Information freedom for open source users.

RedEaredSlider writes “Rambus, a designer of semiconductor chips, won a long-running patent battle with NVIDIA, but that dispute is not the only one the company is involved in — and the upcoming decisions could mean millions in additional revenue. Besides the NVIDIA decision, Rambus is involved in a suit with Hynix Semiconductor that will be heard in October. In that case, Hynix had originally sued Rambus in 2000, but Rambus counter-sued. Hynix lost, and appealed. The parties will appear before the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in October. A judgment in Rambus’s favor would be worth at least $397 million, according to the company’s general counsel, Tom Lavelle.”

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There was a time when Linux was notorious for having what was called “fugly” fonts. Things improved a bit over the years, but thanks to expiring patents things are about to get even better. more>>

Nushio writes “The code wasn’t even released, and yet Roy van Rijn, a Music & Free Software enthusiast received a C&D from Landmark Digital Services, owners of Shazam, a music service that allows you to find a song, by listening to a part of it. And if that wasn’t enough, they want him to take down his blog post (Google Cache) explaining how he did it because it ‘may be viewed internationally. As a result, [it] may contribute to someone infringing our patents in any part of the world.’”

Update: 07/09 00:31 GMT by T :Story updated to reflect that Shazam is multiplatform, not Android-only, as implied by the original phrasing.

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Mark Atwood points out this critical commentary on the IEEE’s response to the outcome of In Re. Bilski, which points out the contrast between work done by IEEE luminaries like Donald Knuth and lobbying for software patents.

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theodp writes “Chargebacks on computing resources are certainly nothing new, dating to the ’60s. But five decades later, the USPTO has deemed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ invention — Dynamic Pricing of Web Services Utilization — worthy of a new patent. From the patent: ‘Utilization of a storage resource may be measured in terms of a quantity of data stored (e.g., bytes, megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB), etc.) per unit of time (e.g., second, day, month, etc.). Similarly, communication bandwidth utilization may be measured in terms of a quantity of data transmitted per unit of time (e.g., megabits per second). Processing resource utilization may be measured as an aggregate number of units of processing effort (e.g., central processing unit (CPU) cycles, transactions, etc.) utilized, or as a rate of processing effort utilization per unit of time (e.g., CPU cycles or transactions per second).’ Sound familiar, Greyglers? Another example of why it’s not wise to grant software patents when people don’t know much about computer history.”

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theodp writes “After shelling out a reported $90 million to buy PlanetAll in 1998, Amazon shuttered the site in 2000, explaining that ‘it seemed really superfluous to have it running beside Friends and Favorites.’ But years later in a 2008 patent filing, Amazon described the acquired PlanetAll technology to the USPTO in very Facebook-like terms. And on Tuesday, the USPTO issued U.S. Patent No. 7,739,139 to Amazon for its invention, the Social Networking System, which Amazon describes thusly: ‘A networked computer system provides various services for assisting users in locating, and establishing contact relationships with, other users. For example, in one embodiment, users can identify other users based on their affiliations with particular schools or other organizations. The system also provides a mechanism for a user to selectively establish contact relationships or connections with other users, and to grant permissions for such other users to view personal information of the user. The system may also include features for enabling users to identify contacts of their respective contacts. In addition, the system may automatically notify users of personal information updates made by their respective contacts.’ So, should Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg worry about Amazon opening a can of patent whup-ass?”

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theodp writes “Amazon.com is famous for its patented 1-Click ordering system. But what about 1-Nod ordering? Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is seeking a patent on a system that would let people make purchases with a nod, a smile or even a raise of the eyebrow. Bezos’ invention — ‘Movement Recognition as Input Mechanism’ — envisions a computing device that could interpret certain facial expressions and enhance or potentially replace conventional input devices such as keypads and touch screens.”

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An anonymous reader notes that CSIRO has sued Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile in — wait for it — East Texas District Court. “Australia’s peak science body stands to reap more than $1 billion from its lucrative Wi-Fi patent after already netting about $250 million from the world’s biggest technology companies, an intellectual property lawyer says. The CSIRO has spent years battling 14 technology giants including Dell, HP, Microsoft, Intel, Nintendo, and Toshiba for royalties and made a major breakthrough in April last year when the companies opted to avoid a jury hearing and settle for an estimated $250 million. Now, the organization is bringing the fight to the top three US mobile carriers in a new suit targeting Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile. It argues they have been selling devices that infringe its patents.”

