The New York Times and The Associated Press report that Hasbro has dropped its lawsuit over the popular Scrabble imitator Scrabulous (now Lexulous).

Hasbro, which owns the North American rights to the word game, sued Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, brothers from Calcutta, India, this summer. The brothers developed the unauthorized version, called Scrabulous, after they couldn’t find an online version they liked.

The court documents did not specify a reason for the withdrawal of the case.

RJ Softwares, the Agarwalla brothers’ company, said in a statement that it has agreed not to use the term “Scrabulous” and has made changes to different versions of the game it created after the lawsuit was filed.

The article points out that Mattel, which holds the rights for Scrabble outside of North America, has not dropped its lawsuit.

• The New York Times [Print Version] (cookies required)
• Slashdot

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

DRM - Credit: jbonnain on Flickr (CC BY)

A rumor has spread that iTunes will be removing all DRM in its store at a global level tomorrow.

AppleInsider cites a Dec. 3 story from the French publication Electron Libre that says iTunes will remove DRM from Sony BMG, Universal and Warner tracks on December 9th, like it already does with EMI and indie content. The story doesn’t say what percentage of tracks from the major labels, or what the cost bump for the new tracks might be, if any, though it seems to say the thing might cover every single album and track on iTunes. In fact, check out this rather ungraceful machine translation of the French story for yourself:

…The signals are clear today. iTunes should offer catalogs of three majors Universal Music, SonyBMG Music and Waner [sic] rid of technological protection measures next Tuesday, Dec. 9. The transition to DRM Free should be at a global level…

I guess we’ll see tomorrow.

• Gizmodo

The German government has agreed to donate 100,000 images to Wikimedia.  They will be licensed under CC BY-SA.

Starting on Thursday Dec 4, 2008, Wikimedia Commons will witness a massive upload of new images. We are anticipating about 100,000 files from a donation from the German Federal Archive. These images are mostly related to the history of Germany (including the German Democratic Republic) and are part of a cooperation between Wikimedia Germany and the Federal Archive.

These images are licensed Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Germany License (CC-BY-SA). Wikimedia Germany and the Federal Archive have signed a cooperation agreement that, among other things, asserts that the Federal Archive owns sufficient rights to be able to grant this kind of license.

The images are 800 pixel in size on the longer side.

Too bad not all governments PD their IP like the US.

• Wikimedia
• Slashdot

Georgi Parvanov - Credit: president.bg

Georgi Parvanov, the president of Bulgaria is now using CC BY-ND.

The official website of the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov is now available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 Bulgarian license. Bulgaria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been releasing its material under the same license since 2006, but ordinarily, these websites would be under full copyright, explains CC Bulgaria Project Lead Veni Markovski.

“Bulgaria has taken a step in the right direction to complete its image as a country where the politicians are aware of the most advanced technologies and use them for the good of the society,” Veni adds.

The ND is unnecessary, but it’s a good thing that free licensing is going global.

• Creative Commons
• president.bg

Facebook - Credit: facebook.com

Facebook has announced it’s plans to have Facebook Connect on several major websites such as Digg.  This accomplishes the same thing that OpenID does, but it’s not OpenID.

Still, some on OpenID’s side see a silver lining here.

“Facebook Connect is one of the best thing to happen to OpenID,” says Plaxo vice president of marketing John McCrea. “It’s an elegant login implementation, not built on the open stack, but it accomplishes the same things promised by the open stack.”

…Another hurdle: Facebook Connect was developed independently using proprietary code, so Facebook’s system and OpenID are not interoperable. Data gathered by Facebook Connect on a third-party site can only go one place once it leaves — straight back into Facebook.

How is this good news?

• Wired

Change.gov - Credit: change.gov

change.gov has removed their copyright notice, and replaced it with a CC BY notice.

Consistent with the values of any “open government,” and with his strong leadership on “free debates” from the very start, the Obama team has modified the copyright notice on change.gov to embrace the freest CC license.

…

I’m glad the thought in this administration led to the right conclusion, so quickly, and in the midst of so much else going on.

Crazy cool.

• Lessig.org

Sorry! - Credit: myguitarzz on Flickr (CC BY)

Toyota has apologized to DesktopNexus, and has claimed that the ordeal was a result of internal miscommunication.

From: Scott DeYager
Date: Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 12:52 AM
Subject: Desktopnexus Toyota Wallpapers
To: tips@torrentfreak.com

Dear Torrentfreak.com,

The recent request Toyota made to have certain photos of Toyota vehicles removed from the public wallpaper site, DesktopNexus, was the result of an internal miscommunication.

To protect the legal rights and agreements we have with the photographers we hire, we ask that the photographs not be used for direct consumer advertising, sales brochures and the like.

If people wish to post their own photos of one of their own vehicles, that’s their right. In fact, we’re pleased that people would want to show their Toyota vehicles to the world. So have at it. Consider the wallpapers on DesktopNexus to be fair game for personal use.

Please let your readers know that we offer a sincere apology to the DesktopNexus site and its users for any inconvenience or disruption this miscommunication may have caused.

Thanks for your understanding,

Scott DeYager
Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.
Corporate Communications

Yay!  I’m glad I was able to help out with this.  Here’s a post on the DesktopNexus blog that talks about the internet responce.

• TorrentFreak

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