Linux news

2008 08 28

More Insanity in Software Patent Troll Land, Embargoes

Verizon and LG sued over visual voicemail patent

Patent holding company Klausner Technologies Inc. has sued Verizon Wireless and LG Electronics Inc. for infringement of a patent on the visual listing of voicemail. New York-based Klausner said late Tuesday that Verizon Wireless' Visual Voicemail and LG's Voyager phone, sold by the carrier, infringe on a patent that covers services through which a user is able to view and retrieve individual voice messages through a menu. Klausner filed suit in the eastern district of Texas.

http://s5h.net/u?zae62
Patent dispute threatens GPS imports

U.S. importation of smartphones and other devices using SiRF's GPS chipsets could be banned by December, if the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) adopts a recommendation made last week.

http://s5h.net/u?zc994
Yes! Yes! Innovation!!! Embargo makes innovation. Recent: Greens urge end to software patents

Ms Turei, who called for greater use of open source and locally developed software, says excluding software from patents would ensure others could develop ideas. Software would still be protected against piracy by copyright law. The party has promised to investigate "the setup of free municipally owned wireless networks". Ms Turei says the cost needs to be researched, but the Government would "almost certainly" need to supply funding. Ms Turei says wider adoption of open source software would reduce costs and lead to investment in local IT businesses, which tend to lose out to dominant software companies such as Microsoft. "Monopolies have been allowed to form, stifling competition, consumer choice, and indigenous growth of the software industry in Aotearoa/New Zealand."

http://s5h.net/u?z71e3
Just say no to software patents

Why are software patents so odious? It has nothing to do with the patent system itself. The patent system is a generally good system whose benefits typically outweigh any problems that it creates. The problem with software patents comes from a failure on the part of people who are outside of the realm of software development to realize that software design and sales do not operate according to the same rules as other products. Software, if anything, is the quintessential exception to the patent system for products because the relationship that software has to hardware and between buyer and seller does not exist in pharmaceuticals and other patent-dependent industries. Software development rarely sees the labor and capital-intensive research that is done in industries like the pharmaceutical industry

http://s5h.net/u?z10538
Open Source Software and Patents: An Uneasy Journey of Discovery and Understanding

Over the past three months, I've been communicating at length with several leaders in the Open Source Software (OSS) community about how best to license software patents in a way that supports the goal of OSS developers, users, and distributors. I've learned a great deal along the way about the uneasy relationship between OSS and software patents. [...] I believe that by being open, honest and fair with the people in the OS communities, there will be no need for patent infringement litigation since developers and distributors will appreciate my position, realize that we're not "gangs of bandits," and act with integrity for a win-win relationship.

http://s5h.net/u?zc5d1
CAFC Judge Regrets Decisions That Resulted In Software Patents

As the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) is considering the Bilski case, where it may finally push back on software and business model patents, it's interesting to hear one of CAFC's judges admit that he was "troubled by the unintended consequences" of the lawsuits (State Street and AT&T) that resulted in software and business model patents being effectively allowed.

http://s5h.net/u?z3096
Patents as property II: Rethinking SW patents?

Patents as property was also front and center in the thoughts of one judge on the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the main appellate court for patent disputes in the US. Senior Judge S. Jay Plager, speaking at a symposium at George Mason University, called for a "rethinking" of several aspects of patent law by returning to its origins in property law. According to the BNA, Plager "called for a renewed focus on setting recognizable patent ownership boundaries and on strengthening the notice function that patents are intended to serve. Such a reevaluation might require a reassessment of whether software and business methods are patentable subject matter, Plager said.

http://s5h.net/u?zb7aa
Rethinking patent law

Judge Plager writes that as a former law professor who taught property law for twenty-five years, he found our general thesis about analyzing patent law from a property law perspective "quite comfortable." The book argues that many of the key institutional features and much of the economic performance (and many of the problems) of the patent system can be analyzed by treating patents as a property system. In his speech, Judge Plager suggested that this approach might require rethinking the patentability of software and business methods, doctrines of claim construction, patent scope and the doctrine of equivalents.

http://s5h.net/u?z4053e
FFIP Recommends: Research on Innovation and TIIP

The block quote alone is amazing and extremely important due to the subject matter and the authority of US. Senior Judge S. Jay Plager. This is the type of thing that should be promoted by End Software Patents, rethinking subject matter for software patents and business methods is essential if we are to save the patent system.

http://s5h.net/u?z0374
Judge Plager: Regrets "Unintended Consequences" of State Street

[Plager] called for a renewed focus on setting recognizable patent ownership boundaries and on strengthening the notice function that patents are intended to serve. Such a reevaluation might require a reassessment of whether software and business methods are patentable subject matter, Plager said. It might lead to limiting a patent's scope to what was known at the time of the application filing, and to an abandonment the doctrine of equivalents as a basis for patent infringement liability.

http://s5h.net/u?ze8770
Latha Jishnu: The mouse that bit Microsoft PATENTLY ABSURD

Here's what Gates wrote in an office memorandum in 1991. "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. . . I feel certain that some large company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object orientation, algorithm, application extension or other crucial technique." This was the year after Microsoft launched Windows 3.0, the first of its new operating systems that would become hugely popular across the world. Yet, three years down the line, Microsoft had changed from a kitten that was content with copyright protection to an aggressive patents tiger. In 1991, Microsoft had filed fewer than 50 patent applications whereas last year it was awarded 1,637 patents, almost a 12 per cent increase in the number of patents it received in 2006. According to IFI Patent Intelligence, the rise in Microsoft's patents portfolio bucked the general trend in 2007 when the number of patents issued by the US Patents and Trademark Office dipped by 10 per cent. Apparently several thousand of the company's filings are still pending. All this may prompt the reader to conclude that there is indeed a direct correlation between IPR and growth - and wealth - as the company claims. Not true, says Mark H Webbink, a US Supreme Court lawyer who is a recognised voice on IT issues. Charting the company's revenues, R&D spending and patent filings from 1985 onwards, he shows that the spike in patent filings occurred long after the Microsoft "had become well established and was being investigated for its monopolistic practices". Webbink contends that patents did not spur the launch and rapid growth of the mass market software industry. On the other hand, patents have become a threat to software innovation, he warns.

http://s5h.net/u?z12f8
Critic of Software Patents Wins Nobel Prize in Economics

doom writes "You've probably already heard that the Nobel Prize for Economics was given to three gents who were working on advances in mechanism design theory. What you may not have heard is what one of those recipients was using that theory to study: 'One recent subject of Professor Maskin's wide-ranging research has been on the value of software patents. He determined that software was a market where innovations tended to be sequential, in that they were built closely on the work of predecessors, and innovators could take many different paths to the same goal. In such markets, he said, patents might serve as a wall that inhibited innovation rather than stimulating progress.' Here's one of Maskin's papers on the subject: Sequential Innovation, Patents, limitation (pdf).

http://s5h.net/u?z0d50