Feds rubberstamp Novell patent deal The US government will permit the sale of 882 Novell patents to a Microsoft-led consortium after the group agreed revise its deal. But although the US Department of Justice (DoJ) is letting the deal proceed, it has warned that it will investigate distribution of Novell's patents to the consortium, known as CPTN Holdings. …
...namely a prohibition on adding patent royalties, and an implicit patent grant. But to make those protections explicit (for Linux, at least), the agreement also stipulates coverage by the OIN licence, e.g. http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/pat_license_agreement.php
"Among the revisions, Microsoft will sell back to Attachmate all of the Novell patents it would have bought, but it will continue to receive a license for the use of those patents; EMC won't acquire 33 Novell patents and applications that are related to virtualization software; all of the patents acquired will be subject to the GNU General Public License and the Open Invention Network--open-source and Linux licenses, respectively; CPTN won't have the right to limit which of the patents are available on the Linux license; and CPTN and its owners won't try to infuence or encourage Novell or Attachmate to change which of the patents are available under the Linux license."
Microsoft by most knowledgeable accounts is a predatory company. When it can't "win" with authentic innovation ( What authentic aspect of x window system did they actually invent )
Then they win by the espousing the worst example of patentable concepts.
An idea expressed as mathematics and logic initiated by others and then stolen into some perversion of law corrupted by modern intent... instead of what the law was created to do so many years ago. Software patents in the modern sense is a perversion of patent law. They and everyone else know it.
Lawyers feed on this perversion to the detriment of the entire world.
Who but a few of the greediest scum of the earth benefit from this.
What a waste of human effort, tens perhaps hundreds of millions of (name your money) blown completely into nothingness... its not the money that matters its the pure waste of human effort trying to fight this official injustice plague of the modern world..
"Concern was heightened by the fact that the patents being sold have never been made public"
surely you mean 'that WHICH particular patents being sold' because as far as I know, when a patent is granted it is published, including the name of the entity that makes the patent claims
how can the public, or at least those interested, not be able do a search of Novell owned patents and figure out, for the most part, which patents are involved ?
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