patents

Microsoft made major concessions Thursday that should make it easier for open-source software to dovetail with or even replace Microsoft products, but a major caveat means the company's legal threats remain alive and well.

Microsoft announced a number of moves that could significantly improve its relationship with the open-source world. Among other things, the company said it will share communication protocols that govern how Microsoft software products communicate; pledged not to sue open-source programmers for developing software that uses those interfaces; and launched an Open Source Interoperability Initiative to improve how well open-source software works with its own.

Although … Read more

I've taken some flak from the anti-Microsoft crowd for my positive report on Microsoft's openness pledge. I stand by my position but think it's also worth taking a deep breath (all of an hour later :-) and recognizing Microsoft's position for what it is.

This is not manna from heaven. It's surely self-interested on Microsoft's part, as Mary Jo of ZDNet suggests (OOXML vote coming up next week, anyone?). This might be a little too cynical, however, as this has been in the works for months.

So let's give the company a little credit. It's a great step in the right direction, but it's not manna. Here's why:… Read more

Ina Fried reported that Microsoft was covenanting "not to sue over open source." This, unfortunately, is only half-true. Microsoft did agree not to sue open-source developers, but it had already promised that before. [NOTE: My memory was a little fuzzy on this. See below.] It also said it would provide access to its IP to commercial open-source companies at fair rates, which is also not news.

In other words, there is no some news in Microsoft's announcement as it pertains to patents and open source. None. Or very little.

UPDATED: What I failed to mention was that Microsoft's original pledge was more constrained to developers in the OpenSUSE.org community and to "non-compensated developers." In other words, developers too poor to worry about. :-)

So, the fact that Microsoft is now opening up to any open-source development and non-commercial distribution is important, though not significantly more than it originally promised. It's still designed to limit non-commercial distribution, which is effectively what the original proposal called for. I understand Microsoft's stance on this. I just wish that it would change it.… Read more

Apple could be readying a notebook trackpad that lets you practice your Rock Band form while using your Mac.

A patent application unearthed by MacRumors.com seeks protection for multitouch technology similar to that introduced by Apple on the MacBook Air's trackpad. This time, however, MacBook users could use as many as four fingers positioned in "chords" to execute different tasks in Mac OS X, such as bringing all the application windows to the front or opening up the Dashboard.

This could even be extended to individual tasks within applications, such as cut and paste. Those were … Read more

AppleInsider has uncovered a patent filing from Apple (located here) that's a cross between what we've known as an "enhanced podcast" and the step-by-step driving directions found on the maps application that is on the iPhone and iPod touch.

In short, the design specified in the patent would let users grab driving directions (presumably from Google) and have them combined with voice activated commands that would advance the directions forward. The data would be packaged in the form of a Podcast that could be downloaded and put on the player like any other audio file.

The … Read more

Correction, 12:50 p.m. PST: This blog initially misstated the name of the group that filed suit against Intel. The group is called the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

Forget the patent troll. Bring on the patent badger!

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation sued Intel on Wednesday for patent infringement, charging that the Core 2 Duo infringes on a patent granted to University of Wisconsin at Madison researchers in 1998 for a processor design that can break instructions into separate strands for more efficient processing. (Thanks, Engadget.)

The patent covers a method in which certain instructions that would normally have … Read more

Renewed objections this week from the Bush administration could complicate the passage of a sweeping patent law rewrite backed by seemingly every prominent hardware and software maker on the map.

As the so-called Patent Reform Act of 2007 awaits action in the U.S. Senate, the Bush administration is once again raising alarms about the proposal's effects on mainstream manufacturers and small inventors. (Here's the entire letter (PDF) sent Monday to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), whose panel approved an amended version of the proposal last summer.)

The Bush administration says it doesn't have any … Read more

Transmeta, the erstwhile x86 chip competitor, is coming under attack from shareholders.

The fact that the company posted revenue of only $44,000 in the third quarter, "which included $43,000 of services revenue and $1,000 of license revenue for royalty payments" may or may not have anything to do with Friday's proposed buyout by Riley Investment Management, which owns over 6 percent of Transmeta shares.

The investment firm does have serious questions about the business model based on the LongRun2 technology--described by Transmeta as a suite of technologies for advanced power management and "… Read more

A federal court upheld Thursday an earlier ruling that EchoStar Communications infringed on a digital video recording software patent owned by TiVo.

The Washington, D.C., court of appeals also agreed with the lower court's award of $89.6 million in damages to be paid to TiVo by EchoStar, which recently changed its name to Dish Network.

Dish plans to appeal the award for damages, the company said Thursday.

The court's decision "will have no effect on our current or future customers because EchoStar's engineers have developed and deployed next-generation DVR software to our customers' DVRs,&… Read more