Microsoft Stoking the IP Fire

gokulpod writes to tell us the Financial Express is reporting that Microsoft is heating up the IP battle once again with warnings about IP indemnifications issues. From the article: "Analysts believe that the core issue at stake is whether open source software increases litigation risks. Open source advocates are quick to point out the IP litigation faced by Microsoft itself. Ubuntu founder and leader Mark Shuttleworth says, 'Linux is growing fast and whenever there is a new way of doing things, people will raise all kind of issues.'"

Read the fine print. Microsoft is screwing you.

[NZheretic]

Microsoft are ONLY offering patent protection under very limited conditions.

Microsoft provide protection only for code they write. If the code in patented is part of what you provide or from a third party, even down to the enterprise glue code, Microsoft is not liable, even if it is based on calling Microsoft's API ( see the Timeline case ). You have to agree to let Microsoft take over your legal defence and if Microsoft prejudge that you are at all at fault then you have to agree to pay ALL damages and costs.

Read about the Timeline INC case.

[NZheretic]

Microsoft licensed patented technology for only itself without granting the right for end users and developers to use the same patented technology. Microsoft licensed Database/Datawarehouse technology from Timeline Inc, but unlike Oracle and other database vendors, Microsoft chose a license that did not grant Microsoft's customers the right to fully use that technology [theregister.co.uk] . Timeline has extended it's patent claims to cover many featured widely used by developers [winnetmag.com], both ISV and in house.

Timeline Inc has won a US Washington Court of Appeal judgment against Microsoft [archive.org] for the right to sue Microsoft's customers, and subsequently sued Cognos. On February 13, 2004, Cognos settled at cost to Cognos totaling $1.75 million [timeline.com]

Re:If you distribute, why wouldn't you be liable?

[boy_of_the_hash]

Where do you get the idea that a customer would be held liable for patent royalties

From patent law, you may want to read up on patent litigation [theregister.co.uk] before commenting further!

Re:Surely a new product

[meringuoid]

Surely this just opens up a new market for a "insurance" style product. You pay a premium from a company that has a list of open source software etc that it will protect.

Good idea, but Lloyd's of London [slashdot.org] are way ahead of you...

Re:shuttleworth

[semiotec]

I am sorry, but I don't understand why that is a mis-statement or exaggeration.

Google has confirmed that they do in fact use Ubuntu internally (see link below) and Ubuntu is a collection of open source software (which is in fact, an understatement, if anything).

link: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060131-6087 .html [arstechnica.com]

From the article:

'Google press relations office, technology spokeswoman Sonya Borälv responded very quickly to my query on the topic. She said that "[w]e use Ubuntu internally but have no plans to distribute it outside of the company."'

As for Shuttleworth, I've no doubt he is more charismatic than ESR and would likely make a better PR face for OSS than ESR, but is he ever actually mentioned out of context of Ubuntu? My point is that his recent publicity are mostly linked to Ubuntu, and not really other Linux/OSS related things.

Case notes and GIF patents

[NZheretic]

You can read Microsoft Corp. v. Timeline Inc. [appeal-law.com]

Microsoft argues that the second sentence of paragraph 2.2 was intended merely to restate the first sentence. But it clearly does not restate the first sentence, and neither Microsoft nor the trial court has explained how the words in the second sentence could be so interpreted. Try as we might, it is impossible to reconcile the wording of the two sentences with Microsoft's proposed construction.

It should be noted that Microsoft took out the same type of license with Unisys for the GIF LZH compression patents. Users who wrote code that called the Microsoft API s were not covered by Microsoft's license with Unisys. Who knows how many other vendors Microsoft has a similar licensing scheme.

Destroying evidence

[SgtChaireBourne]

Imagine the cockroaches that are going to crawl out when those documents hit the court. Presuming of course that those documents haven't been lost, shredded or otherwise just become unavailable.

