MS offers to cut patent fees for Samsung, LG

Microsoft (MS) has offered to cut annual patent fees for Samsung and LG Electronics, sources said Monday. "MS approached Samsung and LG Electronics to provide them with sizable discounts to the licensing fees in an attempt to sell more of its cloud computing and software products," a source said.

"MS also has a competitive Google Android patent portfolio. MS is trying to crack down on Google's dominance by promoting its software to be used in companies and consumers to leading smartphone manufacturers. MS exactly knows what its clients want and I believe this company is really smart," said another source.

In the case of Samsung, the world's biggest smartphone vendor decided to install MS's office programs such as OneDrive on its Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge devices. Both of them are powered by the Google Android system.

Samsung said it paid about 1 trillion won to MS for patent fees in 2013. Samsung paid between $2.6 and $2.7 to MS for fees on every Samsung tablet and smartphone that are sold.

The Korea Times

Big companies are stopping US Congress from fixing their patent system

Trolls aren't the primary problem with the [US] patent system. They're just the problem Congress is willing to fix. The primary problem with the patent system is, well, the patent system. The system makes it too easy to get broad, vague patents, and the litigation process is tilted too far toward plaintiffs. But because so many big companies make so much money off of this system, few in Congress are willing to consider broader reforms.

The problem of large companies exploiting the patent system hasn't gone away. If anything, it's gotten worse as the courts made it easier to get broad, vague patents in the 1990s and early 2000s. A modern example is Microsoft, which has more than 40,000 patents and reportedly earns billions of dollars per year in patent licensing revenues from companies selling Android phones.

Vox

Microsoft phones face US import ban for patent infringement

Microsoft could be banned from importing a number of its smartphones into the U.S. after it was found guilty of patent infringement.

The software giant used wireless cellular technology owned by InterDigital without permission. U.S. International Trade Commission judge Theodore Essex found Microsoft guilty of infringing two patents owned by InterDigital, which reportedly cover technology that moderates a mobile phone’s power to reduce signal interference.

TechnoBuffalo

US software copyright registration is game changer

Israeli website Globes English published this claim that US copyright is an alternative to patent registration:

"Every Israeli software company should protect their software with registered US copyrights, says Adv. Mitchell Shelowitz.

"Global software leaders, Including Oracle, Sony, Adobe, Microsoft, SAP, Apple, and Amazon recognize the importance of US software copyrights and have registered thousands. Every Israeli software company should also protect their software with registered US copyrights.

" While Israeli companies are leaders in encryption, network protection, and cyber security, many companies do not realize that their most valuable software assets are dangerously exposed to theft and misuse. Due to a confluence of very recent events, the US legal landscape for software protection has been completely reshuffled - placing US copyrights as the vanguard for software protection."

Globes English

Microsoft Cuts Android Patent Fee To Attract Vendors To Pre-install Android Apps

Microsoft has made an offer to vendors in Taiwan and China to pre-install its application software such as Skype and Office programs like Word, Excel PowerPoint and OneDrive, on their Android devices, in exchange offering discounts on the patent licensing fees. On March 23, Microsoft signed an agreement with almost 11 vendors around the globe for pre-installation of its application softwares and now they have to pay fees for shipment of every Android based devices.

After the patent fees agreement, Microsoft patent licensing fees have grown remarkably, as the demand for Android devices shipments is rising. The discount given to Android products is a step towards increasing the usage of Microsoft application in the mobile devices.

Full Article: Larry Darrell at Bidness Etc

IBM, Microsoft, and the BSA Promote Software Patents in New Zealand Behind the Scenes | Techrights

Multinationals from the US, namely Intel, IBM [...], and of course Microsoft, have been lobbying for software patents in New Zealand. According to news from the site which is dedicated purely to fighting software patents, “[o]n May 7th and June 8th, 2010, Microsoft and IBM met privately with members of New Zealand’s Ministry of Economic Development (MED).

