Submitted by Reminiscent of the much-discussed deal with Novell, Microsoft has entered into a patent agreement with Amazon, in which both companies promise not to sue one another over patent-related issues. So far, that doesn’t sound all too uncommon, but what makes this one stand out is that Microsoft explicitly mentions Amazon’s use of open source technology such as Linux, rekindling an old claim from Microsoft.
Patent cross-licensing agreements are anything but special, and are struck around the world all the time. Microsoft, the largest software company in the world, is probably sitting on a massive pile of patents, making it an attractive partner in patent cross-licensing agreements. Now that Amazon has become a soft and hardware company as well, it only makes sense for them to cover their bases.
Under the agreement, Amazon promises to pay Microsoft an undisclosed sum of money, which could indicate that Amazon is trying to ward off a patent lawsuit from Redmond. The deal obviously gives both companies access to each other’s patent portfolios.
What makes this deal special is that it brings back memories about the patent cross-licensing agreement Microsoft struck with Novell. In the press release, Microsoft specifically mentions open source and Linux as being covered by the deal, which means that Amazon further solidifies the patent threats Microsoft has made on occasion towards Linux and the open source community.
“The agreement provides each company with access to the other’s patent portfolio and covers a broad range of products and technology, including coverage for Amazon’s popular e-reading device, Kindle, which employs both open source and Amazon’s proprietary software components, and Amazon’s use of Linux-based servers,” the press release states.
“We are pleased to have entered into this patent license agreement with Amazon.com,” says Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel for Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft, “Microsoft’s patent portfolio is the largest and strongest in the software industry, and this agreement demonstrates our mutual respect for intellectual property as well as our ability to reach pragmatic solutions to IP issues regardless of whether proprietary or open source software is involved.”
Since Microsoft never provided any insight into the supposed 200+ patents Linux infringes upon, the general assumption has been that the claim is bogus, and nothing but “FUD”. However – and this is the really scary part – Amazon is no small fish. They’re a big company, and most certainly have an extensive set of patent experts that have pruned Microsoft’s patent portfolio regarding open source components in use by Amazon.
In other words, as much as I dislike the whole software patent mess, and Microsoft’s threats in particular, Amazon is not some small company that can be bullied into an agreement – I’m sure Amazon signed the patent agreement because, well, they found that Microsoft’s claims are valid. It’s not something I want to hear, nor is it something that should be possible, but the law is, sadly, the law.
After Novell and Tom Tom, this is yet another major company which solidifies Microsoft’s patent claims. Maybe, just maybe, Microsoft simply has a point with their 200+ patents claim? I dislike that idea as much as anyone, but it might be time to accept that this could very well be reality.
Of course Microsoft has bunches of patents which can be applied to various things in a Linux distribution. Most likely all major software companies have some, seeing how wide patents can be and the raw number of applications made. It seems unlikely that Microsoft has any complaints which are sufficient to make bringing the patents to court (which would gain them little even if they were to win) however. There is probably a deal involving a collection of actually interesting patents at the bottom of this, but a grab-bag cross-licensing deal is bound to involve a lot of iffy stuff as well.
The patent system is quite broken, and one can’t really blame Microsoft for taking part, since it is more or less a question of a cold war mutually-assured-destruction kind of environment between corporations.
Edited 2010-02-23 16:16 UTC
Suing Linux would probably end up being one big patent war, considering how many companies using Linux could end up be dragged into it, IBM, Google, Red Hat, Novell, Intel, Canonical etc
There are a large number of patents donated by those companies and others towards the defence of Linux. Open Invention Network and the Patent commons are two of the organisations that collect such patents (Google them if you want).
If Microsoft were really interested in gaining shareholder value from their patent holding, and at the same time really interested in interoperability, then Microsoft could simply join the OIN and the Patent Commons and get the benefit of those patent holdings as well as their own.
Instead, Microsoft choose to scam companies like Amazon, who did not write GNU/Linux but who are using it.
