[KLUG Advocacy] Re: Microsoft: WE Invented the Internet!

Robert V. Kanaley rvk at agdia.com
Tue Nov 9 14:39:31 EST 2004


Mike,

The stakes in patent infringement are enormous. Patent infringement law
suits are one of IBM's largest sources of income. I saw the numbers not too
long ago but I don't remember where I came across them. The guy who ran this
IBM profit center jumped ship to Micro$haft. A quick Google found
http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2004/08/16/story7.html This
is an article on how Micro$oft is building their patent portfolio. From
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5296787.html "Patent suits--regardless of
their merit--typically cost between $2 million and $4 million to defend,
experts say." Note the "regardless of their merit" part. If you have deep
pockets you build a big patent portfolio. Whether the patent is defensible
or not, you have your patent. Then you sit back and wait for the poor slob
that get close to your patent. Your patent infringement profit center then
sues the pants off of her. Her best bet is always to pay up and shut up, and
if she is lucky she will get to license her work back in exchange for
royalties, even if the original patent was indefensible and there was no
patent infringement in the first place!

This is M$ FUD strategy with big BIG teeth.

Rather than going after Linux first, I suspect the prime target is likely to
be OOO. This would not only protect their cash cow, but give them another
source of revenue (gotta get that stock price back up, ya know). The
recently disclosed parts of the Sun/Microshaft anti-trust settlement seems
to indemnify Star Office users, but specifically excludes OOO. But, if Bill
can bully well find a way to make you pay him to access the Internet he is
not above collecting the cash "regardless of the merit". He has had to pay
out way too much cash to generate some good will (Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation), and buying politicians off these days is expensive (he has been
told by his closest advisors to buy as many politicians as he can as a way
to finally get the justice department off of his back). He is making
progress on all fronts, so the computing future looks litigious to me.

Regards,

Bob

Robert V. Kanaley
Manager Information Systems
Agdia, Inc.
rvk at agdia.com
http://www.agdia.com


>-----Original Message-----
>From: advocacy-bounces at kalamazoolinux.org
>[mailto:advocacy-bounces at kalamazoolinux.org]On Behalf Of Mike Williams
>Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2004 1:25 PM
>To: advocacy at kalamazoolinux.org
>Subject: [KLUG Advocacy] Re: Microsoft: WE Invented the Internet!
>
>
>>
>>
>>From: Andrew Thompson <apthmpsn at imagerie.com>
>>Subject: [KLUG Advocacy] Microsoft: WE Invented the Internet!
>>
>>
>>http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1714680,00.asp
>>
>
>I really hope this is some form of misunderstanding, or a nutty writer
>spreading sensationalist nonsense.  It's questionable enough that
>Fraunhofer claims exclusive writes to any algorithm used to create
>MP3's, or that some poor guy got thrown in jail for disclosing the 4
>lines of code to decrypt a DVD video stream.  Now MS is trying
>to claim
>control over publicly developed protocols?  Including
>(somebody correct
>me if I'm wrong) TCP/IPv4, which predates the existence of Microsoft?
>
>How can you claim intellectual property writes over a protocol, or any
>other standard?  Can I go down to the patent office and claim that
>everybody needs to give me a quarter every time they make a stop sign
>that's a red octagon with a white border?  How about the fact that we
>drive down the right side of the road and don't cross solid
>yellow lines?
>
>I think Microsoft just has too many lawyers who are trying to justify
>their existence.
>
>-------  Random quote of the day
>Beer:  the cause of, and solution to all of life's problems.
>-Homer Simpson
>----
>
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