Patent Fallout Continues over Microsoft, Novell Deal
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Seems the honeymoon is over for Microsoft and Novell as the two companies bicker about what the patent cooperation agreement between them actually means and who is violating whose patents. |
Just weeks after its controversial patent cooperation agreement with Microsoft, Novell is hitting back at statements made by Microsoft executives that the deal acknowledges that Linux infringes on its intellectual property.
Novell has been under fire from many members of the Linux and open-source community since entering into the set of broad collaboration agreements with Microsoft earlier this month to build, market and support a series of new solutions that will make Novell and Microsoft products work better together, including providing each other's customers with patent coverage for their respective products.
Recent statements from Microsoft officials like CEO Steve Ballmer that the deal effectively acknowledges that Linux infringes on his company's intellectual property have exacerbated these criticisms from the open-source community.
The brouhaha culminated in Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian releasing an open letter to the Linux and open-source community on Nov. 20, in which he says the company "strongly disagrees with and disputes" these Microsoft statements.
But what's even more interesting is that while, in an interview with me, David Kaefer, the director of business development for intellectual property and licensing at Microsoft, declined to say whether the company believes any of its products infringe any of the patents covering Linux and open-source technologies held by Novell or anyone else, he did acknowledge that the recent deal between the two respected the value of Novell's patent portfolio.
"For the same reasons that Novell will not say if there are any Microsoft patents they infringe, Microsoft is not going to come out and admit that it has a set of products that infringe Novell's patents," he said.
No company would go forth and present a list of what third-party technologies its patents infringed, Kaefer said, adding though that there is some acknowledgement on the part of Microsoft of the reality that there are a lot of patents in existence, "and we would rather have certainty and transact that certainty for value than to sit on the sidelines and wait for problems to occur. We don't want t subject our customers to that," he said.
When asked to identify any Linux or other open source or code that Microsoft believed violated its patents, as well as to say where it was found and in which distribution it was included, Kaefer evaded the issue, saying that no company in the open-source or proprietary field went through every product and looked at every patent claim they might or might not assert. "I just don't think that's productive," he said.
Comments (7)
Uh oh... why am I smelling SCO vs IBM part 2 here?
Posted by Your Name Here | November 22, 2006 9:46 AM
what this really points out is how broken the patent system is. Because of it the companies operate in an environment of fear and greed. They fear they'll be victims like RIM but they're unable to resist the advantages they might get from aggressively playing the patent game. The main problem is the whole concept of IP. An idea is not something that exists in a vacuum ; it's based on a foundation of other ideas . While there are exceptions the step up from the foundation to the next level is trivial. Calculus is a perfect example of this . It was an extremely important idea but it was a trivial jump. Newton and Leibniz get most of the credit for inventing it but it was clearly an idea who's time had come. There was no leap that makes the idea patentable as any reasonable person with a brain would have reached the same conclusions. It is important to realize that the amount of work involved is not the same as the trivial level criteria . In the same sense most software patents are trivial. The only answer is for the politicians of the world to get serious about fixing this problem and rewrite the law so that we don't continue with this mess of fud and lawyer enrichment.
Posted by Mike Potter | November 22, 2006 12:50 PM
Hear hear Mike.
Posted by anon | November 22, 2006 8:33 PM
Hear hear Mike.
Posted by anon | November 22, 2006 8:34 PM
I think it's lame that Microsoft won't point out open source code that supposedly infringes on their rights. They're scaring people without any proof. I would love to see the tables turned, and see that Windows XP has some open source code protected by the GPL. By nature of the GPL, they'd have to open their source code. They'd never do it, of course. Microsoft is a really strong and competitive business, but like the strong and competitive bully in school, they're an asshole.
Posted by Matt Bowden | November 27, 2006 3:21 PM
Patent law is extraordinarily difficult and anyone who thinks otherwise should try coming up with a good test for "obviousness," something that the Supreme Court is wrestling with right now. Things are always obvious in hindsight. A former patent examiner (Albert Einstein) wrote a great book on understanding relativity using only algebra. Every step follows logically from the next and it seems so obvious! But it wasn't. The only way to truly solve the problem is to do away with patents. Maybe that's a good idea, maybe not. It would be a very interesting world if the only protection people had for their intellectual property was to keep it secret.
Posted by TechGeek | November 30, 2006 10:08 PM
So what is the MS IP head really saying:
When asked to identify any Linux or other open source or code that Microsoft believed violated its patents, as well as to say where it was found and in which distribution it was included, Kaefer evaded the issue, saying that no company in the open-source or proprietary field went through every product and looked at every patent claim they might or might not assert. "I just don't think that's productive," he said.
Is he saying it's not worth bothering about, or they have too many products and patents to cope with? Weird!
Posted by Henrik Eismark | June 23, 2007 5:40 PM