03.09.08
Microsoft Lobbyists Are Again Hijacking Voices, Fighting for Software Patents
A year ago we saw how Microsoft essentially hijacks the voice of Novell customers and then uses it to spread Linux FUD. Not much has changed since then. The company continues to misrepresent businesses for its own selfish benefit.
Digital Majority spotted this bit.
Slovenia, France build pressure for Community Patent
[…]
“This is a long-awaited step in the right direction. We applaud the Member States’ decision to push for a Community Patent,” said Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology, which represents small and medium size companies in the EU.
Who is it again that parises weak/software patents on behalf of small European businesses? ACT?
ACT is a Microsoft lobbying arm which fights the EU’s decisions on Microsoft antitrust [1]. It also fights against ODF, fights for software patents (along with the BSA [2]), flings mud at the GNU GPL and attacks just about everything else that poses risk to Microsoft’s illegal monopoly. Recently we mentioned this following article as a timely example. Just to repeat the relevant bits again very quickly:
Reactions to the BRM have been mixed. Jonathan Zuck of the Association for Competitive Technology, which counts Microsoft as a member and issued a statement in support of the standard, said that OOXML is just as deserving as ODF of standardisation, as “only OOXML offers full fidelity for storage of existing documents” from prior versions of word-processing software.
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[1] Microsoft sets spinners on court verdict
Microsoft may have lost in court, but it quickly tried to win the war of media reaction via organisations like CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association and ACT (the Association for Competitive Technology) which both intervened in court on its side.
[2] Big businesses boast of patent benefits, for small businesses
A report published by an EU task force on intellectual property claims that small businesses benefit from a patent system, despite lacking almost any participation by the small business community.
Instead, the report, titled IPR (intellectual property rights) for competitiveness and innovation, was written up almost entirely by large corporations and the patent industry.
[…]
The report does note objections from the likes of patentfrei.de and Sun Microsystems, which were recorded at some length in the report. But this does not appear to have impacted the conclusion of the report in any way
[…]
Jean-Pierre Laisne, of ObjectWeb, an open source software community, said that he found the report useless: participants were told that all their contributions would be recorded but at the end only those of Business Software Alliance and Microsoft were used.
Don’t let paid lobbying arms get away with disinformation. They should at least be exposed, then named and shamed. █
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.