They claim to have convinced the Ministry to abandon plans to exclude software from patentability in the proposed Patents Bill. “There was also a private exchange of emails between the MED and Microsft, IBM, and the Business Software Alliance in the month before and after the meeting, where those three organisations submitted policy documents.”

Source Techrights

Sydney IP Forum Software Patents - IP Australia

Event sponsored by  the Australian Government's IP Australia.

 Do software patents encourage or hinder innovation?

 

IP Australia invites you to attend the IP Forum at Sydney Marriott Hotel on 16 May 2012 to hear Australian Inventor, Ric Richardson speak about his experiences with the patents system. Ric’s epic battle with Microsoft was recently resolved in an out of court settlement with royalties on an estimated turnover of US$19 billion for its XP and Office software.

 

Other speakers include; Ben Sturmfels, principle of Sturm (a free software development agency), and Philip Spann, Deputy Commissioner of Patents at IP Australia.

 

This free forum includes lunch and the opportunity to ask questions, and network with IP professionals, industry representatives and members of IP Australia’s Executive. Journalists are welcome.

IP Australia

Software Patent Searching Doesn't Scale

Nathan Myhrvold, the Microsoft veteran who founded the patent-trolling giant Intellectual Ventures, is right that patent infringement is rampant among software firms. But in demanding that this infringement stop, Myhrvold isn't just declaring war on what he regards as Silicon Valley's patent-hostile culture. He's declaring war on the laws of mathematics. The legal research required for all software-producing firms to stop infringing patents would cost more than the entire revenue of the software industry. Even if firms were willing to pay the bill, there simply aren't enough patent lawyers to do the work. Firms infringe software patents because they don't have any other choice. [...] Why is software different from real estate? In a new paper, we argue the fundamental difference is a matter of scalability: how much effort it takes to discover who owns an invention—or a piece of land—as the number of patents or land parcels increases. Property rights in land scale well because parcels exist in relatively well-defined locations on a two-dimensional plane. County officials take advantage of this fact to store records in a predictable order (or, more recently, to build databases searchable by geographical location). Geographical locations serve as an "index" for real property claims, so record-keepers can find any specific file quickly no matter how many files there are.
From Ars Technica

Microsoft patent on PVR Functions in Game Console

It completely eludes me how this isn't prior art. Microsoft's Xbox is a PC and PCs have been able to record digital video in the background for a long long time. Myth TV comes to mind.

A digital video recorder (DVR) application running alongside a television client component allows users to record media content on the gaming console. The DVR application also integrates itself with the console menu. Once integrated, users can record media content while playing games. Alternatively, users can record content when the gaming console is turned off.

Gizmodo UK

Why Software Patents are worse than useless

Kiwi software developer Dave Lane on Why Software Patents are worse than useless:

"MS had tried to submit the same patent in New Zealand after the applications were denied by the US, Europe, South African, and Japanese patent offices for being obvious and subject to prior art. They thought they could count on the incompetence of the NZ patent assessors - and they would've been right had it not been for our challenge! It was a disgusting and highly unethical move by Microsoft. But if we had only caught one, how many other trivial software patents (or those subject to prior art) had already been passed?"

Quite a long personal essay on his experience with Software patents, his opinions and his involvement in opposing them. This is pertinent as New Zealand is being lobbied by the USA which want it to adopt their Software Patenting system in place of the recent law that makes software essentially unpatentable.

More details on Novell's software patents sale

Novell have filed this proxy statement with the US Securities and exchange commission, included in it are some details of the patent sale to CPTN (Microsoft, Apple, EMC Corporation and Oracle).

The issued patents and patent applications to be sold to CPTN pursuant to the Patent Purchase Agreement relate primarily to enterprise-level computer systems management software, enterprise-level file management and collaboration software in addition to patents relevant to our identity and security management business, although it is possible that certain of such issued patents and patent applications read on a range of different software products. Approximately 43% of these are US issued patents; approximately 30% are US patent applications; approximately 22% are foreign issued patents, and approximately 5% are foreign patent applications.

