£3 million claim against IBM over patent
,----[ Quote ]
| I wouldn't want to be accused of being anti-IBM but the news that online
| fruit store Harry & David (H & D) was suing IBM is very worrying. The case
| concerns patents that IBM did not own, which Harry & David bough as part of
| IBM's WebSphere/NetCommerce retail software. H & D alleges that it had to buy
| a licence from EPOS maker NCR to cover these patent. It is also saying it
| paid Charles E Hill Associates for patent infringements relating to the IBM
| software. Whatever the outcome of the case, this looks like a patent mess.
| First, IBM should not have sold software containing patents that it had not
| already licensed or owned. Second,
|
| Why did NCR and Charles E Hill Associates go after the customer? Surely if it
| was IBM's software that had infringed their patents then they would have a
| legitimate claim against IBM. Ah, but IBM would be a hard target given how
| SCO's patent case against IBM/Novell and the Linux community has played out.
| Like SCO, these companies have gone after the soft target: the end user
| business that bought IBM's software, I presume, in good faith.
`----
http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/IT-FUD-blog/2008/03/3-million-claim-against-ibm-ov.html
MySQL's Sunified view on patents (new):
MySQL Public Patent Policy
,----[ Quote ]
| The MySQL patent program is in the process of being integrated into the Sun
| patent program. In general, Sun uses its patent portfolio to defend
| communities and indemnify customers. Check back here for further updates.
|
| In the meantime, check out the blogs of Sun's CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, and
| CTO, Greg Papadapoulos, for Sun's view on software patents.
`----
http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/patents.html
Who wins? Not developers, not consumers. Just trolls and lawyers.
Qualcomm Chip Ban to Stand
,----[ Quote ]
| Broadcom Corp said on Wednesday a U.S. appeals court let stand a lower court
| order barring wireless chip maker Qualcomm Inc from selling chips that
| infringe on three of its patents.
`----
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143624-pg,1/article.html
Roadblocks To Innovation
,----[ Quote ]
| Software patents, in particular, are performing even worse today. People
| thought that once the [U.S. Patent and Trademark Office] gained experience in
| these evaluating patents, then the quality would get better ... and the
| amount of [related] litigation would go down. It hasn't. We have no opinion
| on whether USP Office is doing better or worse, but we know for sure that the
| amount of software litigation has grown over time. The odds that a software
| patent will be litigated in the first four years of its life have gone up
| too.
`----
http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/2008/03/19/patents-litigation-innovation-ent-innovation08-cx_mf_0319innovation.html
Related:
Troll Tracker Sued For Defamatation By Patent Attorneys In East Texas
,----[ Quote ]
| Just this morning we were lamenting the fact that the formerly anonymous
| Patent Troll Tracker had shut down his blog, but now we know why. It appears
| that two patent attorneys in East Texas have sued him and Cisco for
| defamation. One of the attorneys happens to also be the son of the judge who
| helped make Marshall, Texas famous as a favorite for patent holders. The
| details on the case suggest that this lawsuit may have been the reason that
| Rick Frenkel outed himself, as it was actually filed back in November and
| used as a way to unmask the Troll Tracker.
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080312/020814510.shtml
Activision's "Guitar Hero" violates patent: Gibson
,----[ Quote ]
| Gibson said the games, in which players press buttons on a guitar-shaped
| controller in time with notes on a TV screen, violates a 1999 patent for
| technology to simulate a musical performance.
`----
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1222156920080312
Ending software patents: Has the time come?
,----[ Quote ]
| The End Software Patents Web site, here, highlights a long list of diverse
| businesses that have been sued for allegedly infringing software patents,
| including the Green Bay Packers, OfficeMax, Caterpillar, Kraft Foods , ADT
| Security Services, AutoNation, Wal-Mart , Walgreen , Barnes & Noble, Circuit
| City Stores , Ford Motor , E I du Pont de Nemours and Co. , and so on. In
| most cases, the companies have been sued because of certain basic, routine
| functions performed on their Web sites — the way images are displayed, the
| way data is gathered or transmitted — which are said to infringe software
| patents.
`----
http://legalpad.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/02/28/ending-software-patents-has-the-time-come/?source=yahoo_quote
Here Comes Trouble: An Antidote to Software Patents
,----[ Quote ]
| The $250 million Vonage burned through as a result of the patent lawsuit
| brought by Verizon et al provides yet another example of why patents for
| business processes implemented on computers (a.k.a. software patents) deserve
| to die. Verizon’s two successful “name translation” patents negate an open
| standard assembled by Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, Intel and Vocaltec via the VoIP
| Forum during 1996. The threat of patent litigation cleared the landscape of
| independent VoIP companies the VoIP Forum sought to make possible.
`----
http://gigaom.com/2008/01/18/here-comes-trouble-an-antidote-to-software-patents/
Microsoft Wins in Supreme Court; AT&T Ruling Overturned
,----[ Quote ]
| In a stunning 7-1 decision with extremely broad implications in
| the field of patents and patentability, the US Supreme Court has
| overturned a Federal Circuit ruling that was in favor of AT&T,
| and has apparently affirmed Microsoft's arguments that software
| coupled with the device on which the software is installed
| cannot be considered patentable.
`----
http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_Wins_in_Supreme_Court_ATT_Ruling_Overturned/1177944397
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