Just how valuable are the Linux-related patents that Microsoft recently sold?
The Open Invention Network (OIN), a patent defense coalition for Linux whose members include IBM and Red Hat, trumpeted the news that it had bought 22 Linux-related patents from Allied Security Trust (AST) in a bid to protect Linux. Microsoft, which sold the patents to AST, claims the patents "weren't important," as noted in The Wall Street Journal.
Did the OIN get value or garbage?
Microsoft has long presented itself as the looming patent threat to Linux, once claiming that 235 of its patents are violated by Linux. But the AST patents, which cover 3D graphics, are apparently not among that group of core Microsoft patents allegedly violated by Linux.
If Microsoft didn't care about the patents, why should OIN?
It's a question ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley is asking, and rightly so. As CNET's Ina Fried notes, it's possible that Microsoft was looking to offload the patents to a patent troll, one that could litigate against Linux by proxy. This same strategy is apparently being used by Intellectual Ventures, a patent-holding (and trolling) firm that may be selling patents to litigious buyers to generate revenue.
OIN CEO Keith Bergelt speculates as much, insinuating that Microsoft may have "had ulterior motives" in selling to AST, a firm that has a "catch and release" policy that would see the Linux-related patents pushed back onto the open market after a year, and potentially fall into the hands of a patent troll, as eWeek reports,
But this seems like a rather klugey way for Microsoft to go after Linux. If it wanted to ensure the patents made it into the right (or wrong, depending on your point of view) hands, it could have sold the patents directly to a Microsoft-friendly patent troll. The fact that OIN wasn't allowed to directly participate in Microsoft's patent auction says little about the company's ultimate (and allegedly "ulterior") motives.
Faith is great in religion--it's not a viable business strategy.
I'm left wondering just how much protection OIN scored for Linux with the purchase of these 22 3D graphics patents. If the patents were core to Microsoft, it wouldn't have sold them for simply the off-chance that the patents might eventually find their way to a litigious patent troll. Microsoft tends to be more direct with its anti-Linux message, a fact borne out by its recent scurrilous Best Buy training FUD.
I suspect that the patents truly weren't very important to Microsoft. This doesn't mean their value to OIN is diminished, but it's probably not time to uncork the champagne at the "coup" scored at the local patent yard sale.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
In technology, the best indication that you've "arrived" as a company is when you get hit by a patent infringement suit. By this measure, Red Hat, which was just hit by a patent-infringement suit from little-known Software Tree, is ready to join an elite circle of premier software vendors like IBM, Microsoft, and HP, each of which spends a lot of time and money defending against patent lawsuits.
Congratulations, Red Hat. Doesn't it feel great?
This isn't, of course, the first lawsuit that Red Hat has faced. Firestar, IP Innovation, and DataTern have also launched lawsuits against Red Hat, at least two of which have been settled. Red Hat, to its credit, resolved these patent suits in favor of the broader open-source community, though Sun later went one step further and invalidated the patents.
To its detriment, Red Hat is now a big enough and important enough company to have patent infringement lawsuits become part of its daily existence.
This is the second time that Red Hat's JBoss Hibernate technology has been hit with a patent-infringement suit. However, it's telling that neither FireStar (the first plaintiff) nor Software Tree (the second) filed against JBoss, though the same allegedly infringing code would have been extant prior to the Red Hat acquisition.
Why bother with JBoss? There's much more money in the Red Hat till.
Savio Rodrigues points out that Software Tree doesn't appear to be a garden-variety patent troll. It has a real business. It's ironic, however, that this business wasn't too concerned with JBoss until Red Hat's deeper pockets backed it.
Funny, that.
Welcome to the patent defense club, Red Hat. Get used to the new norm of fending off lawsuits from patent trolls and insignificant software companies with nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Even so, as Microsoft and others regularly besieged by patent-infringement lawsuits will tell you, it's better to be big and targeted than small and ignored.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
When I negotiate contracts with customers, intellectual-property indemnification is always the top legal concern. Always.
But it's not because of Microsoft and its recent TomTom patent lawsuit, or other such infringement suits between vendors. The concern is almost wholly related to patent trolls, and predominately because they have no vested interest in keeping customers happy, whereas vendors must...vend, and so can't afford to unduly upset customers.
Hence, while the open-source world is up in arms about Microsoft's TomTom patent suit, it should be far more worried about news that Intellectual Ventures has grabbed another 500 patents through a deal with Telcordia Technologies, as TechFlash reports. Intellectual Ventures, arguably the world's largest patent troll, is set up to do nothing more than license its intellectual property, which it has done to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Microsoft has its problems with patent FUD, which I've called out many times before. But Microsoft is a relatively minor problem compared to a firm like Intellectual Ventures.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
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.
