Re: [Patents] Re: Pseudo-Patent-Free Microsoft Standard

[Moderator note: This mail was sent to To: PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>,
C-FIT_Release_Community@RealMeasures.dyndns.org and Cc:
www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org, usenet@consulting.net.nz, rms@gnu.org,
patents@aful.org]

On Sat, Apr 06, 2002 at 10:02:57AM +0200, PILCH Hartmut wrote:
>  > (Microsoft just can't cope with the idea that standards are
>  > supposed to be used by everyone.  So they are hooking up
>  > their patents via their license.  We simply can't turn our
>  > back on them for one second.  -- Seth Johnson)
>  >
>  > http://www.advogato.org/article/453.html
>
>  The CIFS specification seems to be based on two trivial and broad
>  problem patents from the early 90s which cover all communication
>  between 2 computers where data are directly stored from a remote
>  location into the data buffer of a program and the transmission
>  doesn't use headers.
>
>  These claims look so ludicrous that there is hope that they would not
>  stand a court proceding.  If you can afford litigation, the result
>  might well be that the court narrows down the claim scope somewhat but
>  yet upholds some of the subclaims.  I guess that would be enough for
>  MS to maintain its grip on the proprietary standard which it is
>  pushing onto the Net.
>
>  Here are some of the details:

..........

>  Unfortunately we still do not know about the EPO situation concerning
>  these Microsoft applications.  As usual, the US patent doesn't contain
>  information on a parallel EP or WO patent application.  Yet these
>  could very well exist.   In 1993 the EPO was already granting patents
>  on the most abstract mathematical methods, and of course the above
>  claim language looked "technical" enough for the EPO to consider it
>  not pertaining to a programming solution as such -- indeed it is more
>  a problem than a solution that is claimed.  Also, an application from
>  1993 would most likely have been granted around 1998 by the EPO.
>
>  For research into this, you may want to use
>
>          http://www.depatisnet.de/
>          http://www.espacenet.com/
>          http://www.delphion.com/
>
>  Using a few key words from the two US applications (such as Microsoft,
>  "inventor"'s name, text strings from the claims etc) should get you
>  there.

I do not know whether that is essential, though proper information
never hurts.

The data below seems more important to me, because it shows a
systematic attack based on interoperability, using existing hold on
the market to extend to new areas.  Very precisely what anti-trust
regulation forbids.

Can someone translate precisely the excerpt from Heise

Auf die Ãffnung des .NET-Framework
angesprochen, kündigte Ballmer an, dass es
sicherlich eine
Common-Language-Runtime-Implementation für
Unix geben werde, schrÃ?nkte diese Entwicklung
jedoch als Subset ein, der "nur für den
akademischen Einsatz gedacht sei". Ãberlegungen
zur Unterstützung freier .NET-Implementationen
wie Mono erteilte Ballmer eine Absage

"Wir haben so viele Millionen in .NET gesteckt,
wir haben so viele Patente auf .NET, die wir
pflegen wollen."

Reference:
   Steve Ballmer: Kein Tänzchen an der Leine
   Detlef Borchers, Heise online, 12.03.2002
   http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-12.03.02-000/
 
http://www.heise.de/bin/nt.print/newsticker/data/jk-12.03.02-000/?id=bb59a8c6&todo=print


Bernard

PS Are there other speeches by Ballmer or others with similar statements ?
    especially use of patents to kill open source.


>  As MS is using these swpats for its crusades against the GPL, We need
>  to document this stuff quickly and thouroughly, see also
>
>          http://swpat.ffii.org/news/index.en.html#m023E
>
>  and some help would be very much appreciated.
>
>  --
>  Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
>  Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation 
>http://swpat.ffii.org/
>  100,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/

-- 
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Received on Saturday, 6 April 2002 07:37:15 UTC