software patents News and Articles

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) perceives the free trade agreement of the EU with Korea as a massive competitive disadvantage to the EU and a danger to software developers, free software projects and small and mid-sized companies.

A further patent by Microsoft brings the software patent discussion to a renewed boil: the software giant has claims on "sudo."

The U.S. is known for its patent friendliness. But a Supreme Court decision in 2008 overturned a patent application by Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw for a risk mitigation process. Now Red Hat is using the so-called Bilski case in support of software non-patentability.

Following Microsoft's recent sale of 22 patents, Red Hat has accused Redmond of implementing a classic FUD campaign against open source software.

The Open Invention Network (OIN) through a trust company has bought 22 Microsoft patents related to Linux.

Ubuntu has introduced a new Patent Policy to help developers and rights holders deal with software patent issues. With the Private Support, Canonical hopes to improve its revenue.

Members of the Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), the Piratenpartei (Pirate Party), Greenpeace, the Misereor Catholic organization, and farmers' unions against the European Patent Office (EPO) recently assembled at a rally in Munich, Germany. Demonstrators included Richard Stallman, who added his own testimonial to those united against the EPO.

Microsoft's current patent suit against navigation software maker TomTom has caused quite a stir in the Open Source arena and might turn into a wave of MS attacks on Linux.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is persisting in its worldwide battle against software patents with comprehensive background information and has hired lobbyist Ciaran O'Riordan to fight the next round.