When we come down to it, GNU/Linux is a work-alike (or a re-write, if you will) of UNIX, which in turn is a technology which pre-dates Windows, and even pre-dates Microsoft, by decades. Given this fact, and also given Microsoft’s avoidance of dealing directly with the Linux Foundation and OIN and Patent Commons, it is highly unlikely IMO that there is really any technical merit at all in Microsoft’s claims.
It is probably just a case of being cheaper for companies that Microsoft attack to sign a deal (that probably costs them nothing) but which lets Microsoft crow about the deal in the press.
… get over it.
Edited 2010-02-23 16:27 UTC
MS gets sued all the time. So it’s not anti-MS. Linux, and just about all other open source and proprietary software, infringes on myriad patents from myriad patent holders.
Absolutely, the patent system is completely broken, and only favors those with deep enough pockets to afford the army of lawyers.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft’s motives behind this was to gain some of Amazon’s patents (they are after all moving into the Amazon / iTunes arena slightly with their new Windows Phone).
This method would not only allow Microsoft to quietly build upon Zune, but also publicly strike a PR blow at their competitors (two birds, one stone).
It could very well be that the a new Microsoft App store is run by or through Amazon which offers access tremendously larger than anywhere else. Wouldn’t you think that now, marketing/publicity wise that having an Amazon store would be more appealing than a Microsoft App store?
More appealing, but less likely as Microsoft will want to develop their own product.
What’s more likely is compatibility with Amazon’s music and movie catalogue while maintaining Microsoft’s own app catalogue (and obviously Xbox Live)
I can’t see Microsoft wanting to develop their own music library in time for Windows Phone’s launch (but I could be wrong) and I find it highly unlikely that Amazon would pay towards the patent deal if Microsoft were planning to use Amazon for their app store (logically, Amazon should be charging for this deal rather than Microsoft).
So given Microsoft’s highly public and persistent drives into various online services – I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Microsoft wont be using Amazon to power Windows Phone’s app store.
what’s more likely is Microsoft will develop their own technology – perhaps using some of Amazon’s specs and patents.
Or Microsoft is attempting to move the technology behind Amazon’s services into the Microsoft camp. Amazon using Microsoft technology on their back end would be one hell of a selling point to other companies.
While this is certainly possible, I suspect it may have more to do with preempting concerns that Amazon’s EC3 “cloud” technologies might encompass patents that Microsoft might infringe upon with their growing “Live” plans.
[Edit: Changed “MicroSoft” -> “Microsoft” — I always want to capitalize the ‘s’]
Edited 2010-02-24 00:49 UTC
Isn’t that what I suggested?
[edit]
sorry, it wasn’t. I was focusing on another area of their cloud systems
Edited 2010-02-24 09:16 UTC
This whole op-ed relies on the untenable tenet that it is possible to write something that goes beyond a simple “Hello World” program and not violate somebody’s patents.
It is isn’t and that’s why software patents are an abomination.
How pathetic that Microsoft must resort to patent threats, despite being the largest software house in the world and the existing availability of Copyright protection for all of its software.
Articles like this summarize why there is no such thing as a “New Kinder, Gentler Microsoft” as we are led to believe whenever Microsoft makes a small gesture towards being reasonable.
Sad. Really. Pathetically Sad.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Hello World is covered by some patent or infringes on someone’s patent. I can imagine the patent saying something like this:
Provides an interface to display a single line of text, including but not limited to letters and providing for the ability to set said text on a line of its own with no other output present.
Boiled down: Prints a line of text on screen followed by a newline character.
As busted as software patents are both in theory and execution, I wouldn’t be surprised one little bit to see something like this. I hope I didn’t just give the patent troll companies out there any ideas.
Amazon could be infringing on a number of patents that might be related to different parts of the kindle. Some of which might be in any linux distro, others might be due to specific parts of the kindle that would not affect any other linux distro.
