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Microsoft, Apple, EMC, and Oracle Form Patent Bloc
An anonymous reader writes "When Novell finally sold itself, part of the deal included the sale of 882 patents to a consortium backed by Microsoft. Thanks to a tip from Florian Mueller, it turns out that Microsoft's partners are Apple, Oracle, and EMC, which raises questions about where these companies are heading and what it means for the rest of the industry."
SOVIET PATENT BLOC LOLOL
...the axis of evil.
I, for one, welcome our patent troll overlords.
Invenio via vel creo
Is that it's going to get a little bit harder to run a new business that makes computer products.
I don't think there's anything we can do about this. The general sentiment is that patents make the market "fair" by "protecting inventors." The American people care more about a "fair market" than a "free market" today. If you suggest that no one has a right to make money from their ideas, only their actual products, you're seen as a cold-hearted bastard in the mold of Randroid who believes cigar-chomping fatcats should be able to keep guys working on The Next Big Thing in their garage from getting rich by stealing their ideas.
Nevermind the fact that more often than not, what the patent system really means is that the cigar-chomping fatcat can sue the guy in his garage into bankruptcy 100 times over before he can get his product to market.
I've heard that when you get enough patents together they can reach critical mass and be made into a Weapon of Mass Litigation.
Copyright and Research Office for Organized Knowledge Sharing
839*929
They're all involved with litigation against Google (or Google products, like Android).
More interesting than the companies on the list is the company who isn't: Google.
Strange that almost everyone involved in the consortium has some kind of axe to grind with Google. Both Apple and Microsoft have been involved in lawsuits with phone manufacturers who make Android devices and Oracle is suing Google over their JVM. EMC has fingers in several pies and some of those pies are ones that Google could conceivably want to sink fingers into as well so it's not inconceivable that they might target Google in the near future.
Could just be a group of companies looking to ward off patent trolls, but I foresee that one or more of these companies will be bringing one or more of these newly acquired patents into the fray before too long.
Microsoft tried to fight Linux with its "253 Patents infringed by Linux" portfolio, even supplying instructions on how to attack Linux in court to a would-be buyer. But, the cockroaches scurried away into the darkness when their plans came to light.
The entire purpose of this group's combined patent portfolio will be to fight Linux and FOSS, with a goal of doing what SCO failed to do: gain "ownership" of the Linux kernel.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
yeah, that worked out really swell! no one is getting screwed over by those nice friendly telcoms now-a-days...
hold the patent on patent trolling.
The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
Why the hell do I keep hearing the "Imperial March" in my head?
You know the score, pal. If you're not part of a patent bloc, you're little people!
They probably just don't want to worry about getting sued.
I think I heard that line before... And then APPLE went after HTC waving ridiculous software patents, while their buddies at Microsoft covered the other big player: Motorola. Oracle is attacking Google directly...
Meanwhile, somewhere in near the future...
- War Is Peace
- Freedom Is Slavery
- Ignorance Is Strength
- Monopoly Is Competition
- Fools Are Wise
- Drugs Are Health
- Torvalds Is Goldstein
- Assange Is An Unlawful Informant
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
So if Google is the 800 pound gorilla can 4 monkeys standing on each others shoulders take it on?
like the old ATT?
whats next comcast becomes the one cable co?
Then Directv be comes the only satellite tv co?
What is needed is an arbiter that reads a patent, then tries to build what the patent describes, and if it doesn't resemble the item being sued for, then the patent is invalidated. The purpose of a patent is to secure for a limited time, the working knowledge of the item being patented. If it is not possible to build a working prototype from a patent, then the patent should be invalidated.
I'm not sure that the idea of a "process" is sufficient for a patent. Especially if all it takes to get a patent is adding "on the internet" or "using a browser" or similar. That would be obvious to people skilled in the art ... would it not? Programming a process is also not sufficient because if it is a process, then the goal of programming would be to automate the process, and anyone skilled in programming should be able to code a process given enough information about the process.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
it's like they want to control the people.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Any chance that such cooperation between companies meets the legal definition of collusion or trust?
Perhaps this is the secret of why all of a sudden they release the mysterious Phone 7 ... It is obvious that they are going all out to make only their phone work with company mail servers and cloud computing communications in general.
I'm sure Apple is cool with that ...
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
But to me this indicates strongly that Microsoft, Apple, EMC and Oracle see their future as dire as can be. Strange bedfellows is the epitome of eroding market and money making. How long till they all croak? IMHO all of them are irrelevant and their core businesses are not needed in the amounts of yesteryear. So rather than trying to come up with something better and new and commercially successful they must use patents... much like IBM does. The companies are over the hill and they know it. Same as KODAK was back in the day when film was displaced by digital.
The problem again as always is that the patent war will further put molasses in the innovation and technological machinery of mankind and for this I flip the BIG BIRD to all of the companies in the pact.
