06.23.08
EU Lobbyists Awaken, Patent Trolls Abound
Sarkozy continues to derail his country by allowing Intellectual Monopolies (from overseas, no less) to police the Internet. The fight over the Internet and copyrights is not separate from the lobby for software patents in the EU. Commissioner Mccreevy, for example, is pushing for both whilst Sarkozy attacks virtually anything that’s a threat to Intellectual Monopolies.
Digital Majority warns about the return yet another lobbying arm for software patents in Europe.
Simon Gentry is back in software patents lobbying. Now his role is to push for legalisation of software patents via the creation of central patent court in Europe.
For more information about such back doors, catch up with yesterday’s post. It’s part of a series of developments.
Acacia, Facebook, and Other Patent Felons
Acacia, a shell company (patent troll) which is occupied by former Microsoft employees [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10], receives some unwanted attention from this Law.com article which is solely dedicated to the topic.
Cognex Corp. is a small high-tech Massachusetts public company, yet it’s funded an unusual, decade-long court offense against several so-called “patent trolls,” which typically use patents to demand licenses from other companies.
[…]
That means patent-holders, like one of Cognex’s recent court opponents, Acacia Research Corp., are likely to demand more money for such licenses, Smith said.
The problem may therefore be further expanded rather than squashed. With such fast exacerbation inside the USPTO you might as well expect high-profile companies to protest, but Facebooks seems willing to share a bandwagon with the patent trolls. Over at Slashdot, people who do not associate money with wisdom sarcastically take a shot at this new junk patent from the company’s founder.
After you check boxes on a form to indicate that ‘Everyone from San Francisco, CA, Social Network Provider, and Harvard’ can see your profile, Zuckerberg’s ‘invention’ will miraculously display: ‘People from San Francisco, CA, Social Network Provider, and Harvard can see your profile.’
When will the system finally implode? When people are not allowed to think and apply knowledge, there’s anarchy. █
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.