There were some interesting analyses a while back going into detail about how MS is able to effectively destroy evidence [pbs.org]. It involves tricks with a retention policy specifying a document life span shorter than needed to carry out a delayed document request. Some bizarre naming or routing scheme ensures that those without insider information get routed to the wrong deptartment, so by the time the request gets to the right people, the documents are long gone.

While I can't comment on whether that is or isn't technically illegal, it does show bad faith, contempt for the laws of the country (and by extension for the country itself), and a lack of ethics. But we knew those last parts already.

MS relies heavily on delay tactics anyway, so this method for destruction of evidence supplments them.

Microsoft Stoking the IP Fire

[rs232]

"Litigation suits can be tremendously expensive, with the cost easily exceeding what you paid for the software many times over''

For a company that warns off others against using Open Source because of litigation concerns they do seem to spend an inordinant amount of time in court defending itself against accusations of violating/stealing other peoples IP.

"As an industry leader, we are committed to spreading awareness on the issue among the Indian CIOs so they can make the best software decision that will best meet their business needs while at the same time balancing the risks involved,''

As a convicted monopolist, we are committed to spreading as much fud amoung CIOs so as we can scare them off buying anything other thing MS as well as forcing up the cost of Open Source through the use of bogus IP litigation concerns.(end translation)

Most people have little to fear as you're not big enough to go after. Unlike Apple, Amazon or Blackberry for instance. Good times ahead for the lawyers I guess. The root cause of the current IP racket is the US Patent Office and its predilection to grant nonsensical patents. We need less IP law not more. Lets see where doing business with a 'legimite' software company gets you:

A List of Microsoft Litigation [groklaw.net]

Microsoft Litigation

• American Video Graphics v. Microsoft .. Violating Intellectual Property Rights.
• AOL Time-Warner v. Microsoft .. Illegal Bundling.
• Apple v. Microsoft .. Copyright Violation.
• Arendi Holdings v. Microsoft .. Patent Violation.
• AT&T v. Microsoft .. Failure to Share Source Code.
• Pulp Fiction writer sues Microsoft .. Misappropriation of Trade Secrets.
• Borland v. Microsoft .. Staff Poaching.
• Brazil v. Microsoft .. Impeding Competition.
• Bristol Technology v. Microsoft Corp .. Deceptive Business Practices.
• BTG International v. Apple and Microsoft - Patent Infringement.
• Caldera v. Microsoft .. Withholding code and Embedding Fake Error msgs in Windows.
• eLeaders v. Microsoft .. attempted to Monopolize the Market.
• California Cities sue Microsoft .. Monopoly Control.
• Corel-Microsoft deal .. caused Corel to Withdraw from the Linux market.
• DoJ investigation re Illegal Bundling of MSN with Windows 95.
• Minnesota: Gordon v. Microsoft .. Broke Windows unless it ran on MS-DOS.
• South Korean v Microsoft .. over Slammer Worm.
• Daum Communications v. Microsoft .. Illegal Bundling.
• Eolas Technologies v. Microsoft .. Patent Infringement.
• E-Pass v. Microsoft .. Patent Infringment.
• EU anti-trust case .. exerting Undue Influence.
• Eu v. Microsoft Europe .. Unlawful Tying and deliberate Interoperability Barriers.
• Syn-X Relief v. Microsoft .. Software Piracy.
• Goldtouch v. Microsoft .. Patent Infringement.
• Intertrust Technologies v. Microsoft .. Patent Infringement.
• Japan FTC v Microsoft .. a Do Not Sue MS clause in OEM Contracts :)
• Be, Inc. v. Microsoft .. Antitrust Lawsuit.
• Burst v. Microsoft .. Patent Violation.
• Netscape v. Microsoft .. Illegally Exploiting Monopoly Power.
• Sun v. Microsoft .. Illegal Tying and Exclusionary Agreements.
• Novell v. Microsoft .. Suppress the sales of WordPerfect.
• Priceline v. M