The Two-headed Patent Hydra
MercExchange, a small Viriginia-based company went to the courts asking for a injunction against eBay which uses the "Buy It Now" feature, an innovation reportedly patented by MercExchange. However, the Federal court
refused to issue an injunction. Reasoning this, the judge wrote,
'MercExchange has utilized its patents as a sword to extract money rather than as a shield to protect its right to exclude or its market share, reputation, good will, or name recognition, as MercExchange appears to possess none of these,'
The Patent problem can be seen as a
two-headed monster. First, you have companies, big and small, (aka
Patent Trolls) patenting just so that they can extract money or stop competition in any way they can. As a result, we have a treasure trove of patents, rarely used by mankind for any benefits. The Federal Court 's decision aganist MercExchange can be seen as an indictment against such practices. However, this alone can't solve the Patent problem.
To solve it, we must change the laws and for that we first need to find a way to curtail the lobbying machinery employed by Big corporations to keep lawmakers in check. Big companies use the absurd Patent laws to protect their Legal monopoly.
As they say,
"the laws apply differently to the big, rich and powerful".Come to think of it, what if MercExchange was a giant company that was suing a small company for Patent infringement?
Would the results have been different? I bet they would.
Related StoryLawrence Lessig's new plan to save the worldLabels: innovation, legal, patents
255 ways Microsoft is confused today
Microsoft’s allegations that the open source movement has infringed upon no less than 255 patents, as reported in
Fortune, can unsettle the most die hard among open source supporters.
Microsoft says that the Linux kernel violates 42 Microsoft patents, followed by Linux GUIs which violate 65 patents, Open Office suite violates 45 patents, E-mail programs violate 5, the remaining 68 violations being done by other popular FOSS programs, for a grand total of 255 violations.
Sob...poor company
Sure it reads like a list of U.N. resolution violations by the
‘Axis of Good’.
However, dear FOSS supporters, there is actually nothing to worry about.
Weak legal standing
1. Let’s start with Patents. Open source supporters say that software essentially being a mathematical algorithm, cannot be patented.
2. In April this year, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously opined that
far too many patents have been issued in the last 20 years or so.
The Patent office is okaying patents like evacuation coupons.
3. The Free Open Source Software movement has big patrons in form of the
Open Invention Network, formed in 2005 by 6 major companies including IBM, Sony, Philips, Novell, and Red Hat to acquire a wide set of patents that companies like Microsoft might said were copied from them.
So if Microsoft ever sues a Linux distributor for patent infringement, the OIN might countersue Microsoft in retaliation, claiming that Windows infringes upon their patent.
This opens up a scary world of
suing and countersuing until one day the courts rule that patent system is harmful to one and all, dead.
4. Whom will you sue?There are far too many open source developers, hackers, distributors to pin point.
Hell, if it comes to that, even you and I can hack Linux, creating yet other new versions.
It is like, how many remixes can you make?
In this scenario, can Microsoft be like RIAA and start suing everyone?
What a fall for a once mighty corporation.
5. The Novell Deal and Microsoft's hypocricyThe sloth giant is caught confused in its own dead weight.
Microsoft knows it cannot be aggressive about suing big companies using Open source software, some of whom are big buyers of Microsoft as well.
Then to matters worse for itself, in 2006, Micrsoft made a deal with a prominent Linux distributor, Novell, under which both agreed not to sue each other’s customers for patent infringements (see above), Novell would give Microsoft royalty and Microsoft would distribute Linux coupons from Novell that enabled customers to trade in for Novell Linux subscriptions.
In plain terms, this means
Microsoft is a Linux distributor.6. Don’t mess with the GPL license Anyone who distributes free software covered by copyrights owned by the
Free Software Foundation (the norm since the Linux movement started in 1991) has to abide by the GNU General Public License (GPL), written by Free Software evangelist Richard Stallman. As of now, most important portions of the Linux OS come under GPL.
Like Microsoft Lawyers, lawyers for FSF strictly enforce the rules as strictly, if not more and have often forced open source developers to open their source code if they have used free software into proprietary products.
What will go against Microsoft in the Novell deal is that
GPL makes it illegal to do patent royalty deals with distributors of Linux, which is the core of the Microsoft deal with Novell (see above).
Final thoughtsIt is ironic that
a ‘virtual’ Linux distributor is planning to sue other distributors and users!It also doesn’t bode well for Microsoft infamous PR. Where are those dollars going?
It might also mean that the SCO lawsuits are not going anywhere.
Microsoft may have helped the Open Source Movement:If the issue comes out in the open, the tireless open source programmers would soon get their hands on all the alleged infringements and hack around them.
So, will Microsoft win against the ‘Axis of Good’?
I think not.
Labels: controversey, Microsoft, monopoly, open source, patents
