Free Republic

James Bottomley is really on top of things (sorry -- we had to say it) when it comes to Linux. The CTO of SteelEye Technology is also on the board of the Linux Foundation. In that capacity, he helps smooth the transition of disparate Linux organizations into the still fairly new Foundation. As such, Bottomley's obviously got some insight into Microsoft's continued patent deals with Linux distributors. Those patent deals took another turn this week as Redmond claimed that its deal with Linspire didn't cover software developed under the latest version of the license that governs Linux use, the now...

The globalists are making a new attempt to circumvent and weaken a right explicitly recognized in the U.S. Constitution: Americans' exclusive ownership of their own inventions. Fortunately, Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., have exposed this mischief and called on Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., to slow down and discuss the proposed legislation before making costly mistakes. As we've learned with "Comprehensive Immigration Reform," we should all be on guard any time politicians patronize us with pompous talk about "reform." The so-called Patent...

Paging U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab: Please call us on your cell phone. And better do it fast because cell phones may soon be harder to come by thanks to one of the dumber rulings ever by the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Excerpt - A federal agency on Thursday barred the import of new models of cell phones that contain semiconductors made by Qualcomm Inc., because the chips violate a patent held by a rival, Broadcom Corp. The U.S. International Trade Commission's decision represents a compromise between a ban on all phones with Qualcomm chips, as Broadcom requested, and a ban only on the chips themselves, as recommended by an ITC administrative law judge late last year. ~ snip ~

Microsoft should have admitted that Linux matters sooner. For years, the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant seemed to be in denial as the open-source operating software made gains against its Windows franchise. But now a series of deals is finally allowing Microsoft to argue that it's ahead of the curve--with the entertaining upside of making some of the open-source community's truest believers even angrier. Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) announced a pact with Linux software distributor Xandros Monday that will the offer tiny company's customers so-called "patent covenants," protecting them from the threat of litigation from Microsoft. So...

First you get everyone riled claiming open source and Linux infringe on your patents, then you won't detail those patents. Why? The paperwork. Yes, Microsoft cited administrative overhead for not detailing the 235 Microsoft patents its chief legal counsel recently told Forbes exist in Linux and open source. Microsoft patents attorney Jim Markwith told OSBC it would be "impossible" for Redmond's bureaucrats to respond to the volume of responses that would result form disclosure. Also, apparently, it's ungentlemanly to name names. "Most people who are familiar with patents know it's not standard operating procedure to list the patents," Markwith said....

"Microsoft patent threat to Linux! The world ... It ends!" shriek the headlines. There's so much hysteria over this it's like a being trapped in pre-teen sleepover. "And when they got home, a bloody hook was hanging from the car door handle!" "SQUEAL!!" Can we all get a grip, just for a few minutes, pretty please? Ignore all those sources of conventional wisdom who rarely dig into a story, but simply slap together a Frankensteinian blend of warmed-over press releases and quotes from random people who get quoted just because they answered the phone. I know, we all love gossip...

How is an untouchable superpower defeated? In many cases, it foolishly engages itself in an unwinnable war and simply consumes itself. Microsoft, threatened by the encroachment of competition from open source, has long waged a detached propaganda war against free software and in particular Linux, but has recently escalated its conflict into a full blown attack. Here's what's happening, and why it will greatly accelerate the company's undoing.Bill Gates' Infatuation With Software. Back in the dawn of desktop computing, Bill Gates led the ideology that software was going to be the sole currency of the new economy. Throughout the 80s...

Free software is great, and corporate America loves it. It's often high-quality stuff that can be downloaded free off the Internet and then copied at will. It's versatile - it can be customized to perform almost any large-scale computing task - and it's blessedly crash-resistant. A broad community of developers, from individuals to large companies like IBM, is constantly working to improve it and introduce new features. No wonder the business world has embraced it so enthusiastically: More than half the companies in the Fortune 500 are thought to be using the free operating system Linux in their data centers....

This morning the Supreme Court came down with two decisions about patent law that both take small, but extremely important, steps towards reigning in some of the worst abuses of the patent system. In both cases, it's disagreed with the position taken by the Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). This isn't a huge surprise, as many observers figured that the Supreme Court's recent interest in all sorts of patent cases meant that the justices weren't at all happy with the way CAFC was moving. This is a good thing, as the past twenty-five years or so of CAFC...

