"Remember the Open Invention Network (OIN)? That's the defensive software patent community set up to protect Linux against patent aggressors. Well, it recently passed 1,000 members, growing nearly 70 percent over the last year."
Showing posts with label Open Source. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Open Source. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 08, 2014
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
And this is why Apple doesn't want to settle Android patent lawsuits | ZDNet
Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore believes that a settlement would give Apple some $10 in revenue for each Android device sold, equating to some $35 to Apple’s share price. However, if Apple was able to capture 25% of Android future growth through halting distribution and forcing feature removal, that could be worth some $300 per extra handset sold, or a whopping $261 on top of Apple’s already buoyant share price.
Saturday, January 07, 2012
Judge rules on contested evidence in Oracle-Google case
CIO Magazine is reporting that in a preliminary ruling before the Java IP trial, significant evidence both sides attempted to introduce has been ruled eitherr admisable or inadmissible.
Oracle and Google have both won and lost in a number of their efforts to keep evidence out of the upcoming trial in Oracle's lawsuit against Google over the Android mobile OS. At issue is whether Google has infringed on Oracle's intellectual property rights by using Java without properly licensing it.
I can only assume the witnesses will be required to swear "I promise to tell the such parts of truth as judge permits and nothing like the truth."
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
FOSS developer's campaign against software patents moves ahead
Melbourne developer Ben Sturmfels is sure of one thing: his campaign to end them in their entirety will succeed in the long run.
He began with the collection of signatures last year to submit to federal parliament. In February, Sturmfels' petition was accepted by the government's Petitions Committee, in three batches. "Collecting 1000 signatures on paper is a hard task and a huge one in terms of the amount of paper needed," he said with a grin.
He argues that patents are not necessary to encourage innovation in their industry, that the term of a patent (20 years) is too long, and that the cost involved (in avoiding infringing patents, and defending against patent lawsuits) is not viable, particularly for small to medium-sized businesses.
He began with the collection of signatures last year to submit to federal parliament. In February, Sturmfels' petition was accepted by the government's Petitions Committee, in three batches. "Collecting 1000 signatures on paper is a hard task and a huge one in terms of the amount of paper needed," he said with a grin.
He argues that patents are not necessary to encourage innovation in their industry, that the term of a patent (20 years) is too long, and that the cost involved (in avoiding infringing patents, and defending against patent lawsuits) is not viable, particularly for small to medium-sized businesses.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Apple gets U.S. ban on HTC Android phones sales... for now | ZDNet
Apple gets U.S. ban on HTC Android phones sales... for now | ZDNet:
This particular junk patent covers clicking a phone number on a phone list and your smartphone automatically dialing that number!
British Telecom joins patent attack on Google Android
BT joins patent attack on Google Android - Telegraph:
"In a broad complaint, BT claims that Google Maps, Google Music, Google Search, Android Market, location-based advertising and the Google social network all infringe its intellectual property. [...] “BT brings this action to recover the just compensation it is owed and to prevent Google from continuing to benefit from BT's inventions without authorization,” the court papers say."
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Qualified support to draft patent guideline by NZOSS
The New Zealand Open Source Society was given a briefing by the IPONZ office of the MED and their president, Don Christie, says:
Original released under a CC BY creative commons licence.
"When MED walked us through it, we found we were largely in agreement, we went into the meeting thinking software that merely improves the operation of the computer itself could be patented under the guideline.More...
"On careful reading, the guideline makes it clear that efficiency gains are only a relevant test for inventions containing embedded software, not the operation of general-purpose computers. The guideline also distinguishes physical effects from logical effects — merely transforming or displaying information is not a physical effect.
"NZOSS believes there is room to improve the guideline ..."
Original released under a CC BY creative commons licence.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Florian Mueller on Android Round 2
A few days ago I reported that Florian Müller had found some proprietary code in the Android code base and various bloggers from ZD Net and Ars Technica had disputed his claims.
Müller has now published a rebuttal of the ZD Net rebuttals. His claims broadly are
Müller has given links to where he found the code he considers infringing, so anyone wanting to verify his claims is able to do so.
The Oracle Android suit is about both patents and copyright. Müller is known as a software patent commentator, but Müller is only addressing the copyright issues in his post. (That's not a criticism, just an observation).
Müller has now published a rebuttal of the ZD Net rebuttals. His claims broadly are
- He did find proprietary Oracle code with licences altered in the Android code,
- He did find this Oracle code in more than one Android device,
- He did not claim it was in every Android device,
- The counter arguments against his discovery are largely straw men.
Müller has given links to where he found the code he considers infringing, so anyone wanting to verify his claims is able to do so.
The Oracle Android suit is about both patents and copyright. Müller is known as a software patent commentator, but Müller is only addressing the copyright issues in his post. (That's not a criticism, just an observation).
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Florian Mueller on Android Patent Case
The blogs are all abuzz this morning on this blog posting by renown software patent expert and campaigner Florian Müller. The standard statement seems to be that his findings seriously weaken Google's defence against Oracle's patent claims over Android's Dalvik not-really-a-jvm jvm.
