Sam Varghese
Thursday, 18 October 2007 23:21
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
When Steve Ballmer blurted out on October 9 that Linux was violating
patents held by Microsoft and specifically named Red Hat, it was an
indicator that the next phase in the campaign of harassment and
extortion of companies dealing in free and open source software was
about to begin.
The same day, IP Innovations, a subsidiary of Acacia Technologies Group, and a company that can only be described as
a patent troll (there are any number of them in the US of A), filed a suit against Red Hat and Novell, claiming that a patent it holds - for a user interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects - and two other similar patents were being infringed.
The original patent was granted in 1991 to Xerox and this idea goes back to the days of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre, better known as Xerox-PARC. All three patents will expire in December 2008.
Both Microsoft and IP Innovations have denied links to each other but who is going to believe them? At least one of the media outlets that is pushing this view is itself in bed with Microsoft - CNET Channel, a division of CNET Networks, which owns a large number of techology publications including ZDNET, has a deal with Microsoft to distribute information about products that have earned the Certified for Windows Vista or the Works with Windows Vista logo.
There are indirect ways to help out someone who is functioning as a proxy either intentionally or otherwise. Both Microsoft and Sun bought indemnity from SCO after it filed the now infamous lawuit against IBM in March 2003. Both paid not inconsiderable sums of money to SCO at a time when it needed a lot of capital. Coincidentally, SCO's lawsuit, if successful, would have crippled Linux, an operating system which has been keeping senior executives at both Sun and Microsoft awake at night for many years.
Apart from the timing of Ballmer's claim, there is the also the fact that SCO's IP claims against Novell - which for some time had so-called knowledgeable American technology analysts and members of the American technology media claiming that the sky would fall on FOSS - have just been shown to be just so much hot air.
How do you keep your rival from competing with you? Simple, distract the man or woman using a proxy to avoid claims of unfair competition. The patent suits against Novell and Red Hat may come to nothing - there is plenty of prior art in this case. But it will tie up resources and people - which is precisely what it aims to do.
IP Innovations is not the first company of its kind which has Microsoft ex-employees - Nathan Myhrvold, for many years a senior Microsoft employee, runs an outfit called Intellectual Ventures, a company devoted to buying potentially profitable patents.
