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OSDL's response to Ballmer's patent claims
"At OSDL, we have a lot of confidence in the robustness of Linux around IP, patents and copyright," said Stuart Cohen, CEO of OSDL. "Some of the world's largest vendors share our view and are willing to stand behind Linux to protect their customers, as are we. HP offers its Linux customers indemnification. So do Red Hat and Novell. Both Novell and IBM have publicly promised to use their extensive patent portfolios to protect Linux customers. And OSDL set up a $10 million legal defense fund for Linux customers. With Linux adoption growing three times faster on the server than any other operating system, customers are clearly not intimidated by FUD and are continuing to embrace Linux." "Over the past 18 months a handful of companies and individuals who are threatened by Linux's success have tried to argue that Linux may infringe others' software patents. We find it interesting that none of those companies or individuals have said which patents Linux may offend. Yet patents are, by their nature, public; inventions must be disclosed in exchange for the rights granted by the PTO. Detractors of Linux on patent grounds should be asked to point to the specific patents that they claim infringe." Thanks, Bret Clement Page One PR for OSDL Office: 303-462-3057 Cell: 303-229-2271 bret@pageonepr.com (Log in to post comments)
OSDL's response to Ballmer's patent claims Posted Nov 19, 2004 22:34 UTC (Fri) by NightMonkey (subscriber, #23051) [Link] http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/biztech/11/19/tech.microsoft.linux3.reut/index.html Boy, it would have been nice if CNN and/or Reuters tried to find a response from the other side. Note that, currently, this is the top Technology article on CNN, and so is on the CNN front page... :(
OSDL's response to Ballmer's patent claims Posted Nov 19, 2004 22:34 UTC (Fri) by NightMonkey (subscriber, #23051) [Link] http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/biztech/11/19/tech.microsoft...
Boy, it would have been nice if CNN and/or Reuters tried to find a response from the other side. Note that, currently, this is the top Technology article on CNN, and so is on the CNN front page... :(
OSDL's response to Ballmer's patent claims Posted Nov 20, 2004 0:21 UTC (Sat) by gte223j (guest, #6492) [Link] "Boy, it would have been nice if CNN and/or Reuters tried to find a response from the other side." I believe that this is an unreal expectation. Kinda like being disappointed by not winning the lottery. :-0
OSDL's response to Ballmer's patent claims Posted Nov 24, 2004 15:39 UTC (Wed) by TxtEdMacs (subscriber, #5983) [Link] Why? You seem to forget that CNN is the most Trusted ([source?/garbage?] - sorry if I got the quote wrong, I stopped watching and do not pay much heed to their news) in the news. Just ask them.
OSDL's response to Ballmer's patent claims Posted Nov 20, 2004 3:01 UTC (Sat) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] OSRM really ought to have phrased their press-release like "Using Linux could open you up to nuisance lawsuits from unscrupulous companies. We have identified 283 patents which could be used in such cases." It is, after all, fighting lawsuits that you ultimately win at substantial short-term cost that OSRM insures against, not any loss due to Linux actually infringing patents, were that to be the court's ruling.
OSDL's response to Ballmer's patent claims Posted Nov 21, 2004 18:39 UTC (Sun) by philips (guest, #937) [Link] IIRC one cannot use patent protected technology knowingly.So after OSRM analysis, does it mean that Linus/friends have to remove all offending methods/ code instances? After all now they know that Linux kernel might/does infringe patents.
OSDL's response to Ballmer's patent claims Posted Nov 21, 2004 19:41 UTC (Sun) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] You can use patented technology (without a license) knowingly, obviously. It's just that, if you are found to be liable, the damages are triple. If, on the other hand, you are found to not actually infringe a patent, there's no penalty for knowing about it. OSRM's claim is that Linux is actually safe, but not so safe that bad people can't cause trouble; if this is true, there's no need to remove anything. The most Linus et al could do would be to sue each patent holder seeking a judgement that Linux doesn't infringe on the patent (that is, get the non-infringement established pro-actively).
In any case, in order to be held liable for willful infringement, you need to know what patent you infringe, not just that something you do infringes some patent, in someone's opinion. With the information they have, the kernel developers would have to remove absolutely everything to know they weren't violating a patent, because they haven't been told what they would have to remove. And OSRM has intentionally not made the list of patents or the sections of code public, for just this reason. If you want, they're willing to tell you (individually) what the patents are, but this means that, if they're wrong about Linux being clear, and you get sued and lose, you'll have to pay three times as much. Furthermore, there's not really any benefit to this, particularly since the chance that Linux infringes is not high enough to actually justify removing functionality to make sure that it absolutely couldn't infringe anything, particularly given the huge difference between what patents say and what companies have been known to claim they say.
If it were quite so easy to force people to remove stuff, Sun would have alledged long ago that every piece of software Microsoft has ever released has infringed a bunch of unspecified patents, and Microsoft would have to stop shipping software and go out of business.
(For that matter, the current set of patent laws is probably unconstitutional under at least some readings of the constitution, because the rationale given for patents in the constitution involves making their contents available to the rest of the industry, so that others don't have to reinvent things; the current laws make it prohibitive, from the standpoint of liability, to actually look at any patents which you could potentially care about. If congress is bound to make the laws they are permitted by the constitution to make only if they satisfy the purposes the constitution lays out for having such laws, the aspects of patent law involving willful violation are unconstitutional. Of course, the current Supreme Court didn't buy a similar argument about copyright law in Eldred v. Ashcroft, considering the explanation to merely be commentary, not restrictive, so a case today (or, at least, last month) would probably not have overturned those laws.)
OSDL's response to Ballmer's patent claims Posted Nov 22, 2004 14:31 UTC (Mon) by job (guest, #670) [Link] Preferrably, it should be more like "using a computer program could open you up to nuisance lawsuits[...]".
OSDL's response to Ballmer's patent claims Posted Nov 22, 2004 18:28 UTC (Mon) by verzonnen (guest, #9406) [Link] Am I mistaken or is it only in the US that "software patents" are used? If so using linux outside of the US would not be a problem in the first place.
However I am worried that US is going to fal even more behind in technology while it has laws like DRM and software patents in place. Ah well lets hope the lawmakers will see the futility of these laws and fix these (stupid) laws....
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