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B&N Sought DoJ Inquiry Over Microsoft Patents

Posted by Soulskill on from the sanity-check-in-aisle-four dept.

Meshach writes "There's an interesting story at the WSJ about how Barnes & Noble lobbied the Justice Department to open a new antitrust probe against Microsoft regarding their abuse of the patent system. B&N saw Microsoft filing a slew of frivolous patents in order to stop the development of handheld devices, potentially affecting their Nook reader. The article mentions how Microsoft has a similar racket going with various Android device manufacturers, but B&N does not have the cash reserves to support similar licensing, and is fighting back." Reader qantr points out related news: Chinese telecoms firm Huawei has confirmed that Microsoft is demanding royalty payments over products running Android.

1 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. The REAL issue here is by andydread · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Microsoft is taking ownership of other people's code through the abuse of software-patents. This is scary. The notion that you cannot sit down in front of your computer and write successful code without Microsoft attacking you with a team of lawyers using dubious and obvious software-patents is scary. All you code are belong to Microsoft. They didn't write it but the own it anyway. This egregious behavior is something that Microsoft actually promised in their Halloween document. This is not just against Android. Its campaign to sink open source particularly Linux in the marketplace. By making it an expnesive hassle to deploy Linux vendors will just use windows instead. Its not noble. Its sleazy. MIcrosoft's Steve Balmer has been treating to use sleazy tactics and they are doing it now.

    Here is how it works :
    Microsoft Approaches open source company
    Microsoft: My what a nice open source company you have here
    Microsoft: You know this is a dangerous neighborhood you need some protection.
    Business Owner: Protection? From who?
    Microsoft: Well...From us really.
    Microsoft: Oh and sign this NDA you cannot talk about this to anyone. Got it?

    Its egregious sleazy software-patent extortion tactics.

    The real question is how does the greater open source community stop them. So far only Shuttleworth has pledged to fight them in court if they come knocking on Ubuntu's doorstep

    If you think this is about Android then you are sadly mistaken. This is about LInux and open source victims include:- TomTom, Buffalo, IO-DATA, Kyocera MIta etc. None of those produce Android products. They are now beating drums that Open Office and Libre Office violates their patents. Look for them to start suing anyone that distributes Open Office or Libre Office in a successful product.

    This is their strategy against open source in general If you write open source software that competes with Micorosoft expect them to make it very expensive for you in the marketplace if your product becomes successful.