Microsoft, Amazon Ink Kindle and Linux Patent Deal 161
theodp writes "Microsoft says it has reached a wide-ranging IP agreement with Amazon in which each company has granted the other a license to its patent portfolio. Microsoft says the agreement covers technologies in products such as Amazon's Kindle — including open-source and proprietary technologies used in the e-reader — in addition to the use of Linux-based servers. Microsoft issued a news release celebrating the accord, while Amazon declined to comment. 'We are pleased to have entered into this patent license agreement with Amazon.com,' said Microsoft's deputy general counsel. 'Microsoft's patent portfolio is the largest and strongest in the software industry, and this agreement demonstrates our mutual respect for intellectual property as well as our ability to reach pragmatic solutions to IP issues regardless of whether proprietary or open source software is involved.' A Microsoft representative declined to say which of its products are covered by the deal."
Microsoft patent racketeering (Score:5, Informative)
This patent stuff has got to be a gold mine for msft. IP extortion seems to be a brilliant business model.
February 22, 2010
Microsoft, Amazon strike patent deal covering Kindle and Linux
As would be expected, the actual patents that were supposedly violated are not disclosed. For many years msft claimed that Linux violates msft patents, but msft absolutely refuses to disclose which patents.
Microsoft says the deal grants Amazon patent-related "coverage" for its use of open-source and proprietary technologies in its Kindle e-reader, and its use of Linux-based computer servers.
At the same time, the deal has the potential to stir new controversy in the tech industry, if it's interpreted as Amazon implicitly endorsing Microsoft's claims that Linux and other open-source technologies violate its patents.
February 19, 2010
Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures Could be Biggest Racketeering Operation in the United States and Beyond
Patent thug Nathan Myhrvold turns out to have over 1,000 patent proxies with which to potentially attack and extort those who do not pay "protection money"; he also spent over $1 million lobbying his government
THE New York Times has published this report about Microsoft's patent troll Nathan Myhrvold, who is backed by his colleague Bill Gates, his former employer Microsoft, and even Apple. He already terrorises the industry using patents that it spent literally billions of dollars acquiring (not actually working to invent anything of substance).
http://boycottnovell.com/2010/02/19/nathan-myhrvold-exposed-again/ [boycottnovell.com]
And here is the NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/technology/18patent.html [nytimes.com]
I suppose using the US legal system for patent extortion is especially cost effective since msft uses offshore labor for the legal work.
February 18, 2010
Microsoft to outsource general legal work to India
Software giant Microsoft will begin outsourcing general legal work to India after signing a deal with legal process outsourcing (LPO) company CPA Global. The news comes as CPA outlined plans to expand its Indian workforce from 600 to 1,000 by the end of 2011, and hinted at opening another outsourcing centre.
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/microsoft-outsource-general-legal-work-india [lawgazette.co.uk]
it's about precedent (Score:2, Informative)
If MS can get some well known companies like Amazon to license open source software for them, then when they approach the next set of companies with an "agreement", they'll have a precedent. Open source violates MS patents, so MS must be paid if you use it, and here's a list of other companies which have already agreed.
Re:You Know What Else This Means ... (Score:2, Informative)
It's probably the same patent issues claimed in 2004: Linux potentially infringes 283 patents [zdnet.com].
Microsoft's anti-Linux patent strategy (Score:5, Informative)
This suggests Microsoft's anti-Linux patent strategy is alive and well.
For those just getting up to speed:
Microsoft doesn't feel like competing fairly against open source products. So it attempts to use dubious legal trickery instead.
This started with SCO - a failed Unix company that took Microsoft investment in exchange for executing a legal attack on Linux vendors and users (based on copyright and licensing issues). The claim: that Linux infringed on their intellectual property rights. Their conduct in the case was truly awful (making the claim but resisting an explanation about what infringed; trying to shake down any and every Linux owner). Latest status here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO-Linux_controversies [wikipedia.org]
This was only one aspect of the FUD campaign. Patents were another. Microsoft struck a patent deal with struggling Novel, and it feels very similar to what we see here. The implication: Novel agrees its use of Linux somehow infringed on Microsoft's patents, and that it (and by extension everyone else) must pay Microsoft to use Linux.
