Microsoft, Amazon Ink Kindle and Linux Patent Deal

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."

You Know What Else This Means ...

[eldavojohn]

From Microsoft's press release:

The agreement provides each company with access to the other’s patent portfolio and covers a broad range of products and technology ...

Now Microsoft will be able to sell all its products with just one click [slashdot.org]!

But seriously where does this end? Will we see the death of Microsoft's .lit format [microsoft.com] in favor of Kindle's .azw? Will Amazon push out and offer Azure on EC2 [microsoft.com]?

Software patents are evil

[apexwm]

This statement is scary: "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." The fact that they brought in open source is scary. And the fact that Amazon is paying Microsoft, only adds to the fire that Microsoft started with their software patent rage. Hopefully, software patents will eventually go away, as it is now being revisited in court. Software patents are giving Microsoft uncompetitive advantages in many areas. It's essentially giving Microsoft monopolistic advantages all over again, after the anti-trust cases of the 1990's. http://members.apex-internet.com/sa/windowslinux [apex-internet.com]

Boycott Amazon...

[Anonymous Coward]

They have helped Microsoft spread their FUD on patent issues and Linux.

I'll not be making any more purchases from Amazon.

Microsoft licenses Linux to Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this even legal, MS is making some sort of property claims , else they are engaged in an extortion racket. What does the FSF [fsf.org] have to say on all this ? I think a definitive statement from them would help clear the air. a statement to the effect that such secret deals are bogus and have no standing in law.

Amazon, Microsoft sign patent deal [zdnetasia.com]

Tell us the patents

[dandart]

I think MS should tell infringing parties which of its patents are being infringed, otherwise its patent claim should be invalidated due to insufficient proof.

Re:Anti-trust anyone?

[westlake]

1: I try to research previous patents, they're almost unreadable..... I have no money to hire a patent lawyer(barrier to entry one)... so I can't be certain if my idea has already been patented.

Then what you need to do is to join [or form] a co-op with other independent developers.

Build an organization that will have the resources to do the necessary research, provide legal assistance and technical support - and - gasp! wheeze! - lobby effectively for your interests.

Which may not always be the same as the more ideologically oriented FSF.

Re:Why bother

[cbiltcliffe]

...if Microsoft tried to take on Red Hat then they would probably wind up clashing with IBM.

Speaking of IBM, this quote in the summary hit me:

'Microsoft's patent portfolio is the largest and strongest in the software industry,...

I always thought IBM had the biggest software patent portfolio. Or is IBM's entire portfolio the biggest, but some of it's hardware, so the software component is smaller than Microsoft's?

Somebody who knows more about this, please chime in....

ClearType

[peppepz]

Perhaps this agreement is about ClearType. It's covered by known MS patents, and that's why subpixel font rendering is disabled in many Linux distributions. Amazon might need it, or some related technology, for its Kindle.

Re:You Know What Else This Means ...

[Ltap]

Pirates seem to love the Lit format, I have no idea why. Out of all the ebooks I've seen, most are in either lit, pdf, or html. I personally convert 90% of the stuff I get to epub, but most people seem almost idiotically short-sighted - crying about how epub can be DRM'd (password-protected container, I guess), and ignoring the fact that lit is a proprietary format that very little works with properly. Anyone with a brain knows that ePub is the only proper format. My theory is that there's very few people suitable for it - you need almost a web designer to handle the markup properly, but most web designers are lazy hacks and idiots who still use HTML 4.01 transitional, and ePub calls for XHTML 1.1 Strict.