04.02.08
Lawsuits Give More Reasons for Microsoft to Call it a Day and Give up on Software Patents
While Microsoft intends to intimidate its Free software rivals using software patents, or at least force the foolish ones among them to pay ‘protection money’, the company also gets to grip with the fact that software patents are its enemy. With trigger-happiness and greed comes great pain as well. There is a reciprocal cost to be paid. Here are two new articles about software patent lawsuits which were filed against Microsoft and are yet to be concluded.
The first speaks about Alcatel-Lucent’s case against Microsoft. A verdict is said to be near.
The patents were owned by Lucent Technologies Inc, which Alcatel SA acquired in 2006. Lucent sued in 2002 claiming infringement of patents for computer-video coding used in digital television, DVDs and video games, a method for entering data on computer forms, and the use of a stylus.
We mentioned Avistar the other day and its battle against Microsoft is not over. It seems determined to give Microsoft a hard time because it’s in a situation similar to that of SCO. It has little or nothing to lose on the face of it (c/f previous reports).
So far, four of Microsoft’s requests have been rejected by the US Patent Trademark Office (USPTO) on procedural grounds. If all procedural flaws are corrected, the USPTO has approximately two months to decide whether or not to grant the requests and hold a full formal re-examination.
Tony Rodde, president of Avistar, said: “Avistar has a lot of questions about why Microsoft might be doing this, because some of these patents have nothing to do with Microsoft’s technology or business.”
If software patent lawsuits continue to rise in terms of number, just as TrollTracker showed a couple of months ago, then Microsoft’s economic model will lose its seemingly healthy equilibrium. More patent nuisance of this kind might hopefully — just hopefully — convince Microsoft to rethink that love affair with software patents. █
Older articles
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.