Historically, the issued patents and patent applications included in the patent sale have been used to facilitate and protect our current and planned business activities, and to reduce the risk of potential infringement claims against us. We do not currently license any of these issued patents and patent applications on a royalty-bearing basis, but the patents are subject to specific non-royalty bearing licenses granted by Novell during the period of its ownership of the patents.

There is a lot more detail in the filing surrounding the sale but precious little detail on the sold patents.

Seeking Stupid Software Patent Examples

Over on Google Groups, Linux advocate Kari Laine has posted a request for examples of stupid software patents, preferably from Microsoft, to be referenced in a paper opposed to software patents and the cross-licencing mania that leaves Open Source Software out in the cold.

Microsoft Patents Sudo? Groklaw

Groklaw reports.

Here it is, patent number7617530. Thanks, USPTO, for giving Microsoft, which is already a monopoly, a monopoly on something that's been in use since 1980 and wasn't invented by Microsoft. Here's Wikipedia's description of sudo, which you can meaningfully compare to Microsoft's description of its "invention".

Groklaw - Microsoft Patents Sudo?

The article contains a reprint of Wikipedia's summary of the history of the Unix (Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X) Sudo utility and claims that Microsoft's patent is bogus because of this prior art and that Microsoft must have known about Sudo.

NB: From 2009, but I only found it in January 2012. I've adjusted the post date appropriately.

Software Patents Roundup: Ambush, Reform, and Lobby

By Roy Schestowitz A summary of news about patents with particular focus on software patents and FOSS.

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How do professional developers deal with software patents?

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Bill Gates Ridicules the GPL While Novell Mops Up with Software ...

Novell role in helping Microsoft made more apparent as Microsoft's portfolio gets discussed, Gates reveals anti-GPL sentiments.

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Virtualization - Patent Reform Bill Stuck in Committee

The patent reform legislation that companies like Microsoft, Intel, Oracle and Cisco were hoping would reduce litigation and improve patent quality hit a ...

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Legal injunction bars Dish Network from selling 4 models of DVRs

A little over a week ago, an appeals court determined that Dish Network (formerly Echostar Communications) had indeed violated a software patent held by ...

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Dual-licensing with patents: It's bound to happen

It would be very easy to do as Novell did: Enter into an agreement to make a version of one's software "safe" from patents. It makes Microsoft happy. Presumably it makes one's users happy ("I'm safe from...my vendor and its partners?!").

But it doesn't fix the downstream problem, and it doesn't fix the broken software patent problem. It trades off FUD to make a sale. Myopic and ultimately damaging to one's customers, one's peers, and oneself. This isn't even remotely ...

More at CNET...

Linux Integrators - Not getting it

Analysis on Microsoft's OOXML patent pledge from a software developers and open source viewpoint

I started trying to understand the situation and came across Microsoft's Open Source Patent Pledge which only offers individual protection when you write software but not users of that software. I was later pointed to Microsoft's Open Specification Promise and some legal analysis of it. The analysis is well written and explains that a key issue is the language "any implementation to the extent it conforms to a Covered Specification". Which means if you have bugs or partial implementations you can run afoul. Since open source development means immediate distribution of partial and sometimes alpha-ish implementations, POI will most certainly not be covered by this promise. Moreover, users which use snapshot releases most likely won't be covered

More at Linux Integrators...

Open Sauce Software

We've been watching the controversy over software patents for a long while. They've caused endless trouble in the US (think Microsoft and its efforts to cow ...

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What if Microsoft, Google, Corel and others had their patents voided?

By admin The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals is reviewing a case that could lead to the abolition of software patents. The case in question concerns a patent submission for "managing the consumption risk costs of a commodity", whatever that ...

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TECH.BLORGE.com - Sydney,Australia By Susan Wilson The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals is reviewing a case that could lead to the abolition of software patents. The case in question concerns ...

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Microsoft Bullies Over Software Patents, Takes a Hit Also

Microsoft Bullies Over Software Patents, Takes a Hit Also

Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in bribery, extortion, blackmail and customer abuse.

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