02.11.08
Acacia (with Former Microsoft Employees) is Suing Apple
This is most likely a coincidence, but a curious new case nonetheless.
New Acacia subsidiary Restricted Spending Solutions, LLC sued Apple last Wednesday in East St. Louis, Illinois, in the Southern District of Illinois. Acacia sued Apple last November in the Southern District of Illinois over the iChat feature, as I reported here.
In case you missed it, there was a strong suspicion last month that Apple got sued by a proxy assisting Microsoft. Go ahead and read Groklaw’s analysis from that time. We already know for a fact that similar steps were taken against GNU/Linux (e.g. Tanenbaum, SCO and perhaps IBM too, not to mention Google where it is rather obvious. Acacia itself has Microsoft fingerprints all over it [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11].
In other patent news, the despicable practice known as “lobbying” is being embraced by Autodesk.
Design software maker Autodesk Inc spent $180,000 in the second half of 2007 to lobby the federal government. The company lobbied on legislation related to patent reform, energy efficiency and intellectual property enforcement, according a disclosure form posted online Monday by the Senate’s public records office. Autodesk spent $260,000 in the first six months of 2007 to lobby on the same issues.
Autodesk happens to be among the victim on occasions, e.g. [1, 2], but remember that a reform is not always for the better. It’s only for the better for those who invest in lobbying. They certainly look for return on that investment; altruism and ethics happen to be a secondary nice-to-have and Free software a side-effect. █
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With each patent troll, an Armageddon (or battle of Trafalgar) is approached
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.