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has made a preliminary decision to revoke three fundamental patents on human embryonic stem cells. If the decision stands, some scientists and consumer groups say it could loosen restrictions on research in a promising new field. Patent examiners rejected all the claims of the three patents that are based on the work of James A. Thomson of the University of Wisconsin, who is widely viewed as having been the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells and grow them in culture. The oldest patent was issued in 1998 and the most recent was...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. federal jury found that Microsoft Corp infringed on audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and should pay $1.52 billion in damages, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. The report said that Alcatel-Lucent had accused the world's biggest software maker of infringing on patents related to standards used for playing computer music files.

Two UK-based academics have devised a way to invent new medicines and get them to market at a fraction of the cost charged by big drug companies, enabling millions in poor countries to be cured of infectious diseases and potentially slashing the NHS drugs bill. Sunil Shaunak, professor of infectious diseases at Imperial College, based at Hammersmith hospital, calls their revolutionary new model "ethical pharmaceuticals". Improvements they devise to the molecular structure of an existing, expensive drug turn it technically into a new medicine which is no longer under a 20-year patent to a multinational drug company and can be...

At Christmas, we traditionally retell Dickens's story of Scrooge, who cared more for money than for his fellow human beings. What would we think of a Scrooge who could cure diseases that blighted thousands of people's lives but did not do so? Clearly, we would be horrified. But this has increasingly been happening in the name of economics, under the innocent sounding guise of "intellectual property rights." Intellectual property differs from other property—restricting its use is inefficient as it costs nothing for another person to use it. Thomas Jefferson, America's third president, put it more poetically than modern economists (who...

A patent feud between IBM and Amazon.com took a new twist this week as the e-commerce giant countersued Big Blue for infringement and blasted its earlier accusations as "meritless and misleading." In Thursday filings with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the Seattle-based Internet retailer denied infringing on five IBM patents and claimed that just the opposite situation was occurring. "IBM has chosen to infringe Amazon.com's patents willfully and to obtain the commercial benefits of Amazon.com's technology without authorization or compensation," attorneys for the company wrote in their responses to IBM's patent infringement allegations. In late...

The design of Google's search results page earned U.S. patent protection this week, bringing the total number of patents held by the search giant to some three dozen. Design Patent No. 533,561, awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday, covers "the ornamental design for a graphical user interface" as shown in several screen shots (click for PDF) of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company's search results pages. The screen shots depict lists of the company's search results, with blocks of news-related and sponsored advertising links at the top. A graphic of the word Google, spelled out with...

The greatest differentiator between OS vendors is no longer a question of features, function, performance, customer support, security, reliability or any feature of the product itself. The future of computing may depend on the lawyers.The last month has seen both Oracle and Microsoft take their gloves off in their competition with open source software. Where Oracle has taken a seemingly straightforward approach of copying the competition and undercutting their prices, Microsoft's move to invoke intellectual property and the terms of the GNU Public License (GPL) to counter open source competition is much more potentially damaging. What's more, while Oracle's success...

A U.S. official leading a business delegation here called India's patent and copyright laws antiquated and unable to offer protections necessary for foreign companies to operate here. "Patent and copyright laws in India are old and back-dated and they no where match the world standards," said Franklin Lavin, undersecretary of Commerce for international trade. India and the U.S. "need to sit and work out a proper regulatory framework by identifying the weak areas. India needs to seek more participation by U.S. companies." Addressing a business seminar in New Delhi, Lavin said India needs to modernize its patent and copyright laws...

Excerpt - A recent out-of-court settlement between Apple Computer and a Vermont-based inventor has landed Apple the rights to a prestigious software design patent that may allow the company to seek royalties on a broad spectrum of digital downloads. Michael Starkweather, a lawyer and author of the 10-year old patent, issued a statement on Thursday calling it a "billion dollar patent" that will have affects on the future of the "cell phone, iPod and PDA" industries. "I believe that, with this patent in hand, Apple will eventually be after every phone company, film maker, computer maker and video producer to...

Brigham Young University has accused pharmaceutical giant Pfizer of cheating the school out of profits and credit for the development of Celebrex, a blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug that has earned the company billions of dollars. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City against Pfizer and several of its predecessor companies after years of unsuccessful negotiations, BYU said. The suit seeks unspecified actual and punitive damages, but notes Celebrex sales have exceeded $20 billion. It also seeks corrections in 75 patents in order to credit Professor Daniel L. Simmons for his discoveries. The suit alleges Simmons...