a lot of core business applications in the form of Windows, Windows Server, Office and Exchange. As the room for innovation in the IT world shrinks, Microsoft will have to fall back to the patent portfolio. If their lawyers were smart, they patented every single technology that they could with the foreknowledge that sooner or later, someone else would want to develop software to do the same thing.

    I think we are going to see Microsoft leveraging their patents more and more aggressively as time goes on. They have poured untold billions of dollars in R&D. It seems to me like they need to pursue patent litigation to generate some sort of ROI on all those R&D dollars.

    1. Re:Microsoft's last line of defense by James+Youngman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      For the most part, all of the core computing applications have already been developed.

      Record that, and come back to read it in 20 years. Or wait 10 years and ask your information agent to find it for you.

    2. Re:Microsoft's last line of defense by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just one problem: They risk stepping on the toes of folks like IBM, Apple (who has more cash in the bank right now than Microsoft does), and other biggies that can make life very, very hard for MSFT.

      Also, the payouts aren't as fast or as big as you would think: Sure, a small corp could/would cave in and settle almost immediately, and enough of them would provide an ongoing income for awhile. That said, doing so would force a lot of up-and-comers to simply abandon as much of MSFT as possible, just to avoid potential conflict.

      Look at the GIF/LZH patent as an example - the whole damned thing mostly withered and died because Unisys was too desperate and stupid to realize that they could have taken a better approach. World+dog simply avoided using compressed GIFs, instead turning to other tech to get the job done.

      I can see people start to do the same things with .NET, ASP, and more, if MSFT becomes an aggressive RIAA-style extortion machine.

      To mangle a well-worn phrase: Nowadays, application developers see patent lawsuits as damage, and tries to route around them.

      (I can also see other corps banding together and assaulting MSFT just out of preventative self-defense, too... see also SCO's troubles as a model.)

      /P

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    3. Re:Microsoft's last line of defense by Brian_Ellenberger · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ok lets reverse that think back 10 or 20 years ago and what has truly been innovated today? and is not just an evolution of existing software taking advantage of faster and more widespread hardware?

      20 years ago. That would be 1989.

      *World Wide Web and everything it entails
      *Global positioning system
      *Digital Cameras
      *3D Graphics cards
      *Rewritable Optical Data Storage
      *Digital Audio (MP3/iPod)
      *Digital Video (DVD)
      *Practical Cell Phones
      *Wireless Data
      *Mobile Computing
      *Roomba
      *Instant Messaging

      The iPhone still feels like it belongs in a Sci-Fi movie. You mean I can pull this small rectangle from my pocket and:
      1) Call anywhere in the world.
      2) View a movie on it.
      3) Hold my entire music collection.
      4) Take a picture of someone and send it instantly to anyone on earth.
      5) Connect to some whole world network and read or watch the latest news and find out the weather anywhere.
      6) Play a video game with 3d graphics that blow away anything from 1989.
      7) Have a large photo album on it
      8) Find my location anywhere on earth and be able to plot a path from where I am to anywhere in the country.
      9) With Google Earth, bring up a satellite image of practically anywhere on earth.
      10) Have more classic books than most libraries thanks to Project Gutenberg.

      All of this in a device that is 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches and 4.8 ounces. It may not seem like much since we have been through the changes

      gradually, but if you take a step back it is mindblowing.

      There are also a host of other technologies that were around in 1989 but were not in widespread use due their cost. Presumably, that means that

      there are a host of technologies that exist today that we are barely aware of that will be widespread in 2029.

  6. TomTom not exactly a historically good actor... by morganew · · Score: 5, Informative

    TomTom were found to be a gpl violator in '04, sued Garmin in '07 and Toyota in '08 for infringing TomTom patents, and have a very restrictive EULA.

    --
    A sig?!? I don't think so.....
  7. Patent Abuse by Demonantis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A patent is supposed to protect a commercial product from being copied by the market. This is to promote people to share their ideas and collaborate while protecting the inventor. Patenting software concepts is counter intuitive to this process where no ingenuity of solving a problem is demonstrated. A lot of the patents that make it though now a days are really abusive of the protection and way to generalized to the technology they use.

  8. Re:This has been foreshadowed for years by tgatliff · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft will no doubt tread lightly because IBM and others will not tolerate them taking Linux head on... Hence, why they are trying to go around the edges. Their hope, I am assuming, is classic FUD...

    Meaning, in no way will Microsoft ever be able to take on Linux directly.... Doing so would force the hand of IBM to get involved because they have much at stake...

  9. Grandma shouldn't be running Windows by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The only issue there is getting it to be supported on Windows. Grandma wants to plug her memory card/flash drive into any computer and have it "just work".

    If every OS except Windows is able to

    1. use a modern filesystem for flash and have it "just work"
    2. connect to the internet and not become virus-infected unless the user is an expert

    then Windows isn't the right OS for Grandma.

    I know Windows still has major market penetration in many segments of society, but Grandmas just aren't where it should be. Get 'er a Mac. Or if you'll install it for her, get her Linux.

    --
    "Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
  10. Re:This has been foreshadowed for years by jmorris42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > Meaning, in no way will Microsoft ever be able to take on Linux directly....

    Which they have no intention of doing, for exactly the reasons you mention. They don't have to. IBM can do what it wants with Linux, safe in the knowledge they are one of the companies with a patent portfolio. Tom Tom on the other hand....

    Which is the message they want to send. Only players are allowed to play in the big leagues. If Tom Tom wants to enter the game they must license their IP from someone with a patent portfolio. Somebody like Novell or even IBM. But thinking one can just download Linux and enter the arena without a major defender is going to be shown as too dangerous for VC money, large instituitions, etc. At which point the major potential for market disruption implied by Linux, Open Source, Free Software, etc. is gone. This is just the warning shot. If companies like ASUS and Acer don't get the message expect an example to be made of one of the netbook makers soon.

    --
    Democrat delenda est
  11. Those patent numbers by gringer · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the shorter PDF:
    http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6175789.html — Vehicle computer system with open platform architecture

    http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/7054745.html — Method and system for generating driving directions

    http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6704032.html — Methods and arrangements for interacting with controllable objects within a graphical user interface environment using various input mechanisms

    http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/7117286.html — Portable computing device-integrated appliance

    http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6202008.html — Vehicle computer system with wireless internet connectivity

    http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5579517.html — Common name space for long and short filenames

    http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5758352.html — Common name space for long and short filenames

    http://www.google.com/patents?id=02YIAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,256,642 — Method and system for file system management using a flash-erasable, programmable, read-only memory.

    Some other text seems necessary in order to type stuff and get links in.

    --
    Ask me about repetitive DNA
  12. Re:Linux cannot be stopped... by microbee · · Score: 4, Funny

    I know suspend/resume on Linux isn't the best supported feature, but it cannot be stopped???!!! Look at me on a freshly installed bash 4.0:

    # shutdown -h now

    See, it can be stopped perfe

  13. Microsoft might have tried to push WinCE on tomtom by wtarreau · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I suspect MS has tried to push WinCE on Tomtom to replace Linux, and threatened them to sue them if they refused. These days, we see windows coming on devices where we would not expect it, and it is possible that there is some back pressure from MS.