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hkmwbz writes “German technology company Nero AG has filed an antitrust complaint against the MPEG-LA, the company that manages the H.264 patent pool. Nero claims that the MPEG-LA has violated the law and achieved and abused 100% market share, by, among other things, using ‘independent experts’ that weren’t independent after all, not weeding out non-essential patents from the pool (in fact, it has grown from the original 53 to more than 1000), and retroactively changing previously-agreed-on license terms.”

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GMGruman writes “Nokia, Apple, and HTC are all suiing each other over mobile patents. Google and Microsoft are also in the game. InfoWorld’s Paul Krill explains what the fight is all about: control over multitouch, the technology that enables gesture interfaces on iPads, iPhones, and other smartphones. And he explains the chances that the companies will settle their dispute as they jockey for advantage, why Apple has been playing hardball, and why competitors are fighting back just as hard.”

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bizwriter writes “If protecting inventions is at the heart of high tech competitiveness, plans underfoot at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will critically wound small companies. The agency’s notorious 750,000 patent application backlog has long been the subject of heavy criticism. One of the key tools the USPTO wants to use is to raise fees so high as to directly reduce 40 percent of the backlog. That would mean setting filing and maintenance rates so high as to make it economically difficult, if not impossible, for many small companies to adequately protect their innovations, leaving large corporations even more in control of technology than they are now.”

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Regardless of the merits of a case against open codecs Ogg Theora and VP8 for patent infringement a very important question remains unanswered.

Who will pay the lawyer bills?

NoSoftwarePatents founder Florian “Floyd” Mueller (left), who was last seen here being panned for fighting the Oracle acquisition of mySQL, fears it may be Apple.

“While Microsoft doesn’t try to force any Android phone vendor out of the market, Apple uses some of its own patents very aggressively in order to prevent such companies as HTC from providing certain functionality at all,” Mueller wrote me late last week.

“It’s important to see the difference from the perspective of competitors and consumers: the worst thing that can happen with patents is if vendors, especially leading ones, use their patents for exclusionary purposes.

“Should Apple be a contributor to the patent pool Steve Jobs mentioned, that would be very bad news because then the objective may very well be to prevent any commercial use and distribution of Ogg Theora and other open-source video codecs.”

Mueller has long been concerned with the patent status of open source codecs, writing at FOSS Patents after Google announced VP8 would be open source that multimedia is a patent minefield.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s Google or any other vendor or a FOSS project: there’s no such thing as a multimedia data format that anyone can absolutely guarantee to be unencumbered by patents.

This is one reason Mueller, who started in this business as a 16-year old computer journalist in 1986, launched his campaign against software patents.

All this makes the pending decision in Bilski vs. Kappos, still unknown at this writing, so important. A decision that encourages Apple to proceed, especially against Google, may make for the biggest lawsuit of all time.

The FUD attack launched against Ogg Theora and VP8, the very idea that they violate patents, is not aimed at the courts, but at the W3C, which held a conference on the coming HTML5 standards last week in Raleigh.

While audio and video files are currently handled through object tags, HTML5 will support standard audio and video tags, support for which will be defined in the browser.

Microsoft and Apple are carrying the water of the content industries, which fear that losing control of the technology under which content is displayed results in losing control of the content itself. That control is expressed through the MPEG LA licensing body.

The $5 million license fee for the H.264 codec required by MPEG LA acts as a barrier to entry, both a financial and moral one. A licensee that doesn’t follow Hollywood’s rules could have its license pulled, and thus its product.

The money is chump change for Microsoft, and the barrier a good thing.  It’s a matter of principle for open source.

HTML5 is where that principle is being contested. The W3C policy is not to accept a royalty-bearing, proprietary technology into the Web standard. That’s why video has, until now, been a function separate from the browser.

The attack came now because Mozilla, makers of Firefox, only wants to support truly open codecs under HTML5. Google’s move to open source of VP8 is also said to be preparatory to making it the default codec in Chrome.

