12.06.07
Patent Trolling, Patent Complaint, and GPLv3 Myths Busting
Remember Ray Niro, an Über-Patent Troll by profession? There’s an update on a situation which involves him harassing an anonymous blogger. Additionally, Mr. Niro apparently keeps very ‘busy’ with patent harassment and lawsuits.
Someone did write me somewhere that Niro has something like 8 Ferraris and 2 houses in Aspen. I am clearly in the wrong part of the IP biz.
If there is anything to be learned from this, it’s the fact that poor patents breed hogging, not innovation that Microsoft raves about. Meanwhile, Big Blue is pushing the limits as well. It’s reaching reaching out for a ban.
International Business Machines Corp is asking the U.S. government to ban imports of some notebook computers made by Taiwan’s Asustek Computer Inc, alleging that the products infringe three IBM patents.
Haven’t we learned from Qualcomm [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17] that customers will lose the most from an embargo?
While the patents above seem to be hardware-related, there remains the issue of software patentability, which GPLv3 strives to address, at least as far as Free software is concerned. A veteran in legal matters will soon be speaking about the GPL licence and particularly about confusions associated with the new version of it (press release here).
Wacha will speak and answer questions on copyright and copyleft, the process of removing copyright restrictions. Themes include licensing effects on business practices, strategies for determining liabilities and protections, and the differences between GPL v2 and GPL v3.
The poor and abused patent system seems difficult to escape, but there are means of prevention one can make use of. GPLv3 is one of them. █
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.