Frugal Dad.

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Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2012. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: infographic, innovation, patents, software patents

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that the crisis in our patent system is mostly a crisis in the new categories of patents that the Federal Circuit unilaterally legalized during the 1990s. On Friday, three leading libertarian think tanks added their voices to the growing chorus of parties calling on the Supreme Court to reverse the Federal Circuit’s mistake and restore the traditional rules excluding abstract ideas from the reach of patent law.

via Libertarian Think Tanks Oppose Patents On Abstract Ideas – Forbes.

Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2011. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: cato, software patents, swpat

Apple has LOST all claims wrt the european patent 2098948. The court thinks that the european patent 1964022 is worthless and will be thrown out in reexamination anyway as prior art has been shown by Samsung. The only thing that remains is the european patent 2059868. And the claims of that patent can be circumvented in trivial ways.

Read the whole post by Jan Wildeboer about Samsung v Apple in the Netherlands.

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Post tags: apple, patents, samsung, software patents

Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.

via Official Google Blog: Supercharging Android: Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility.

Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2011. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: android, google, motorola, software patents

So if Google had acquired the rights to these patents, that would have been OK. But when others acquired them, it’s a “hostile, organized campaign”. It’s OK for Google to undermine Microsoft’s for-pay OS licensing business by giving Android away for free, but it’s not OK for Microsoft to undermine Google’s attempts to give away for free an OS that violates patents belonging to Microsoft?

Yes, exactly. Because those patents are absurd 99% absurd and the rest 1% is irrelevant. John: the US patent system is broken. I  know that Google saying it may sound like they just don’t want to pay but the truth is that Google is not the only one highlighting the level of absurd reached. I suggest you to start by reading this.

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Post tags: google, patents, software patents

The company has received about 1,000 patents on stuff it’s come up with at the lab; it’s purchased roughly 30,000 patents from other people. In fact, nothing that’s come out of this lab — not the mosquito zapper, not the nuclear technology — has made it into commercial use.

Intellectual Ventures is the company behind Lodsys, the company suing independent iPhone app developers for a silly patent violation. Lodsys has no employees, it’s not making any product, it’s not producing any innovation. It sues people that create jobs and deliver products.

Did you think that patents were introduced to foster innovation? To give an incentive for inventors to bring new products to the society and solve problems? Think again. Companies like Intellectual Ventures are just a problem for startups and innovators. Venture investor Chris Sacca even said to NPR reporters that these trolls remind him of “a mafia-style shakedown, where someone comes in the front door of your building and says, ‘It would be a shame if this place burnt down. I know the neighborhood really well and I can make sure that doesn’t happen.’”. The FSFE raised this issue in Europe many years ago. The US patent system needs to be reformed, now.

via Intellectual Ventures And The War Over Software Patents : Planet Money : NPR.

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Post tags: npr, software patents, swpat

During the long march to reject the directive on ‘computer implemented inventions’ we put the issue of software patents in front of millions of Europeans, thousands of small businesses and hundreds of MEPs. We convinced the majority of  MEPs to reject, for the first time ever, a Directive approved by the Council. We started a debate about the threats to innovation posed by patents and we made sure the business community knew about the risks to their activity. The issues of patents on software and math are now visible to all those affected in the business community: entrepreneurs, small-and medium-size businesses and big business.

The business community at large is the ultimate victim of software patents. With trolls constantly at work, all companies face potential damage. Companies, small and big, are now aware of the problem and the debate about how to fix it is now a fire that burns on its own. Academics publish a lot more papers and research projects demonstrating that the current patent system is broken and dysfunctional and may be harming economic development of the US.

Looking at it strictly from the perspective of the free software movement: we won! We did our job, software patents are now a mainstream issue, our arguments are being pushed forward by people with vast resources, much more than the FSF or OSI can put together. I believe that Google, HTC, Apple, Microsoft etc. are the main victims of this stupid system. Some argue that the whole US and European commercial power is being harmed in the competition with China. Let them finish the fight: they have all reasons to want to change the system.  We as the free software movement can continue provide expertise when needed, follow the progress of the issue.

We need to liberate resources and energy for other fights that are still not mainstream: online privacy, DRM and locked devices are some that come to mind.

I believe that the victory in the European Parliament was and still is a full clear victory.  As Jack Welch teaches: celebrating a victory is always a good thing, even a small one.

Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2011. | Permalink | One comment
Post tags: community, epo, floss, fsf, mueller, osi, patent, software patents, swpat

Florian Mueller left a comment on my previous post about the software patents campaign. I promised to reply soon and I will, but meanwhile I think it’s worth reading, if you haven’t already:

I was quite actively involved in the fight against that proposed EU directive, and I was in Strasbourg on the day of that memorable vote. It was a victory for us, but it was merely a defensive victory. We did not bring about legislation in favor of our position — we just prevented what I believe would have exacerbated the situation quickly at the time.

Now, almost six years later, I no longer believe we can claim (as you do at the end of your post) that “we won”. The European Patent Office grants more software patents than ever; national high courts of major EU member states uphold software patents; and software patent holders enforce their rights aggressively in Europe, such as Apple (please take a look at the patents listed on page 33 of this document).

So while it was appropriate in 2005 to call this a victory, I don’t think it’s still the right thing to say in light of where things stand today. Frankly, if the directive in the form originally proposed by the European Commission had been promulgated, there would just be a greater degree of clarity and Europe-wide harmonization about how it’s applied, but software patents are a part of today’s European reality regardless of what we achieved back then.

The one respect in which that victory still matters is that it strengthened EU democracy. It was the first time in EU history (and I believe it’s still the only one) that the European Parliament rejected a legislative proposal by the Council without going into conciliation. This strengthens Parliament’s role in negotiations and has probably affected many legislative processes ever since.

But on the software patent front, it doesn’t matter too much anymore. Think of soccer — a sport in which underdogs sometimes achieve spectacular results. If an underdog manages to hold a much stronger opponent to a goalless draw, that’s remarkable and, at the time it happens, it’s a reason to celebrate. But in order to win one has to be capable of scoring goals (not only able to prevent them). Our movement never ever scored a goal in an offensive sense. We never went on the attack and said ‘this is the kind of legislation we want to do away with software patents’ and got such a proposal passed into law.

A team that never scores a goal may achieve a goal in soccer because the match will be over after 90 or 120 minutes plus stoppage time. In politics, there is no 90 or 120 minute limit. Things go on and on and on. And if you never score a goal for so many years — almost six years now in this context –, your opponent will at some point score and then you’ve lost.

It’s a nice romantic idea that millions of people can win over millions of euros. But in a matter of economic policy making, it’s nothing more than a dream, and in this case it’s a dream that didn’t truly materialize.

Ultimately, if politicians have to decide on how to regulate a commercial matter, they will listen to business. I don’t know of any large corporation that opposes software patents (even Google is in favor of its own software patents). I know some small and medium-sized companies who are against them, but they never took serious action.

Politicians won’t listen to organizations like the FSF(E) and FFII (or whatever little is left of the FFII by now…) to the extent that they would abolish an intellectual property rights regime that’s strong, resilient, and deeply entrenched. That would only happen with strong business support. The absence of such support indicates that most companies — unlike idealists — simply look at software patents as a fact of life, as a cost of doing business. Against that mentality, you and the organizations you mention stand no chance — absolutely no realistic chance ever — to prevail, and that’s why I for my part dropped out of this almost 4 1/2 years ago and now try to focus on how to deal with the fact of life that we all have to live with.

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Post tags: community, floss, fsf, software patents, swpat, victory

Microsoft still has many talented people doing great things. Kinect and even Windows Phone the product, not the strategy jump to mind. But the suits and lawyers are burying all of that under 700 metric tons of bullshit

Read  Vivek Wadhwa’s Why We Need To Abolish Software Patents if you’re still not convinced that this is madness.

Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2011. | Permalink | One comment
Post tags: android, ebook, microsoft, nook, patents, software patents, swpat

Finally, commentators admit that Chinese patents will serve as land mines for foreign businesses. Doh! Great comment from @vwadhwa on TechCrunch:

This is a battle we can’t win. The Chinese economy will be littered with millions of stumbling blocks for foreign business. These companies will have to offer up their intellectual property in exchange for Chinese intellectual property—in the same way that IBM and Microsoft trade patents. Or they will have to pay license fees to enter the Chinese market. And China may challenge the U.S. globally with its new patents as it plans to do with 4G.

This was mainly the argument we used at FSFE to push the European Union to the reject the US-sponsored directive that would have legalized software patents in EU. European citizens won that battle and I’m so glad I had the possibility to help win it.  The suggestion from the author is:

It’s best to disarm before it is too late.That means reforming the patent system. We really don’t need software patents, and we really don’t need patents in other technologies that evolve rapidly.

Read the rest: Let’s Compete on Innovation Rather Than Patents.

Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2011. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: china, innovation, patents, software patents