As everyone knows, MS has a huge patent arsenal. Its highly likely that the kindle does infringe on some of Microsoft’s patents. Its possible that Amazon only agreed with the non linux related patents, but MS chose to license all of the patents. That way MS can point to Amazon, Novell, et all and say “hey look these big companies know that linux infringes on our patents” when neither actually think that.
In any case, I think I’ll continue my trend towards weaning myself off MS regardless of the technical merits of their software.
I came here to say the same thing. I don’t believe the reason Amazon agreed on the cross licensing had anything to do with Linux related patents.
My best guess as to what happened is Microsoft brought to Amazon’s attention a patent infringement, this was probably related to one of its products (maybe the Kindle), Amazon realized that claim had merit and agreed to the deal. The whole agreement was made to generalized and vague which enables them to continue their FUD campaign.
If Microsoft had a valid case they would have taken it up with the likes of IBM or Oracle who are actually selling Linux solutions not just using servers.
The AT&T patents that SCO claims were sold to Novell 1993 and to them in 1995 are now near or at the 20 year mark anyway. The SCO cases began in 2007 and although they lost they continue to appeal decisions but in ~3 years it will no longer matter.
Ditto for many of Microsoft’s more relevant patents for Windows 95 that are due to expire in 2013 as well.
The patent system sucks especially since the explosion of home computers happened less than 20 years ago but hopefully even if it isn’t reformed the problem should matter slightly less with time as the patents enter public domain after 20 years.
Edited 2010-02-23 21:05 UTC
As an interesting side note: What if patent length was dependant on the number of patents issued in that field over a given time period? This would reward the true invators in a field who were the first to come up with something really novel that no one had remotely thought of, while punishing those that abuse the system.
A higher rate of innovation means that technologies are being rapidly obsoleted and they need to be returned to the public domain faster for the good of the industry. I haven’t’ thought out all of the consequences, but I think it sounds decent.
If only it were that simple. They are suing over things they claim IBM did when the patents were (to the extent that they actually own them) valid. Their contention is that they suffered business losses due to illegal behavior by IBM. I don’t agree with them, but their case will not go away with the patents.
Just because their patents (if they are theirs at all) can be ignored in a few years, doesn’t mean they could be ignored 8 years ago and they will continue to try to prove that they owned them and that IBM infringed upon them and that they are owed recompense. They will do so until the courts finally shut them down for good.
The SCO case wasn’t about patents, it was about copyright. AT&T sold Unix to Novell, including all relevant copyrights. Novell licensed Unix to SCO, but withheld transferring copyrights (and true ownership), since they couldn’t afford the asking price for the whole shebang.
SCO casually overlooked this small detail and sued IBM + dog for copyright infringement due to including Unix code in linux, despite the fact that SCO didn’t hold the copyrights and couldn’t actually find any code that infringed the copyrights they didn’t hold anyways.
The whole thing was a tragic farce, but it still pales in comparison to the tragedy of the broken patent system.
Novell licensed Unix to SCO, but withheld transferring copyrights (and true ownership), since they couldn’t afford the asking price for the whole shebang.
SCO casually overlooked this small detail and sued IBM + dog for copyright infringement due to including Unix code in linux, despite the fact that SCO didn’t hold the copyrights and couldn’t actually find any code that infringed the copyrights they didn’t hold anyways.
I just want to point out here that the first SCO is not the same as the second SCO. It’s something that has become very muddled in the continuing saga of SCO vs IBM.
Novell sold the UNIX business sans copyrights to the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), a respected x86 UNIX vendor. The Santa Cruz Operation saw the Writing on the Wall for UNIX and decided to get out of that business and continue with their successful middleware. In the process they sold the UNIX business (sans Copyights) but with the SCO trademark and renamed themselves Tarantella after their middleware product.
At the time Caldera Systems, a well known Linux vendor bought the UNIX business and then transformed itself in to The SCO Group (SCO), the company who sued IBM and their own customers on frivolous delusions of UNIX ownership and imagined infringement of UNIX rights in Linux.
What we love to hate is the Linux vendor gone bad, not old SCO the x86 UNIX vendor.