Troll - Credit: pagedooley on Flickr (CC BY)

CNNMoney.com reports that a consortium of companies called the Open Invention Network has launched a Web site that publicities software developments so that patent trolls will have a harder time launching frivolous lawsuits.

The most novel feature of the new program, to be known as Linux Defenders, will be its call to independent open-source software developers all over the world to start submitting their new software inventions to Linux Defenders (Web site due to be operational Tuesday) so that the group’s attorneys and engineers can, for no charge, help shape, structure, and document the invention in the form of a “defensive publication.”

Linux Defenders will then also see to it that the publication, duly attributing authorship of the invention to the developer who submitted it, is filed on the IP.com Web site, a database used by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and other patent examiners throughout the world when they are trying to determine whether a proposed patent is truly novel, as any patentable invention is supposed to be.

In effect, the defensive-publications initiative mounts a preemptive attack upon those who would try to patent purported software inventions that are not truly novel — i.e., innovations that are already known and in use, though no one may have ever previously bothered to document them, let alone obtain a patent on them, a process usually requiring the hiring of attorneys as well as payment of significant filing fees.

Among the usual suspects (IBM, Red Hat, etc.), OIM also includes Phillips and Sony.  I guess the concern of patent trolling gives these companies a common enemy.  The Linux Foundation and the Software Freedom Law Center are co-sponsoring this as well.

• CNNMoney.com Legal Pad
• Linux Defenders
• Slashdot

Hypocrite - Credit: brettlider on Flickr (CC BY-SA)

An interesting article at Ars Technica states that Article One Partners should try busting their own patents.

Founder and patent attorney Cheryl Milone thought the idea was so good she’s—wait for it—filed an application for a patent on it. The submission to the U.S. Patent Office describes a method for:

a. displaying on a computer network for access by a plurality of information providers, i. an information request, and ii. a description of compensation for at least one of said information providers who provides information responsive to said information request

The application goes on to describe a Byzantine series of variations on how to compensate “information providers” and how to make money off the information provided—by auctioning it off, say, or by investing in the competitors of a company holding an invalid patent.

But there does seem to be a fair amount of “prior art” here. The Patent Office itself runs an online effort called Peer-to-Patent that seeks to crowdsource scrutiny of applications. (One that, it may be worth noting, is likely to fare less well if researchers with relevant expertise are selling their information to Article One.)

…

Oh, and this one’s free, Article One: We’ll take the $50k next time.

I thought a second post would be better than an update to the first.  What are your alls thoughts on this?  This is quite saddening.

• Ars Technica

Article One Partners - Credit: articleonepartners.com

A new organization that seeks to get rid of certain patents has launched.  Article One Partners offers bounties on different patents and through crowd-sourcing, plans on finding prior art.

Strong Patents Drive True Innovation

The Article One Partners community strives to restore the patent system to its original intent of granting exclusive rights for true innovation, while promoting the progress of science and technology through open sharing of invention. To this goal, every patent that can be invalidated should be invalidated.

Through discovering prior art, Article One provides evidence to the market to potentially reduce unfair monopolies and overly broad patents. Patent claims for unique innovations are intrinsically strengthened when our Advisors’ comprehensive global search does not uncover prior art. Stronger patents enable the inventor community to commercialize their inventions with greater confidence. Reducing invalid patents encourages open sharing of the science and technology that drives innovation and new research opportunities.

What a good idea.  I hope they are successful.

• PRNewswire
• Article One Partners
• Slashdot

Patented! - Credit: adulau on Flickr (CC BY-SA)

In a 9-3 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has declared that software-only inventions are not patentable. In addition, the Court of Appeals has declared business methods are no longer patentable either. The case is headed to the Supreme Court.

In a ruling with huge implications for the technology sector, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said Oct. 30 pure software or business method patents that are neither tied to a specific machine nor change something into a different state are not patentable.

In a 9-3 decision, the court upheld a 1997 U.S. Patent Office refusal to issue a patent to Bernard Bilski for a method of managing the risk of bad weather through commodities trading. The court ruled that processes can be patented only if they are implemented by a machine or transform something into a new or different thing.

The case is now likely headed to the Supreme Court for what would be a landmark decision about the scope of patents in the United States.

The Federal Circuit said software and business methods are still patentable but rejected standards set in a 1998 decision that allowed patents on “methods” of doing business so long as the methods involved use of a computer and produced a “useful, concrete and tangible result.” That decision opened the door for patents that had no connection to technological innovation.

This is big news, but don’t get too excited. It still has to go through the Supreme Court, and this won’t completely get rid of software patents, as one could try to tie down their patent to hardware to make it patentable.

• eWeek
• Slashdot
• Gizmodo

Microsoft

After getting beat by Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft owed $512M over MP3 codecs.  This ruling has been thrown out.

