Software patents: will the monster bite its own fanclub?

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Mark Shuttleworth on software patents: Microsoft is not the real threat

The real threat to Linux is the same as the real threat to Microsoft, and that is a patent suit from a person or company that is NOT actually building software, but has filed patents on ideas that the GNU project and Microsoft are equally likely to be implementing.

Interesting thought… and actually, not just a thought: Microsoft alumnus Nathan Myhrvold is busy accumulating patents with his Intellectual Ventures company. There’s more like that around…

I’m thinking… perhaps money (greed, that is) will solve this problem after all. These companies have nothing else going on except to try and arrange licensing deals. And thus companies producing a lot cash (big licensing potential) will be the prime targets. And, funnily enough those are the same companies that are currently the biggest patent producers. Since joints like intellectual ventures don’t actually produce software themselves, what would a cross-licensing deal do for them? That doesn’t help the bottom line. Oops, nothing to threaten/trade with for the big guys…

Heck, this could actually be “fun”. Mind you, I’d rather not see this – it’ll waste a great deal of money and other useful resources – it should have been resolved differently and long ago already, however it’s important it does get resolved one way or another and this might just help it along in its own weird way.

4 thoughts on “Software patents: will the monster bite its own fanclub?”

  1. As one who has been involved in defending a patent infringement action, I can assure you that there are further implications. Knowing that US compnies use patent legislation as a competitive measure, has resulted in a decision to avoid the US market in some development work we are doing. The position is exacerbated by the fact that many patents are granted by the USPO without sufficient due diligence on prior art. So while the patent can be attacked on that basis, it needs a fairly large war chest to do so.

    I’m working on a project to modify our license agreement (maintaining the free use compoponent but otherwise preventing use in the USA) Any thoughts or suggestions?

  2. Hmm, that’s a very serious measure.

    You may wish to contact http://www.softwarefreedom.org/ (Software Freedom Law Center). That’s the organisation Eben Moglen works for. There are free services for free software developers, and also services for others of course although that may cost a bit.
    I reckon you’ll want to find out whether anyone else has already done this or working on it currently, and if so you can learn a bit from what those others have done. And they might also just have some very useful advice for you. All well worth it.

    Note that under GPL you can’t restrict users’ freedoms, so no GPL-licensed software could have a geographical restriction built-in. It may also run afoul of other licenses, the open source definition, and the debian guidelines. So it depends on whom your users are I suppose, if any of this would be a hindrance.
    I do understand the angle, but it’s by no means an easy or pretty path to take.

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