If open source becomes the default for HTML5 in Chrome and Firefox (and Opera too) Hollywood loses its technical control. Thus the dark claim by Jobs that a ” patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other ‘open source’ codecs now.”

The case is a nonsense.

If Ogg Theora were subject to patent, why would those patent holders allow nearly 160 million downloads (at last count) of the VLC Player, which contains it. Then there’s the question of whether any software patent is valid — we’re still waiting on a Supreme Court decision in Bilski vs. Kappos to settle that question.

Apple and Microsoft have made their money on video by doing what the video owners want. They want to control the Web’s video technology. So Microsoft will only support H.264, Apple darkly mutters about patent suits, and the W3C is supposed to knuckle under, making a proprietary technology part of the Web standard.

If pressed, I have no doubt that a suit would be filed. But even the filing of a suit does not always represent a desire to go to court, only a willingness to do so as part of a larger negotiation.

The suit would magically disappear if H.264 became the Web standard for video, and everyone who wanted to watch a video online were forced to have their software license that codec from MPEG LA.

That’s the issue squarely facing the W3C now.

jrepin writes in to recommend a piece by Eugenia from OSNews, which explores the depths of the MPEG-LA’s lock on video. One part of the problem is that almost all video cameras, including ones costing over $12,000, declare in their manuals that they are for “personal use and non-commercial” purposes only. “We’ve all heard how the h.264 is rolled over on patents and royalties. Even with these facts, I kept supporting the best-performing ‘delivery’ codec in the market, which is h.264. ‘Let the best win,’ I kept thinking. But it wasn’t until very recently when I was made aware that the problem is way deeper. No, my friends. It’s not just a matter of just ‘picking Theora’ to export a video to Youtube and be clear of any litigation. MPEG-LA’s trick runs way deeper!”"

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walterbyrd writes with news that Red Hat and Novell have won a patent case brought by a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation. The company had “accused Red Hat and Novell of infringing three patents that cover a computer-based graphical user interface that spans multiple workplaces, and lets users access icons remotely, according to court documents. A jury in Marshall, Texas, yesterday sided with Red Hat and Novell’s defense that the patents were invalid.” Red Hat’s Michael Cunningham said, “The jury knocked out three invalid patents that were masquerading as a new and important inventions, when they were not. We appreciate the jury’s wisdom and remain committed to providing value to our customers, including through our Open Source Assurance program. We also remain stalwart in resisting bogus shakedown tactics.”

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netcrawler writes “Steve Jobs’ open letter on Flash has prompted someone at the Free Software Foundation Europe to ask him about his support of proprietary format H.264 over Theora. Jobs’ pithy answer (email with headers) suggests Theora might infringe on existing patents and that ‘a patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other “open source” codecs now.’ Does he know something we don’t?”

Update: 05/01 00:38 GMT by T : Monty Montgomery of Xiph (the group behind Theora, as well as Ogg Vorbis, and more) provides a pointed, skeptical response to the implicit legal threat, below.

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There are three ways to speculate about Microsoft’s latest Linux patent cross-license, this time with HTC:

1. Microsoft is pushing its weight around (again).
2. Microsoft is aligning with Google against Apple.
3. Microsoft is making peace with everyone.

(Ah, yes, the classic Boardwatch “Billgatus of Borg” cover, from my days writing for Boardwatch Magazine in 1998.)

The first is the idea that Microsoft is trying to surround Linux with patent claims, place a stranglehold on Linux, and control open source. The second is that this is all part of the “great game” among the big tech powers, wheels within wheels mere mortals could never understand. The third is that Microsoft wants to end the era of patent suits — as was done with Amazon so with Android.

But I want to look at a different question today. Why are so many smart companies signing up with these agreements? What is in them?

Microsoft has always kept a proprietary no comment on these deals, and non-disclosure is a condition on the other side as well. Outsiders have been led to understand Microsoft has some patent claims involving Linux (undisclosed)  that companies are recognizing, and that they are paying for the privilege.

But what patents? How much? What’s in the fine print? This we are never told. The game has been going on for over three years now — since the first deal with Novell — and the public is still being kept in the dark.

