Software patents
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Software patents edit (Category edit)
Contents |
[edit] Protecting free software, stopping frivolous software patents
[edit] Open Source As Prior Art (OSAPA)
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Protect.
to reduce and challenge frivolous software patents
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Osapa.
The Linux Foundation supports the USPTO's drive to improve the quality of software patents. The goal is to reduce the number of poor quality patents that issue by increasing accessibility to Open Source Software code and documentation that can be used as prior art during the patent examination process. For the Open Source community and many others, this means a reduction in the number of software patents that can be used to threaten software developers and users, and a resulting increase in innovation.
[edit] Patent Commons Project
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Protect.
where companies can assign patents used by open source projects
http://www.patent-commons.org/.
The Patent Commons Project is dedicated to documenting the boundaries of The Commons -- a preserve where developers and users of software can innovate, collaborate, and access patent resources in an environment of enhanced safety, protected by pledges of support made by holders of software patents.
Our Library is a central, neutral forum where patent pledges and other commitments can be readily accessed and easily understood.
[edit] Discussion
Analysis: Microsoft patent claims hint at internal issues (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9019359).
It's unclear whether Microsoft will be able to collect on its claims or whether the open-source community will use them to strive for patent reform, currently a popular issue before the U.S. Congress. However, the claims certainly will raise important issues around how patent-infringement cases will be litigated in the future, said Paul Lesko, head of the IP litigation group at SimmonsCooper LLC in St. Louis.
"If there's going to be a skirmish in the future, they helped draw the lines," he said. "It applies certain pressure [to open-source companies] ... to find out how many of those patents are worth the paper they are printed on and how many are not."
Linux evangelist Eric Raymond seems to think the patents at issue fall under the latter category. "It is nearly as certain that those patents are all junk," he said in an e-mail interview. "If Microsoft had sound and critically relevant patents to assert, they wouldn't need to screw around with vague threats. They'd simply publish the patent numbers and it would be game over for Linux."
Snowflake99 said:
As for those who tremble at the thought of MS coming after them, the ribbon interface has been copied by many many vendors and open source coders already, just search component vendors or sites like codeproject and you'll see lots of them.
Microsoft can sit on this for years, and then start suing everybody. In patent law the relevant term is "submarine patents".
In other words, the fact that no one has been sued yet means nothing. Especially since Microsoft are very clear that they 'own' this technology and will assert their rights, presumably when the time is most convenient for them, e.g. when their competitors rely on it and can't just remove it to dispel a lawsuit.
[edit] Patent reform
See Patent reform edit
[edit] Stupid software patents
Aliases: Examples of stupid software patents
- Method, Process, and System for Searching and Identifying Sources of Goods and/or Services Over the Internet
- Method, process, and system for searching and identifying sources of goods and/or services over the internet
- System and method for providing a file in multiple languages
