Weekly Edition
Return to the Press page
| |||||||||||||
Windows vs. Linux: The Patent Tax (Software Freedom Law Center)
The Software Freedom Law Center takes
a look at the hidden taxes added to MS Windows. "With tax day
approaching in America, we at the Software Freedom Law Center wanted to
share some important information about the hidden taxes added to every copy
of Microsoft's Windows operating system. If you run a computer using
Windows, you're not just paying for the programmers who put the program
together and the corporate operations that brought it to market. You're
also paying a hidden tax of well over $20 that Microsoft has had to pay to
other patent holders. This is true whether you bought your copy of Windows
on CD or pre-installed on a laptop, desktop, or server machine."
(Log in to post comments)
Windows vs. Linux: The Patent Tax (Software Freedom Law Center) Posted Apr 17, 2007 16:42 UTC (Tue) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] I'm probably being overly generous to Microsoft, but this certainly puts another potential spin on their acquisition of patents over the past several years. If you have to play in that arena it is very valuable to do so from a position of strength.
The fact that it set them up for a potential attack on Linux and other Open Source software was likely just a nice bonus.
Of course this whole thing just illustrates the absurdity of software patents in general.
Windows vs. Linux: The Patent Tax (Software Freedom Law Center) Posted Apr 18, 2007 19:01 UTC (Wed) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link] Of course this whole thing just illustrates the absurdity of software patents in general.Software Patents are no more absurd than non software patents, we just happen to be highly aware of the absurdity of software patents because we have domain knowledge in this field and because software happens to have other properties that make the absurdity obvious to a larger crowd, such as the easy sharing nature of software.
Windows vs. Linux: The Patent Tax (Software Freedom Law Center) Posted Apr 18, 2007 20:07 UTC (Wed) by mikov (subscriber, #33179) [Link] I am not so sure. Non-software patents are about "aspects of technology that involve concrete laws of physics rather than abstract laws of thought" (quoting from Knuth).
On the practical side, non-software patents typically require significant investment to create and more importantly to implement. For example an ordinary person is not likely to violate a non-software patent in his basement - it is just not feasible.
Patents are about balancing the benefits to society and the inventors. It is not about perfect fairness or freedom, but about allowing society to function. With software patents the balance has shifted unacceptably in one direction, so they no longer serve their purpose.
On the other hand there is no conclusive evidence that patents in general (non-software ones) are detrimental.
Windows vs. Linux: The Patent Tax (Software Freedom Law Center) Posted Apr 17, 2007 17:07 UTC (Tue) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] The paper pretends to speak about software idea patents, but it's really a sales pitch for using open source software over microsoft's.
I thought the Software Freedom Law center was somehow affiliated with or related to the FSF, but I'm not too sure they would be all that approving of this paper.
SFLC / FSF Posted Apr 18, 2007 1:02 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] The SFLC is headed by Eben Moglen, who also serves as the FSF's head attorney. But they now work with a number of other groups as well, e.g. the Gnome Foundation, and they've worked to help get software patents overturned (e.g. the Blackboard patent).
Are all software patents just "tax"? Posted Apr 17, 2007 17:27 UTC (Tue) by beveal (guest, #43638) [Link] How much of that patent "tax" actually goes to companies who pay their developers to come up with useful, non-obvious ideas for software? I'll agree that the answer probably isn't "all of it." But I don't think it's "none of it," either, as the article seems to suggest.
Are all software patents just "tax"? Posted Apr 17, 2007 23:05 UTC (Tue) by AJWM (guest, #15888) [Link] > How much of that patent "tax" actually goes to companies who pay their developers to come up with useful, non-obvious ideas for software?
I would guess "none". Are there really any companies that pay developers to do specifically that? There are plenty of software companies that pay developers to develop specific projects, and happily pass on to their lawyers almost everything they do on the off-chance that there's something vaguely patentable (under USPTO's current interpretation of the law, anyway) in there, but that's not the same thing at all.
Close to none Posted Apr 18, 2007 1:04 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] Companies that are still developing product usally cross-license their patents with the big players. You can't sue Microsoft for patent infringement while you yourself are in the software business, as they will just turn around and sue you for infringing one or more of their patents.
Close to none Posted Apr 18, 2007 2:25 UTC (Wed) by fjf33 (subscriber, #5768) [Link] Unless you yourself are not doing anything. Then you cannot be sued but can sue the skin out of everyone else.
|
|||||||||||||