Müller himself doesn't seem to go that far. My reading of his blog posting is that what he has done is compare a number of source files and shown that Google's source files appear to be direct copies of Sun Java source files that were not released by Sun / Oracle under an open source license that permits Google's use or relicensing. He also reports that it looks like someone has attempted to disguise this copying.
Oracle are suing Google over both patent and copyright for Android. The facts Müller reported would certainly have a bearing on the copyright claims. I can't see where Müller makes claims that his analysis could be directly relevant to the patent claim.
Update (23 Jan 2011 16:34 NZT)
Müller's analysis isn't uncontested. ZD Net blogger Ed Burnette has posted disputing the importance of the file copying Müller reported. While fellow ZD Net blogger Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has updated his earlier posting to include a rebuttal from Android Central.
Meanwhile Müller through his twitter page @FOSSpatents has said that he he intends to post a follow-up article addressing points made by these articles. I'm not sure which of the articles he was referring to when he said "That article attacks strawmen put up by its author, and contains factual errors"
This looks like there is more to be said by both sides of the argument.
Müller himself doesn't seem to go that far. My reading of his blog posting is that what he has done is compare a number of source files and shown that Google's source files appear to be direct copies of Sun Java source files that were not released by Sun / Oracle under an open source license that permits Google's use or relicensing. He also reports that it looks like someone has attempted to disguise this copying.
Oracle are suing Google over both patent and copyright for Android. The facts Müller reported would certainly have a bearing on the copyright claims. I can't see where Müller makes claims that his analysis could be directly relevant to the patent claim.
Update (23 Jan 2011 16:34 NZT)
Müller's analysis isn't uncontested. ZD Net blogger Ed Burnette has posted disputing the importance of the file copying Müller reported. While fellow ZD Net blogger Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has updated his earlier posting to include a rebuttal from Android Central.
Meanwhile Müller through his twitter page @FOSSpatents has said that he he intends to post a follow-up article addressing points made by these articles. I'm not sure which of the articles he was referring to when he said "That article attacks strawmen put up by its author, and contains factual errors"
This looks like there is more to be said by both sides of the argument.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Reply to "depth first search"
Software Patents : depth first search: "That the people behind the standard get (relatively low) fees seems both fair and a reasonable price to pay in terms of aligning incentives with the need to innovate in order to develop technologies for new markets. It’s hard to square these obvious benefits against somewhat nebulous objections of open source developers."The problem isn't that open source developers don't like software patents. The problem is that open source developers are effectively unable to use patented technology. If you give your software away and allow other people to give away copies of your software and modify your software and give that away there
- Is no revenue stream to pay licence fees, no matter how small (on a unit basis)
- Is no central register from which a count of numbers of deployments can be made
- The end users of the software with whom you have no relationship may be exposed to patent claims
Friday, January 14, 2011
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.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Software Patents Roundup: Ambush, Reform, and Lobby
By Roy Schestowitz A summary of news about patents with particular focus on software patents and FOSS.
How do professional developers deal with software patents?
Summary: What is the impact of software patents on a developer's plans to ... I have a set of my own PHP scripts ... his clients on that level. ...
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.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Software Patents and Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS ...
Software patent issues specific to FLOSS : While it is important to differentiate software from other subject matter, we also need to ask just how different FLOSS is from non-FLOSS when it comes to patents. ...
Saturday, April 19, 2008
GPL Project Watch List for Week of 04/18
By Antony Tran ... around the GPL v3 when it was released, concerning its requirements, the LGPL v3 may be better for those who are looking for a little more licensing freedom, while retaining the protection against software patents of the GPL v3. ...
Panelists mix it up at ReMIX08
By Brian Finnerty.
In particular, I thought Anil Dash from Six Apart and Jeff Attwood of Coding Horror fame had much to say about what defines open source development, community participation, and the messy tangle of software patents and copyright limits. ...
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Rules need a re-write, say IP experts at forum
The rules of the road in intellectual property need a re-write, according to speakers at the Intellectual Property Symposium [...] GPL version 3 license has fuelled fears among large corporations who say some of its provisions could put many of their software patents in jeopardy. ...
More Open XML Discussion - more misunderstandings about standards ...
By jasonmatusow
The reason I agree with the statement about patents and Free Software not mixing is that there have been terms written into GPL licenses that explicitly conflict with software patents. Okay, that is the choice of the authors and users ...
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
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
Aristocrat case raises requirements
Aristocrat case raises requirements for means-plus-function ...
The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Aristocrat Technologies will require software patent drafters to take more care to describe algorithms covered by their software - or risk patent invalidity.
CLUE's involvement in Internet issues: ICANN, Net Neutrality and ...
While I spoke at IT360 last week on the issue of Software Patents and Free/Libre and Open Source Software, recent interviews and blogging have been focused on the related issues of "Net Neutrality" and competitive access to ...
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Freedom gets messy
By lindseyberry Linux-Watch published an article last week about Red Hat and ESP (End Software Patents), a Free Software Foundation project, which is challenging the legal logic used for software patents. It makes sense where open source fans are coming from in wanting to change the way software patents are done.
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