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Microsoft Continues Android Legal Assault
shmlco writes "According to an article on AllThingsD, Microsoft is continuing its legal assault on Android. On Monday the company sued Barnes & Noble, Foxconn International and Inventec over the company's Nook e-reader, alleging patent infringement. To quote Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez, 'The Android platform infringes a number of Microsoft's patents, and companies manufacturing and shipping Android devices must respect our intellectual property rights. Their refusals to take licenses leave us no choice but to bring legal action.'"
SCO didn't die in vain, they were just sacrificed to make this kind of insane posturing and attitude of corporate entitlement seem normal. We got most of our shock at those tactics out of the way over the years McBride & Co attacked Linux, clearing the path for bigger fish, like Microsoft, to publicly act the same without as much backlash.
Good marketing effort. Idiots.
While I am uneasy about patents, a case for truly innovative products can be made. But this is not innovation. This is patenting whatever one can. Like:
Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;
You have got to be effen kidding me. That's a patent? Who was the bonehead that thought something like that is innovation?
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Ideas are easy, implementation is hard. MS allegedly has some pieces of paper that say "we thought of this first! you can't use my idea!" Google has an actual piece of software that works pretty well. If patents worked at all like they should, MS could only patent their actual implementation of something, not the mere concept itself.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Bribery does require consent between the two parties, but the third party (the consumer) is the one getting raped.
Oh please! Isn't this what the FOSS community has been wanting for years? Haven't all the FOSS guys said 'if MSFT has patents lets see them"? Well here you go, now it is up to the courts to ultimately decide.
Now personally I've always thought software patents are a BAD IDEA in giant 50 foot neon letters since we all stand on the shoulders of giants and all software comes down to math anyway, so it basically lets good math implementations get locked up by whomever gets to the USPTO first.
But on the other hand I've seen dickish behavior by BOTH sides such as everyone cheering TomTom even though MSFT offered them the same RAND license for FAT32 they offer everyone else and got the finger even though they did invent the bloody thing. And RAND is something we should support, as RAND makes tech available without making it a barrier to enter which is how we got the name RAND in the first place Reasonable And Non Discriminatory.
So maybe it is better this way, just let the courts sort it all out so that then either Linux developers can pay some RAND license and never have to deal with whatever the patents cover again, find a way around it even it if doesn't work as well like Theora, or just throw out everything that is covered and find new ways of doing it.
But if MSFT just files lawsuits against Linux for every patent they think is infringing then FOSS guys can't scream FUD! and can finally look at the patents in question while the courts sort the whole mess out. Seems like whichever side you're on (and personally I don't really HAVE a side on this one, since I use Windows on the desktop, Linux on the server, and dumbphones so that I can just get bloody calls instead of waiting for a battery to recharge) you should be happy that this mess is finally gonna get sorted out.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Not Microsoft's Fault
Nothing is ever Microsoft's fault, according to Microsoft.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
No that's how patents work. In the States there used to be a prototype requirement. If you couldn't make it you couldn't patent it.
Then they removed it.
Then patent trolls appeared.
I find being offended by me offensive.