No doubt Microsoft believes this is in its best interest. It helps if people believe these are onorous terms, that Microsoft has everyone over a barrel, and Linux by the throat.

But I wonder. If Microsoft’s intent really is to make patent peace with Linux, not patent war, then at some point the cost of the fear (from open source advocates) outweighs its value.

Despite all these deals, despite Codeplex, despite releasing coders to work on projects like Joomla, Microsoft is still looked upon with loathing by open source advocates. (Just look at our talkbacks.) But that attitude would change, and open source would be far more willing to make peace with Microsoft, if we knew what was in those agreements, and knew they were no big deal.

You don’t think a Microsoft lawyer might want to lose one of these things inside my favorite bar, do you? I’d pay for the martinis.

Open source activist Florian “Floyd” Mueller has riffed on a recent piece of mine concerning Google’s open sourcing of its VP8 codec.

(The art is by Roland Heath and is called “My consciousness bouncing around the light.” Thumbnail reproduced with permission of the artist.)

His point — there is no such thing as a multimedia format unemcumbered by patents.

Multimedia (audio/video) data formats and codecs are one of the worst patent minefields of all. One has to tread carefully, and some of those mines go off all the time.

Google may face legal challenges to open sourcing VP8, he writes. Apple says there is patent uncertainty regarding Ogg Theora.

Floyd cites MP3, which German police have been actively policing at trade shows like CeBIT. They’re not really acting as patent police. They’re looking for pirated content, and the means to reproduce it. But patent claims give them the power to go after everyone, even if they’re using FOSS software to encode their stuff.

I think there’s a difference between how seriously police take patent claims at a trade show and how they take calls from Hollywood to seize stuff. Patents in this case are just an excuse to enforce copyright.

But I take Floyd’s point. Digital content is a patent minefield, and each country has its own set of mines.

This still does not render the success of VLC or Google’s move with VP8 meaningless. Despite all the policing in the world the trend is toward more open audio and video formats, to less DRM, and to complex files being given the same rights in the online world as simple files like this one.

Agree or disagree?

Pickens writes “Corporate Counsel recounts the profound legacy of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, author of the majority opinion in what some consider the most important copyright ruling of all time — the 1984 Betamax decision (Sony v. Universal City Studios) that established that consumers have a personal ‘fair use’ right to make copies of copyrighted material for non-commercial use. Justice Stevens’s contribution to the ultimate decision in Betamax extended well beyond writing the opinion. The justices’ initial debates in the case make it clear that Stevens was the only one of the nine (PDF) who believed that the ‘fair use’ doctrine gave consumers a right to make personal copies of copyrighted content for home use. It was his negotiating skill that pulled together the five-vote majority allowing home video recorders to be sold and used without interference from copyright holders. An IP litigator is quoted: ‘The ruling that making a single copy for yourself of a broadcast movie was fair use … that was truly huge, and was a point on which the court was deeply divided.’ So the next time you’re TiVo-ing an episode of your favorite show, remember to give a quick thanks to Justice Stevens; and let’s hope that whoever President Obama appoints to replace him will follow in Stevens’s footsteps and defend Fair Use, not corporate copyright interests.” The review also touches on Stevens’s “patent skepticism,” which may be on display when the court delivers its eagerly awaited Bilski ruling.

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isometric writes with this excerpt from Gamasutra:
“IA Labs is accusing Nintendo of infringing on two separate IA Labs patents through technology used in the Nintendo Wii, Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus, the Wii Balance Board, Wii Remote, Wii Wheel, Wii MotionPlus, Wii Nunchuck and Wii Zapper. … The patents in question are ‘Computer interactive isometric exercise system and method for operatively interconnecting the exercise system to a computer system for use as a peripheral’ and ‘Force measurement system for an isometric exercise device.’ The claim said that IA Labs had been in contact with Nintendo during 2007-2008, discussing possible overlaps of IA Labs and Nintendo patents. Emails between IA Labs and Nintendo showed that IA Labs wanted to license its technology to Nintendo. IA Labs was also in talks with Nintendo about a product called Sqweeze, a controller for Wii and PC that’s meant to increase physical activity when gaming.”

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