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Microsoft takes on the free world (CNN)Microsoft takes on the free world (CNN)Posted May 15, 2007 15:20 UTC (Tue) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270)In reply to: Microsoft takes on the free world (CNN) by lewis Parent article: Microsoft takes on the free world (CNN)
Microsoft's business is broad enough that I would expect their patent portfolio to cover many, many things that have nothing to do with operating systems...
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Microsoft takes on the free world (CNN) Posted May 16, 2007 10:14 UTC (Wed) by khim (guest, #9252) [Link] You mean 98% of Microsoft's patents cover MS Mouse and MS keyboard ? Hard to believe: Linux distribution (like Debian) include software of all types. Yes, some kinds are not as advanced/professional as MS offerings (yet) but it's quite hard to find anything from MS without at least partial analog in Debian...
Microsoft takes on the free world (CNN) Posted May 16, 2007 13:47 UTC (Wed) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link] MicroPatent shows 15864 patents applied for by or assigned to Microsoft.
I looked at a small sample (two groups of 50 patents). Based on the titles of the patents, no more than 10% seemed likely to involve anything that might be in the core components of a Linux distirbution (obviously, FLOSS is much broader than that and some of the distributions include large numbers of diverse applications).
Going deeper into the patents probably would find some additional ones that might be of concern, but would also eliminate many of tem as applying to specific inventions that aren't used in Linux.
My guess would be they chose a conservative number - patents they thought were pretty obviously infringed.
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