Correction: The article inadvertently states that RPX has raised $40 million in venture capital funds. This is incorrect. A spokesperson contacted the author to note that a correct reading of the website would be that "The company has acquired more than $40 million in patent rights since its founding."
Patent trolls are the bane of existence for technology companies. Patent trolls buy up patents so that they can extort money from companies that actually build and sell products. The world's largest patent troll is arguably Intellectual Ventures, which holds billions of dollars worth of patents.
It is therefore surprising to hear that the former general manager of Strategic Acquisitions and vice president of Licensing at Intellectual Ventures, John Amster, along with former vice president of Licensing at Intellectual Ventures, Geoffrey Barker, have banded together to create RPX, a "defensive patent aggregator. Is Intellectual Ventures spawning its own defense mechanisms?
This sounds a bit like the radar gun/detector industry, wherein the same manufacturers that help police nab speeding motorists also build the radar detectors to help avoid getting caught. Can RPX be trusted?
Probably. This is no ordinary patent aggregator. For one thing, as The Wall Street Journal reports, RPX is funded by venture firms Kleiner Perkins and Charles River Ventures: it has to turn a profit. The company raised $40 million, according to its website, and has already acquired more than 150 U.S. patents and has filed more than 60 U.S. applications. Other patent aggregators like Linux's Open Invention Network operate as non-profits, with all the benefits (and downsides) that come with that status.
Cisco and IBM have joined as early members of RPX, and the Journal reports rumors that Hewlett-Packard, Verizon, and Google have also joined.
But the big question may well be how RPX deals with Intellectual Ventures, which is much bigger and much more complex than a typical patent troll. Intellectual Ventures uses patents as an offensive strategy, while RPX uses patents as a defensive mechanism. I would assume the two will work together in some way, and indeed, I presume that the founders' credentials and ties to Intellectual Ventures must have been a primary selling point to the venture capitalists.
What this means in practice could well determine RPX's success as a defensive patent aggregator. Is RPX prepared to kill its father, Oedipus style? (We won't inquire into its mother.)
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Some of the news today was surprising, but some not so surprising. Here goes:
- Don Marti makes a smart but flawed (in my view) suggestion that appeasing patent trolls with a settlement may be the way to go, rather than fighting them off. I see his point, but the problem is that if everyone does this, patent trolls will proliferate. Do we really need to encourage them to have offspring?
- Firefox has apparently boosted its market share at the expense of Safari and Internet Explorer according to Net Applications. Net Applications also says, however, that it may have overcounted. Watch this space.
- SAP argues that web-based offerings like Salesforce are potty (when it comes to security, compliance, etc.), apparently forgetting that it has been determined to offer similar solutions. Dave Rosenberg is probably right here: SAP is being overly conservative here as it tries to protect its product revenue, rather than looking forward to emerging customer needs.
What else? Well, a man is selling his entire life on eBay and it's currently going for around $300,000. Bargain? If he has any talent whatsoever he might be a steal for a company in need of cheap labor. What's $300,000 over 30 years? :-)
While much of the industry lives in fear of a patent troll rearing its ugly head, Cognex has decided to take on trolls like Lemelson and Acacia, and has been spanking them on a regular basis.
As PJ at Groklaw notes, it's far too early to throw up our hands in despair at the dreaded patent trolls:
Imagine if [Cognex] had, instead, thrown up his hands, assumed there was no hope, said the patent system was a joke, the system totally corrupt, etc. and just paid for a license he knew, and as he later proved, he didn't need? Nobody needs it now. It's history. Thank you, Cognex. Cynics give up too easily, methinks.
Amen. What a great day it would be if everyone who believed themselves unfairly sued for patent infringement fought back. Imagine what would happen if companies like Microsoft were forced to back up their words about patent infringement, and then lost in court.
Eventually, the courts would clear out the riffraff. What a great day that would be.
I failed to see this last week, but Acacia Research, the patent troll that recently went after Red Hat and Novell, got its first day in court with a Texas jury and lost. Big time. It was seeking $900 million in damages, as paidContent notes, and instead got 35 percent of its stock price chopped.
I weep for Acacia. OK. Maybe not. Looking at this stock chart, I will admit that a smile has played across my face:
... Read moreIn two consecutive days, The Wall Street Journal presented two different answers. The first is not surprising: Intellectual Ventures, the brainchild of ex-Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold. It's now out "to raise as much as $1 billion to help develop and patent inventions, many of them from universities in Asia." I know I will sleep so much more comfortably knowing that IVL will be out plundering Asia so that it can turn around and plunder the rest of the planet.
The second might surprise you: the University of California. The University of California may be especially pernicious because it can sue for patent infringement but has sovereign immunity:
... Read more
