October 13th, 2007
Did Microsoft send in the trolls?
Our own Stephen Shankland at C|Net has seen the other shoe drop on Steve Ballmer’s patent threat. (Found this cute guy at Funkydung.com.)
Two patent trolls, Technology Licensing Corp. of Nevada and IP Innovation, a unit of Acacia Technologies, have filed suit against Novell and Red Hat for alleged violations of U.S. Patent 5,072,412, which covers a “User interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects.”
The patent was originally granted in 1991 to Xerox.
I call these companies patent trolls because they only exist for holding and licensing patents, rather than producing products. TLC has pictures of the patent office on its home page. Acacia’s home page calls it the “leader in technology licensing.”
I also use the term because the suit was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, a notoriously friendly court for patent plaintiffs.
The suit comes just as the Senate is debating HR 1908, a bill supported by tech companies but opposed by those in pharmaceuticals, that would prevent most filings in the Texas court. It would also allow for quick appeals on decisions about what patents mean.
Pamela Jones of Groklaw detects the fine hand of Microsoft at work here. Two former Microsoft executives, Jonathan Taub and Brad Brunell, joined Acacia in the last several months. She concludes:
I think SCO II has arrived. Except it won’t be just one. It will be one after another, just like Ballmer predicted. Until Linux gives up the ghost. In their dreams.
I agree. This could be just what forces action on HR 1908, especially if another Eolas can show up to attack Microsoft. The whole tech sector might end up being owned by lawyers, and Jones will become a billionaire.
But if the U.S. patent system denies innovation, and allows only immense companies with fleets of lawyers to innovate, innovation will move to China, and should.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 10/14/07
