Waste Of Money: Pro-Linux Group Has To Buy Microsoft Patents
from the instead-of-doing-something-useful dept
A bunch of folks have been submitting the news that the "pro-linux" group the Open Invention Network recently purchased some former Microsoft patents via a third party. A few quick thoughts:- It seems like a shame that money had to be spent by these groups just to protect themselves from lawsuits for developing useful software.
- Microsoft apparently refused to let OIN bid directly on the patents, leading to the middleman. This seems rather petty. If Microsoft really doesn't want the patents any more and isn't planning on doing anything with them, why not sell them to a pro-Linux group?
- If Microsoft had no problem getting rid of them, I'm guessing they're not among the couple of hundred patents Microsoft keeps insisting Linux violates, without ever actually naming any specific patents.
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Filed Under: linux, open source, patents
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Heywaitaminute
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patent this!
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Re: patent this!
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Re: Re: patent this!
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Re:
That's basically how OIN works.
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Microsoft HATES innovation. They avoid innovation on their own part, and they try to stifle it when it crops up outside their palace walls.
When they see someone innovating, they buy them out if possible, only to kill the technology outright or incorporate the tech into their competing (yet un-innovative) products. They then mismanage the new hybrid until someone else comes along and makes the new product obsolete.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
Microsoft, you are a whore. A skanky crack whore. With an unattractive pimple on your nose.
and BO.
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Re:
We are suing techdirt to find out who you are !!! ...
you called us "Skanky"
We have precedent on our side
/sarcasm
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hmm
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Re: hmm
Doubtful. Which Linux is going to do it? The kernel devs? Debian? Red Hat? I mean come on. Their isn't a "Linux" that can pull this stuff, and most of just want to mind our own business and screw the bureaucrats. Patents are for idiots.
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Tried to let someone else do the suing
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It truly is a shame
It's also a shame that money has to be spent on these "Albums" to protect myself from lawsuits for copyright infringement.
But of course, if this story didn't have the anti-Microsoft spin to it, someone else would have bought up the patents and sued the every living s*%# out of these very people.
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AS an OSSD
It's like owning PI or E=MC2 , everything under the sun infringes on these equations and thats why they were deemed un-patentable. There are no good software patents... period.
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Money wasted, money earned
However, every time you use the phrase like 'money wasted', there is another side to the story.
As a Microsoft investor, it's 'money earned'.
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Re: Money wasted, money earned
You invest in Microsoft. Ok, so do you know how much Microsoft spends on patenting stuff? How much on lawyers fees to file the patents? How much on suing other companies using those patents that is not recouped in settlements or awards? How much on being sued by other companies with equally obvious patents that should not have been granted in the first place?
Is a good use of their money patenting page-up and -down keys? http://techdirt.com/articles/20080821/033453.shtml Or what about adding .com to the end of something? http://techdirt.com/articles/20080626/0203581527.shtml (LOL, didn't an Isreali company just patent that as well, story yesterday) Or on patenting selecting 7 out of 10 things? http://techdirt.com/articles/20061220/091622.shtml Does what the spend and 'profit' from those useless patents make up for having to pay for suits like http://techdirt.com/articles/20090828/0140246031.shtml and http://techdirt.com/articles/20090811/2330285852.shtml and http://techdirt.com/articles/20090720/0256495602.shtml ?
Unless you know that stuff, I'd say you missed a big step in researching your stock pick. All that money could have been spent on innovating their current products or developing new ones.
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I call stinkbait!
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Re: I call stinkbait!
BTW, these weren't even MS "innovations." They were picked up when MS acquired SGI.
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Pls change these ppl...!!
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