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MS Using Patents Indirectly Against OSS

Any specific examples of Microsoft using (or planning to use) IP to 'deny critical mass' to Linux and OSS?

All indications are that Microsoft is planning to take advantage of patents as a means of delving serious blows to OSS. However there is no indication that MS plans on attacking the OSS community directly with its patents: MS instead is fortifying itself against patents, while allowing the patent regime to deal serious blows to OSS. The following is taken from [url=http://www.bralyn.net/etext/literature/bill.gates/challenges-strategy.txt]this link[/url]:

?If people had understood how patents would be granted when most
of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry
would be at a complete standstill today. I feel certain that some large
company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object orientation,
algorithm, application extension or other crucial technique. If we assume this
company has no need of any of our patents then the have a 17-year right to take
as much of our profits as they want. The solution to this is patent exchanges
with large companies and patenting as much as we can.?

Bill Gates therefore realized about 13 years ago that patents are potentially fatal to the software industry. But he apparently thinks that through cross licensing, large companies can weather the storm ? even from (parasite) companies that cannot immediately be threatened by patents themselves. Maybe Gates believes that even (parasite) companies that live off patents fees could be eventually neutralized, as eventually virtually all development would infringe on patents held by large corporations, and these parasite companies would no longer be able to do development that could be used against the large corporations. It seems to me that MS believes that it and other large corporations can build a web of cross licensing that can insulate them from the threat of patents. It also appears to me, that MS believes it can use its patents and cross-licensing deals, to support ISVs and other professional software development, so long as their work derives from MS products. This arrangement would effectively exclude GPL type OSS from the protection of patent cross licensing, and would lead OSS developers, and customers who use OSS, legally exposed. I?m no friend of GPL type OSS, but I do find this thinking objectionable. First, professional developers outside of large corporations will be placed at the mercy of large corporations like never before. If e.g. an ISV irritates MS or Sun, these companies could easily squash the ISV like never before using patents. Second, patent parasite companies could do a lot of damage to the software industry before they become neutralized by large companies that cross license. Third, patents overall are a great negative for all forms of IP. Will cross-licensing have to be done in the music, movie, literature, and other industries that churn out IP, in order to preserve creativity? But how would cross-licensing work? Would a garage band e.g. have to purchase a legal rights package to create music that borrows from the influences of U2 and just about any other artist? It is fairly obvious that patents and cross-licensing offer very little to IP industries, and only serve to legally expose GPL type OSS in the software industry. Overall, patents and cross-licensing do not contribute to innovation, and patents by themselves are highly destructive to IP industries. I believe Europe would be well advised to not embrace software and other IP patents at all! If proprietary companies would like to fight GPL type OSS, they need to find some other way. Congress should be lobbied hard to stop the patenting of software and other IP in the US, and proprietary companies need to continue dealing with OSS and other competitive threats in creative ways - without resorting to something as destructive and inappropriate as patents.

Posted by: P. Douglas   Posted on: 12/21/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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