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Microsoft Now Offers Patent Troll Defense For Azure Customers (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft Azure will now offer customers protection against patent trolling, via Redmond's considerable collection of 10,000 legal patents. The practice of patent trolling has become an industry hazard for startups in the last fifteen years, with companies forming solely for the purpose of exploiting obscure or difficult-to-research patents which may overlap with the IP of startups. As of today, Azure is offering 'uncapped indemnification coverage', including coverage against open-source implementations of entities such as Hadoop, which forms the basis of Azure's HD Insight product.
Now available on Facebook.
If I run Linux in azure, will I then be protected against patent lawsuits from microsoft that they believe that Linux violates? :D
The summary (as well as the cited article) gloms together two unrelated issues. The 10,000 patents have nothing to do with protection against patent trolls -- by definition, trolls typically don't have an active business and therefore there's nothing to infringe patents that a defendant might counter-assert.
The original MS blog post clearly separates the unlimited indemnification (useful for all patent suits, including troll suits) from access to the 10,000 patents (potentially useful for patent suits filed by real operating companies who might have products of their own that fall under MS's patents).
When will they offer defenses against advertising in Windows 10?
Is the indemnification for using their service? One would hope that they're selling tools that you as a customer have the right to use...
One can nit-pick all they want, but this is a really great move by Microsoft. We happen to use Azure already, so it's like free cookies (the yummy kind, not the browser kind).
IP Trolls are a significant threat to any business, and anything that helps is extremely welcome.
Obviously they didn't do this just out of the pure kindness of their hearts... it gives them a potential competitive advantage in the rapidly expanding cloud market. But a pretty smart one at that.
David Whatley
Normally I'd say don't feed the trolls, but in this case, please, feed them.
They're partial to yummy, lightly salted, honey roasted apple-seeds. They eat bags and bags of them every day.
In other news, patent trolls dropping like flies... Stay tuned for the full report at 13' O Clock.
I honestly can't believe that nobody thought to get a business method patent on providing protection against patents.
Does this mean that Microsoft front patent trolls like Acacia and Intellectual Ventures can still sue you for using third party cloud services.
Subject says it all. Is Azure doing badly or something?
Isn't this technically protection money? "That's a nice webapp you have there; it'd be a shame if someone sued you and forced you to close. Become an Azure paying customer and you'll be safe!"
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
If a user ever escapes to code outside their owners OS, any other owners can extract fines from that user.
Best to only code on your OS owners systems for your own protection...
The brand is a badge, a heraldic flag to code under. Code in code out, if a user runs away, they will get tracked down by roving legal teams.
Be protected on your lords land or the many trolls will get you in the wild forests and mountains...
Cloud tenure, a new tithe and indulgences next upgrade?
You've... you've got a nice code base here, Developer.
We can guarantee you that not a single armoured computer game will get patent trolled for fifteen bob a week.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
right so too bad their own company is a patented troll.
If fear factor is used in any way, how can any developer think freely and code? Does it not limit? Even protection cushion also limits the thinking. Definitely innovation of whoever uses this azure...