Microsoft: Not much to show for 10,000 patents
Ina Fried of CNET News reports Tuesday on Microsoft's 10,000th patent, with Microsoft's chief patent counsel calling the milestone "a testament to all of the innovation that has been taking place."
Maybe. But innovation is what hasn't actually done Microsoft much good, at least as measured in terms of new product lines that generate material amounts of revenue for the company. It still gathers the vast majority of its revenue from Windows and Office, two product lines that have only incrementally improved (or, in the case of Vista, degenerated) over the past decade or two.
And, as Fried notes, Microsoft's patent horde has done little to help it defend itself from patent lawsuits, which have scaled up alongside the increasing size of its patent pile.
Given how much Microsoft has to lose from patent trolls, it's perhaps surprising that it, in turn, it has rattled its own patent saber against Linux, claiming violation of 235 of its patents.
Microsoft's chief patent counsel goes on to dub patents "the currency of innovation in our industry," but it's unclear what that currency buys Microsoft. Fame? Not really. Fortune? Nope, Microsoft already had that in Office and Windows, and patents haven't added much to the till.
Friends? Occasionally. Apple and Google have been fortunate beneficiaries of Microsoft's patents: ActiveSync is great (Microsoft) technology that makes Apple's iPhone much more useful and soon will do the same for Google's Android. But Brother, Samsung, and the other Microsoft patent rubes that have purchased protection from Linux? Not so useful.
Companies and people buy products, not patents. I'm sure that 10,000 patents is a nice symbolic achievement for Microsoft, but 10,000 products would be better.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
Are you insane? 10,000 products. No company could mange 10,000 different products.
Yes, I've been hyper-critical of the '235 patents' sabre rattling but I've nothing against them having these patents in the first place. It how they use them that irks me. As it is, this way, they may patent a lot of useless junk (and have a lot of junk patents) but it makes really sure that nothing important is left unprotected.
Otte-O: I don't think he was being literal :op
More over, Microsoft has a primarily defensive intellectual property strategy, and while most patents filed may seem frivolous to an outside observer, at $850 a pop, Microsoft would be stupid not to shore up its intellectual property to the best of its ability. One should consider that Windows and Office are successful because they are the one of the best available products for their market, but Windows and Office are <i>profitable</i> because Microsoft defends the intellectual property behind the code.
In essence, it is unfortunate that this commentary gets labeled as "news" by CNET. The author should probably focus on open source and stop dumping any more unfounded/poorly researched rhetoric about an area that he (just like the general lot of us) is so catastrophically unenlightened.
- by pentest February 12, 2009 6:12 AM PST
- 10,000 patents that are all obvious and based on prior art. Yes, good job Microsoft!
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(9 Comments)Few companies have the moxie to patent things that boil down to being nothing more than an array of pointers.