Companies forming pacts of mutual defense? Some day patents are going to result in the litigative equivalent of World War I.
The Quadruple Entente (Apple, Microsoft, Oracle and EMC) against whom Bub?
This could lead to a replay of Microsoft's dirty old past: getting monopoly status, forcing others to bow down to it, heavy-handed goons... Shouldn't the government look into it just like it would in cases of price fixing or lack of players in a market (due to some fat monopolist glutton controlling it)?
There are already patent defense pools, if defense was the only goal then it would be easy to join such a pool (and werent many of the novell patents pledged to such pools already?)..
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
It means we're eventually looking at one giant IT company that controls everything!
"Microappacle-EMC" will have one OS, one set of server protocols, and one line of shoddy consumer goods at ridiculous prices.
OMFG!
We have seen the Four Horsemen of the Patentpocypse!
We're doomed, DOOMED, as soon as they figure out their assignments within the group. They all want to be Conquest, and none of them want to be Famine.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
They probably just don't want to worry about getting sued.
I would expect most of these patents, and especially the ones that matter, will expire in the next couple years. Has Novell done anything worth a patent in the last 10 years? Patents only last 20 years.
Since when do you have to do anything (apart from file a patent, I mean) to have a patent?
Bow-ties are cool.
It means the creation of a formal cartel that can exercise control over who is able to compete in the software industry. Members of the cartel, which also have vast armies of lawyers, will be able to effectively shut down any competing firm at will with crushing patent litigation, if the threat alone is not sufficient to do it. This is a cartel of legal rights, i.e. it monopolizes and entirely artificial "good", and thus exist purely through its influence of legislative and judicial processes.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
So if Google is the 800 pound gorilla can 4 monkeys standing on each others shoulders take it on?
No, it takes 5 monkeys, and they have to combine to form Monkey Voltron ("gozaru" in the original Japanese...)
Bow-ties are cool.
Since when do you have to do anything (apart from file a patent, I mean) to have a patent?
I think he's trying to say that the patents must all be more than ten years old, since Novell hasn't done anything recently that was patent-worthy.
Which implies that the patents aren't going to be a problem for much longer....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
...which raises questions about where these companies are heading and what it means for the rest of the industry.
Total. World. Domination.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
... for any one of these, regarding the other three, respectively.
Meet the "Ivy League" of patent grabbers.
Since when do you have to do anything (apart from file a patent, I mean) to have a patent?
I think he's trying to say that the patents must all be more than ten years old, since Novell hasn't done anything recently that was patent-worthy.
But that's exactly my point. You don't have to do anything patent-worthy to obtain a patent, you just have to come up with something someone else might want to do, and file a patent on it.
Bow-ties are cool.
Note that the aircraft industry had to be forced into a patent pool by the US Government. This is another patent pool, but unfortunately controlled by a few giants. It's totally necessary to get business done, but excludes everyone else.
Why cant we all just get along and share? Patent Pending... All Rights Reserved
Patents are Pokemon but for CEOS.
FTFY
No brain, no pain.
By the time government takes action (if and when it does) we'll all already have suffered the consequence for some time, and effective counter measure no longer exists (see DoJ vs Microsoft.)
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Are you serious? How do you prevent the various companies from simply using the same frequencies, thus making it unusable for anybody?
I'm all for way fewer government granted monopolies (even cable companies, which of course could require multiple cable runs for competing companies, just like the telephone system originally), but for things that use the limited bandwidth of the air, there needs to be some regulation.
Are you serious? How do you prevent the various companies from simply using the same frequencies, thus making it unusable for anybody?
I am absolutely serious. Before the airwaves were ever licensed US courts were upholding homesteading of the airwaves. In any given area people were allowed to broadcast on frequencies that others were not also broadcasting on. If one person broadcast on one frequency and someone else came along and started to interfere with the signal the first broadcaster was able to take the person interfering to court to stop them from also using that frequency. This did not fit in with the plans of large businesses who wanted to restrict their competition so they eventually convinced the government to require broadcasting licenses. In 1927 the Radio Act of 1927 became law and was what created the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) which was the predecessor of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FRC was given the power by congress to license broadcasters.
for things that use the limited bandwidth of the air, there needs to be some regulation.
Scarcity of the airwaves? HAHA! There is not scarcity though the mass media wants you to believe that. They can't have much competition, if they did then they wouldn't be that profitable, or able to drawn out other voices and views. The "right" complains the left and "liberals" drown their voices and the left complains Fox drowns their voices. Me, I might want to start a radio show about model railroads and trains, and if I can get some hobby shops in my area to sponsor it I may even operate it as a talk show and let listeners call in. Of course as it is now I can't do it broadcasting over the airwaves, though I might over the web.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You're referring to Fox News, a CABLE channel.
No matter how good you think you can read minds, you're wrong, I was not talking about the cable channel Fox New, Fox also owns TV and radio broadcasting stations.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?