11.09.07
Patents Roundup: Trolls Still Out on a Hunt
Keeping an eye on tomorrow’s biggest pain
The (patent) Troll Tracker marks it 100th post and talks about a mind-boggling trend that contradicts with what the Establishment wished us to believe. According to some statistics, as mentioned in recent weeks on numerous occasions, patent trolling is rising fast.
This is really the year of the patent troll. Last year, approximately 6,000 defendants were sued nationwide in about 2,800 patent cases. This year, the 6,000th defendant was sued sometime in early October. With the number of cases up nationwide probably 5% over last year, we’re still projected for at least a 30% increase in the number of defendants sued. More on that data in a later post.
Acacia is among those that are listed. Needless to mention, this backs suggestions for a reform. In fact, this shows us that lawyers are entering a jubilant era at the expense of developers and end-users/consumers. As evidence of these troublesome affairs, here is one patent case that was seen as news coverage-worthy.
Japan’s Canon won a patent lawsuit against a recycled ink cartridge supplier as the country’s Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed an appeal against a lower court decision in favor of the camera and office gear maker.
We must all be wondering about the mother of all patent trolls (at least the one most relevant to GNU/Linux). Mother ship is still up to no good.
Microsoft is trying to patent automatic goodbye messages, including “Have a great afternoon!” and “Ciao, Harry!”
Other than a reform, from a FOSS developer’s point-of-view, the least one can do is make use of the GPLv3, which extends patent coverage. The FSF has just released a quick guide to GPLv3.
Listed below are a bunch of older patents from Microsoft that take some nerve to file.
- Microsoft Deems Emotiflags Patent-Worthy
- Microsoft patent hints at pay-as-you-go OS
- In Microsoft Patent App, TV Watches You
- Advertising that is relevant to a person - classic case of patent trolling
- MS Seeks Patent On Virtual Fuzzy Dice
- Will Microsoft Put The Colonel in the Kernel?
- Microsoft patents the mother of all adware systems
- Microsoft stole KittenAuth, renamed it and claimed it as their own.
- Microsoft files further adware patent
- Fun with Google Patent Search: Why does the maker of Windows hold a patent on a door hinge?
- Did Microsoft just patent sudo?
- Microsoft patents BlueJ
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.