10.10.08
Patent Holders and Trolls Get More Aggressive, Vengeful
USPTO: sinking faster than the economy
Microsoft
The following recent article contains a rough count of Microsoft’s patents, whose quality can be very low based on the context in which it’s presented: the ‘Page Up’ and ‘Page Down’ patent.
One example is the company’s patent on a mouse wheel that can scroll up and down; another is its patent on double-clicking buttons. The company received its 5,000th patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office in March 2006, and is currently approaching the 10,000 mark.
Intellectual Ventures, Microsoft’s adjunct patent troll, has more than twice that number. Nathan Myhrvold seems to be planning a “tissue paper” (patents) crusade in countries and companies that may grow at Microsoft’s expense. There are attempts to deceive lawmakers to permit this to happen.
This is an Invention?
Anything that can percolate past the USPTO’s defuncts filters seem to be pursued nowadays. Here is a new example:
TeleCommunication Systems, a provider of wireless communications solutions, Wednesday announced the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued patent number 7,428,510 for “Prepaid Short Messaging.”
Shooting the Messenger
When companies (ab)use their ‘right’ to ‘own’ knowledge, they somehow believe that nobody will criticise them for it. Here is an example of a vindictive company that threatens to sue a publisher for merely mentioning a patent case.
Then Earthcomber amended the lawsuit, adding TechCrunch as a defendant. Earthcomber President Jim Brady said in a phone interview today that TechCrunch was added because it has a product co-branded with Loopt, called Loopt tc, that infringes on Earthcomber’s patent. He said the lawsuit against TechCrunch had nothing to do with the negative blog posting about his company, and that he called TechCrunch to find out if it was going to continue promoting the product, but he never got through to Arrington.
Here is the original post in question, which now bears a disclosure at the bottom. [via Digital Majority]
The suit claims that Loopt has infringed an Earthcomber patent, filed in June 2003 and issued in July 2006, that outlines “a system and method for locating and notifying a user of a person, place or thing having attributes matching the user’s stated preferences.”
Shame on Earthcomber. It’s bad enough that they harass competitors using their USPTO-stamped toilet paper; harassing innocent bloggers as well is clearly a step too far. █
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.
ArringtonShill said,
October 12, 2008 at 9:53 am
Hey Pussy:
Arrington doesn’t need your support. He is doomed, and nothing your little blog says will help him. You HATE Novell and Microsoft but SUPPORT Arrington?
You sissy chickenfucker.
Back to your day job, Nancy.
ArringtonShill said,
October 12, 2008 at 9:57 am
What a popular blog, you have Brenda.
The only guy reading it is a guy who thinks you’re a pussy and shill for techcrunch. You hope, pray, everyday, that Mike will read you and bless your shitty blog. But he wont. Do you know why?
Because HE HATES all other tech blogs. But You? You are like Patty Hearst. You want your master, your captive, to take notice of you if you say something positive about him.
He won’t. You lose.
Try some enterprise reporting, Pussy. Look into the issues. No, I bet you can’t. I bet my empire you don’t even know HOW to investigate Arrington. Nope. All you do is rewrite his feelings. That’s it.
You little pussy. Why don’t you crawl back into Arrington’s ass where you feel most safe.
Pussy.
ArringtonShill said,
October 12, 2008 at 9:59 am
Why don’t you start by interviewing Arrington and asking him why he takes all of his pictures posing from the side.
Answer: It’s because he’s fat.
Roy Schestowitz said,
October 12, 2008 at 10:20 am
Are you from Earthcomber?