The FSF's response explains the problem:
http://www.fsf.org/news/microsoft_response [fsf.org]
The article describes other similar cases.
Now we have Amazon making a deal. They have far fewer reasons on the surface, but I imagine we'll find out why at some point, and it probably has something to do with a much stronger, non-Linux-related, perhaps non-software patent that Microsoft holds and which they violate. In the process of being sued and settling, Microsoft enticed them to accept terms which included a similar "Linux-FUD" clause - allowing an announcement just like this.
Although software patents are utterly and obviously ridiculous, and although most first world nations besides the US don't allow them, and although even the US is moving away from them (see Bilski)... even given that many large companies such as IBM have announced that they will defend Linux with their own patent portfolios... even after Microsoft has weathered an antitrust trial (and should feel themselves on thin ice when it comes to anticompetitive behavior)... they appear to still be pursuing a legal strategy of attacking Linux via barratry.
In the deranged world of software patents, there is not exactly any such thing as sane legal reasoning. But as Microsoft convinces more companies to pay them for their use of Linux, then their patent claim gains a slimy veneer of legitimacy (or so they hope). Otherwise "why would so many people pay them?" This circular reasoning strengthens them in their eventual legal battles to come, as they attempt to hurt (or even end) the use of Linux.
Of course, this is not just about Linux. Were Microsoft or any other company to succeed at this game, they would effectively make open source software impossible.
Azure is crap, MS knows it. They need to learn fro (Score:1, Informative)
Azure is crap, MS knows it. They need to learn from Amazon.
Sadly, one of our largest clients has signed a deal with MS to deploy Azure over all the competing technologies in the x86 space. The deal was signed at the top, without input from the technical people who know the crap they will have to deal with. VMware isn't perfect, but everyone would agree it is the most mature of the x86.
Previous leadership has inked a few deals with Oracle and Microsoft that turned out to waste over a 2 yrs each in 200+ IT people and millions in IT infrastructure. Both ended up being thrown out in the 3rd year when the projects were know were near completion and WAY over budget. They never learn that golf course deals rarely turn out well.
Does anyone still use Biztalk in a high volume enterprise? No? Failure is the term we use for it. Azure will probably end up similar. Even since MS gives the software away, gives 10 consultants to make it work, they don't pay us for the 200 additional people it takes to make it work from now until future leadership finally pulls the plug. Boo.
info on http://en.swpat.org (Score:5, Informative)
Here's some background info on these deals:
I don't time right now to look into this deal, so if someone could add info to en.swpat.org about it, that would be great. Otherwise I'll do it later.
Re:Anti-trust anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
With patents:
1. I write some nice software and sell it (without researching patents)
2a. I make a little money, not enough to quit my day job, remain below the horizon of any patent-holders, and so nothing arises. The end.
2b. I make a lot of money; a patent-holder notices and orders me to cease distribution, so I do. The end.
2c. I make a lot of money; a patent-holder notices and asks for a licensing fee, so I pay it and continue to make not quite as much money. The end.
No barriers.
You DO NOT have a duty to research whether your work infringes on prior patents. Lawyers will specifically instruct you NOT to do this research. Moreover, the fact that you came up with the idea yourself is good-faith evidence that there is no patent. (Why? Because patents are notionally only granted for non-obvious inventions, and if you invented it independently then it must be obvious, and therefore a patent on it shouldn't have been granted).
Re:You Know What Else This Means ... (Score:3, Informative)
ePub is XHTML for the page layout and CSS for formatting. It also has various other files containing XML metadata, and is put in a zip archive. The metadata is used to identify copyright information, author, contributor, year of release, and other important information. This means that library management tools like Calibre are able to easily organize your books, so you can find all the books written in 1996, or all books written by Asimov, or all science fiction, or... the possibilities are endless. Basically, it's a way of packaging well-formatted ebook pages with chaptering and tables of contents, plus metadata.
If you're interested, take a look at the ePub spec, it outlines all the formatting options. By searching around you can find a few quickstart guides to formatting and packaging ePub.
http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops/ops2.0/download/ [idpf.org]
Snob, huh? (Score:1, Informative)
i'm a world-class grammar snob
The first-person, singular personal pronoun "I" is capitalized. So is the start of a sentence. Also, it's "its value", not "it's".
A snob in the sense of 2, then?