MESSAGE
| DATE | 2004-06-05 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Microsoft Patents
|
Microsoft's
Patent Plans
Worry
Open-Source
Supporters
June 4, 2004
(3:33 p.m.
EST)
By Antone
Gonsalves,
TechWeb News
Microsoft's
new policy
for
licensing
its patents
has
supporters
of
open-source
software
worried that
the company
will use a
broken
government
system for
protecting
intellectual
property to
beat back
gains Linux
and other
competing
software
have made in
the
marketplace.
The Redmond,
Wash.,
software
maker, which
holds about
4,500
patents
covering a
broad
spectrum of
technology
affecting
desktops,
servers, and
more, said
in December
that it
would begin
licensing
patents to
meet
requests
from
customers,
partners,
and
regulators.
Microsoft
has more
than 100
discussions
underway for
patent
licensing,
according to
the Wall
Street
Journal,
which first
reported on
the concerns
of the
open-source
community on
Friday. The
software
maker is
offering
royalty-bearing licenses to any interested party, including makers of open-source products.
A Microsoft
spokesman
said in a
statement
released
Friday that
the
company's
intellectual-property policy was to encourage the “broader availability and use of technology developed from our nearly $7 billion annual commitment to R&D.”
“This policy
is well
within
industry
norms set by
companies
like IBM,
AT&T (Bell
Labs), and
others who
have been
licensing
for nearly
50 years,”
the
statement
said.
Microsoft's
position,
however,
failed to
lessen the
anxiety
among
open-source
groups.
“We are very
worried,”
said Eric
Raymond,
president of
the Open
Source
Initiative,
a nonprofit
group that
certifies
open-source
licenses.
“This is
aimed
directly at
us. It's a
classic
Microsoft
attempt to
crush the
competition.”
Microsoft
executives
have
acknowledged
publicly
that Linux,
an
open-source
operating
system, is a
serious
competitive
threat,
particularly
in computer
servers used
to run
business
applications. Linux also has made inroads against Microsoft Windows on the desktop, particularly in countries outside the United States.
But issues
surrounding
Microsoft's
new approach
to its use
of patents
go beyond
market
competition,
open-source
supporters
said. The
larger issue
is the
failure of
the U.S.
Patent and
Trademark
Office to
approve
software
patents for
real
innovations,
as opposed
to commonly
used
techniques.
“We have a
patent-quality problem,” Daniel Ravicher, executive director of a nonprofit group called the Public Patent Foundation, said.
Ravicher
claimed that
about half
the
patent-infringement cases involving software that go to court end with the patent being proven invalid. An additional 25 percent end with the finding that there was no infringement, he said.
Large Linux
distributors, such as IBM, have the legal resources to handle patent disputes, Ravicher said, but far smaller organizations building open-source applications wouldn't have the money to fight Microsoft in court.
“I don't
think IBM is
worried, but
the Apache
Software
Foundation
and the Free
Software
Foundation
are,”
Ravicher
said, naming
the latter
two
organizations as examples.
Mark
Webbink,
legal
counsel for
Red Hat, the
largest
independent
Linux
distributor,
said he
didn't know
whether
Microsoft's
patent
approach
would have
an impact on
the company.
“To have an
impact, you
have to have
something
that's
subject to
one of
[Microsoft's]patents, and they have not given us any notice of that,” Webbink said.
The
attorney,
however,
acknowledged
that there's
an “inherent
structural
problem” in
the system
for issuing
software
patents.
Part of the
problem is
the relative
youth of the
commercial-software business, in comparison with older industries, like steel or manufacturing. Until the early 1980s, for example, there was no copyright or patent protection for software, Webbink said.
Therefore,
there isn't
enough
recorded
history for
the U.S.
Patent and
Trademark
Office to
use in
deciding
whether an
applicant's
code
reflects
true
innovation.
“As a
result, we
end up with
a lot of
litigation,”
Webbink
said.
Among the
largest
copyright
cases
involving
open-source
software to
date is a
multi-billion-dollar suit filed by SCO Group against IBM. The Utah software company claims IBM inserted SCO's copyrighted Unix code into Linux. IBM has denied the charges and has counter sued.
techweb
Check out
the ultimate
guide to
mobile and
wireless
applications.
spacer
spacer
spacer
newsletter
spacer
spacer
spacer
Subscribe to TechWeb's free e-mail newsletters: Each issue targets a different tech topic, and keeps you on top of the news.
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
define this term
spacer
spacer
spacer
More
than
20,000 IT terms and definitions: All at your fingertips, all in TechEncyclopedia.
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
Press releases, product announcements, corporate bulletins, and more...FREE!
spacer
• Telecommunications
• Computers/Electronics
• Internet/Multimedia
spacer
spacer
spacer
techweb
Advertisement
spacer
Sponsored Links
•
Overcome enterprise IP-VPN and IP Telephony challenges. Click here.
•
The
right software makes monitoring SLAs, apps easier.
•
Are
your enterprise PCs keeping pace? Upgrade now
•
Desktop PCs still pre-Millennium? Upgrade with easy tips.
Sponsored Site
Of
The
Week
____________________________
NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
NYLXS is a trademark of NYLXS, Inc
|
|
