11.14.07
Eye on the Patent Trolls (Acacia is Very ‘Busy’)
Patent mess further ‘messified’, as predicted
Acacia, which some perceive as a bit of a Microsoft spinoff [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9], has reached some new destinations.
…Acacia — through it’s newly formed subsidiary Autotext Technologies, Inc. — sued 23 defendants last Friday in the Northern District of Ohio. In Cleveland….
I see millions in attorneys’ fees being spent by these companies who are seemingly being sued every other week lately.
I hope the judge does award attorneys’ fees in this case - to defendants for having to put up with this nonsense. It wouldn’t be the first time Acacia has been sanctioned for filing a frivolous case.
That’s the ridiculous State of the Lawyer everyone used to warn us about (except the lawyers and lobbyists). How about this new case which involves 131 companies?
Sometimes, it seems as if licensing and patent holding companies are holding a secret contest between themselves to see who can pack in the most defendants into a patent lawsuit. Technology Patents LLC may be the new champion for suing 131 companies worldwide—the list goes on and on, naming companies like Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, Telstra, AT&T, Cincinnati Bell, Motorola, Microsoft, Helio, Taiwan Mobile, O2, Rogers Wireless, China Resources Peoples Telephone Company, Yahoo, Sprint, and everyone in between.
Can you see where it’s going? The EFF is meanwhile doing what it can.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to protect consumers’ traditional right to use, repair, and resell the products they own, even if those products are patented. At stake is the enforceability of “single use” and “not for resale” labels on patented products.
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.