Microsoft raises FUD over patents
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Microsoft has responded to our story yesterday about it threatening Asian governments that, if they choose Linux, they may get sued - possibly by one of the holders of the &quot;more
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As it said it would, Novell (NOVL:Nasdaq - news - research) filed a federal lawsuit in Utah alleging that Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq - news - research) tried to eliminate competition in the office productivity applications market when Novell owned the
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In a heavy blow to Microsoft&#39;s intellectual property rights, the US Patent and Trademark Office has initially rejected Microsoft&#39;s patent claims on the universally popular FAT (file allocation table) file system.
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Research in Motion Ltd    moved higher on Thursday on renewed market speculation  that Microsoft Corp  could be interested in buying the  BlackBerry maker.
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(InfoWorld) - The Linux faithful might be staring down the barrel of another round of Microsoft's legal taunts, but at last week's Linux Foundation Summit, the reaction was more ho-hum than oh-no. "The reality is that they are not going to sue a single customer," says Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. "It would not be in their business interest. Microsoft is not going to sue their customers." Zemlin says one fact alone â that most corporate Linux users have a mixed environment with Microsoft software â will protect users from the software giant going after them based on patent infringement. The patent issue has risen to near the top of the Linux Foundation's list with the signing last year of a cross-licensing patent deal between Novell and Microsoft, in which Microsoft promised not to sue Novell Suse Linux users for patent infringement. Several similar deals have followed since with Linux vendors Xandros and Linspire. As part of its charter, the Linux Foundation offers legal-protection services for developers to safeguard the future of Linux. Microsoft claims that Linux violates 235 of its patents, although it has yet to detail what those patents are. Critics contend the issue is meant to create uncertainty among potential corporate Linux adopters. But Zemlin says the contracts are hurting Linux "only in the fact that Microsoft uses them to create a perception of risk that in reality is not there." Many others at the foundation's first-ever summit -- a collection of some of the most influential Linux kernel designers, software developers, and user companies -- took that same position. "Open source is safe for us to use: That is the message that I want to get out there," said Chris DiBona, Google's open source program manager. "I would be shocked if Microsoft didn't have patents that read on Linux," said Mark Radcliffe, a partner at law firm DLA Piper US who advises companies on intellectual property issues. "Will they enforce them is the question. Companies using Linux don't have to fear patent suits." Radcliffe thinks Microsoft is in a difficult position because it probably couldn't avoid spearing its own customers with any legal action. "I think the Microsoft [Novell] deal was a misfire," he says. "I think what Microsoft's actions recognize is that Linux is here to stay. And any competitor will use tools to try and slow it down." Others say that patents have become a real problem for the computer industry. "They are sold to the public as being about supporting innovation, but their impact on industry is a nightmare," says Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu Linux. "They don't help IBM, they don't help Sun, and they don't help Microsoft. But the free software guys are worried about this." So worried, that the Free Software Foundation added to its near-final GNU General Public License (GPL) 3.0 specific language that addresses patent deals that could erode the unique open source qualities of the Linux operating system. The hype has reached such proportions that Dan Frye, vice president of Linux and open technology at IBM and head of its Linux Technology Center, said during a panel session at last week's summit, "everybody, just chill when v3 comes out." GNU GPL 3.0 is slated for final release on June 29. Linux creator Linus Torvalds, who is employed by the Linux Foundation, wrote on the Linux kernel mailing list last week that the Linux kernel may stay under Version 2, which he said is a better license, but that Sun's choice of licensing for open-sourcing Solaris could influence the decision. The Linux kernel is made up of a number of components, developed by various individuals under a number of different open source licenses, which means all those stakeholders would have to agree to switch to Version 3. "People are looking to Linus for that kind of leadership," says Google's DiBona. "I think v3 will be evolutionary, which is what it is supposed to be." Others say the issue of GPL 3.0 license adoption goes much deeper than just patent concerns. "Even if v3 is better than v2, it has to be significantly better to undertake all the pain to change the kernel code [licensing]," said James Bottomley, a kernel developer and CTO of SteelEye Technology, which makes high-availability software for Linux systems. "We are not going to waste six months to change the kernel. This is a pragmatic argument, not a legal one."ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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Microsoft Corp has upped the ante in its claims to offer better intellectual property indemnification than Linux vendors by extending to all end users its IP protection policy, which was previously only available to volume licensing customers.
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The US Patent Trademark Office has rejected all claims to patents for a Windows file format held by Microsoft. Under a reexamination process initiated earlier this year by the recently formed Public Patent
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Microsoft Corp. presented oral arguments Wednesday before the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-year-old patent lawsuit filed by AT&amp;T Inc. whose outcome could require U.S. software companies to pay fines for patent-infringing software assembled in other countries.
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Microsoft continued its battle against open source on Tuesday with the release of yet another company-funded study showing that developers believe the next version of GPL shouldn't cover patent deals.
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U.S. patent leader IBM said late  on Monday it plans to donate 500 patents for free use by  software developers, marking a major shift of intellectual  property strategy for the world's top computer maker and a  challenge to the high-tech industry.
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Bloomberg News broke the news yesterday that Microsoft will be allowed to argue that patents held by research firm Eolas Technologies regarding the ability to embed functionality in a Web browser page are invalid, when a retrial of Eolas' long-running patent suit begins on July 9.
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Thumbs up: Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) on Tuesday said investors paved the way for a one-time-only $3 dividend. Shareholders in the software colossus OK&#39;d amendments to the company&#39;s stock plans
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The US Patent and Trademark Office has preliminarily rejected a Microsoft Corp. patent on a system for recognizing computer files, a victory for &quot;open source&quot; advocates who believe
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Several California cities and counties, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, have sued Microsoft Corporation, accusing the software giant of illegally charging inflated prices for its products because of monopoly control of the personal computer
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Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O warned Asian  governments on Thursday they could face patent lawsuits for  using the Linux operating system instead of its Windows  software.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft raised the dividend it pays out to shareholders by a penny per quarter to $0.10 on Wednesday, the same dividend as for chip giant Intel. The company did not say why it raised the dividend. The company's stock rose $0.05 cents to close at $25.98 on Wednesday. For years, investors in Microsoft stock complained to the company to raise its dividend and share the wealth. In 2004,Â the company respondedÂ with a four-year, $75 billion plan to pay a one-time special $3.00 per share cash dividend and launch a massive stock buyback. By comparison, other technology companies, such as Dell and Apple Computer, for example, pay no dividends on their shares. But Procter & Gamble, a maker of household products such as Tide laundry detergent and Crest tooth paste, pays a dividend of $0.31 per quarter. The first Microsoft shareholders to receive the increased dividend will be holders on record as of Nov. 16, who will be paid on Dec. 14, Microsoft said.
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Several California cities and counties have sued Microsoft Corp., accusing the software giant of illegally charging inflated prices for its products because of monopoly control of the personal computer operating systems market.