Tom Burt, Microsoft Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, called the decision “a victory for consumers of digital music and a triumph for common sense in the patent system. The Federal Circuit confirmed that Judge Brewster was correct when he ruled that Microsoft did not infringe the ‘457 patent and that Fraunhofer was a co-owner of the ‘080 patent, finding that Lucent’s arguments were “strained.”

One predicted outcome of the 2007 ruling has yet to come to pass: Some observers at the time thought that the gigantic fine, and the threat of more lawsuits to come, would push companies making MP3-related hardware and software to flee the format in favor of royalty-free open-source options such as Ogg Vorbis. Microsoft, ironically, developed its own WMA format in part as a response to patent uncertainties.

Not sure how I feel about this.  I suppose I should want MS to win this case, but it’s kind of hard to want that.

• BetaNews

Most of you know about or have used Blackboard. Blackboard has been actively involved in pursuing and enforcing aggressive patent and IP policies. Thankfully, there are several open-source alternatives that provide similar functionality: Moodle and Sakai.

The Sakai Community develops and distributes the open-sourceSakai CLE, an enterprise-ready collaboration and courseware management platform that provides users with a suite of learning, portfolio, library and project tools.

Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities. You can download and use it on any computer you have handy (including webhosts), yet it can scale from a single-teacher site to a University with 200,000 students.

Most surprisingly, our very own Virginia Tech has been working on a customized implementation of Project Sakai. It’s called Scholar and is accessible to anyone with a VT pid. At least one person I talked to had used this CMS in their classes. Does anyone else know more about this project?

Scholar is an innovative and robust collaboration and learning management system. Designed by higher education for higher education, it offers tools in support of teaching and learning, research and collaboration, and assessment/accreditation projects.

Suepo strike - Credit: Andy Carling

Patent examiners and other staff have demonstrated outside of the EU patent office, protesting the lowering of requirements for increased gain.

They claim that the organisation is decentralising and focusing on granting as many patents as possible to gain financially from fees generated.

In 2007 the national patent offices had an income of EUR 300 million from patents granted by the EPO.

The staff union, SUEPO, say that lowering the quality of patents will have a disastrous effect on innovation which will affect every consumer. Their ‘Save The EPO’ campaign is not aimed at increasing wages but in reinforcing patent quality.

Wow…I usually imagine the people who work at these places don’t really take an genuine interest in the issues.  Guess I was wrong.

• Slashdot
• Expatica

OStatic reports that Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has decided to partner with Fluendo and CyberLink to sell proprietary codecs and DVD playback functionality, respectively.

They could have taken the approach that every last Ubuntu user is vested in the “free as in speech” aspect of open source and does not own a single piece of media in a proprietary format. That would have been seen through immediately as either a blatant lie or delusional thinking. Or they could have thumbed their noses at the intellectual property laws in several countries, and refused to offer a legal alternative on the grounds that the laws are simply restrictive and misguided.

The laws are misguided. They are restrictive. They are still legally binding, though, and it is not Canonical’s call to encourage (or require) that any Linux user violate them. For this reason, Canonical is doing the right thing in offering a legal alternative.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this.  I’m guessing that Canonical wants to fend off potential lawsuits now that Ubuntu is becoming more popular.  I recall Fedora doing something similar a while ago with Codec Buddy, although Fedora has never included proprietary codecs in their repositories to begin with.

• OStatic
• Canonical Blog
• Slashdot

Ars Technica reports that 100 different groups have requested access to the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which, among other things, is rumored to contain significant changes to copyright and patent law.

Signatories of the letter include everyone from the EFF to the Australian National University to the Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic to Korea’s Christian Media Network to the Dutch Consumentenbond to Thailand’s Drug Study Group (DSG) to the Ecologist Collective from Guadalajara, México to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. It’s a dizzying list with worldwide backing, but the more important question is whether it will have any effect.

It’s great that all of these organizations have banded together to voice their concern. Laws and agreements such as these need to be open to public scrutiny, not written behind closed doors.

• Ars Technica
• Slashdot

The NYT has published an editorial on the problems involved with publicly-funded universities patenting technology. The article is entitled “When Academia Puts Profit Ahead of Wonder”.

James Yan

…

In the past, discovery for its own sake provided academic motivation, but today’s universities function more like corporate research laboratories. Rather than freely sharing techniques and results, researchers increasingly keep new findings under wraps to maintain a competitive edge. What used to be peer-reviewed is now proprietary. “Share and share alike” has devolved into “every laboratory for itself.”

In trying to power the innovation economy, we have turned America’s universities into cutthroat business competitors, zealously guarding the very innovations we so desperately want behind a hopelessly tangled web of patents and royalty licenses.

Yes, this is a problem. Thank you for noticing.

• New York Times
• Patently O