"Microsoft is not the real patent threat [that] Linux and open source developers should be worried about", said Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. "In fact, the software giant will itself be fighting against the software patents system within a few years", Shuttleworth predicted...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/2007...C_mrAxiUKor7oF

shuttleworth has a more positive opinion about microsoft than most GNU/Linux developers & users have...

personally i trust microsoft about as much as you can trust a rattlesnake...

I think Shuttleworth is just watching out what he says, especially since he is the Top Guy at Ubuntu... Being polite to the enemy all and all that...

His comments seem reasonable, like this one:

In other words, patent trolls that "discover" some idea someone else is using but hasn't patented, patent it, and then sue. I believe this is one of many reasons that most software patents need to be rejected and flushed out of the system.

"Say NO to software patents"

I second that.

But hasn't it always been that -- lawyers are the only winners. In IT or any other business. Actually I can only think of one place where lawyers (and, of course, companies that are built from them) aren't the winning team, and I wouldn't want to be there either.

deepclutch, I would reconsider that signature, and if twice isn't enough, take a third thought. No offence.

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Uh, no, it doesn't work that way. if the idea is already in use, then it is "prior art" and the patent cannot be granted. If granted, it can be attacked (without a lawsuit) within the patent office and rescinded -- pretty quickly, too.

What the patent trolls do is buy patents that are not being enforced for whatever reason, and start enforcing them, or try to, anyway.

What I get a kick from is when these companies that sue for breaching their intellectual property complain about "trolls" of one stripe or another. Respect for property rights cannot be one-sided. The complaint by the companies that whine the loudest is simply that they've been caught and cannot freeload anymore. They might have a moral argument if they let others piggyback on them the way they do on others, but most companies whining about "trolls" only go one way.

I understand your point, but if that was the case, Microsoft would be silent. Many Windows ideas came from Apple, BSD, etc.

Let me add that I know of someone who did what I described on multiple occasions. A lot of people did not like him, but he made money. The reason is that it is typically a lot cheaper for companies to pay off someone who threatens them than actually litigate to defend their "rights." Consider Microsoft's posturing with Linux companies. You know they need to be fought, but do you really want to be the one served by a process server working on a case for Microsoft?

That is, the patent-requestor as the legal (!!) obligation to provide the US Patent Office with any known "prior art" with his patent application. But the Patent Office doesn't check if any prior art that wasn't mentioned in the application-form actually exists. They simply assume it doesn't. Good (or actually bad) example is the JMRI project: http://jmri.sourceforge.net/ Click on "KAM dispute"...

I am so tired about software pantents, they are holding back the it industry

I personally, am not terribly afraid of litigation from Microsoft. In fact I'd welcome it. But then I have very little to lose from it. There are certain advantages to being poor.

^ LOL!
but law making bodies who are responsible for the growth of such companies.

IDEAS are not patentable, only the implementation of the idea. I can look at your patented invention, recognize the idea, engineer around it, and do the same thing. That is jake.

The difficulty people have is that patents are not like copyrights and cannot be like copyrights. Copyright permits even identical works if one can show an independent source. Patents prohibit identical works, even if one proves independent discovery.

We've had nuisance suits ever since courts were invented, and we've had liars whining that meritorious suits were in fact nuisance suits for just as long.

Juggling semantics just takes us back to your original statement. You mentioned that an idea in use shows prior art. Apple and *BSD didn't just have ideas. They had released software based on those ideas. Microsoft used them at a later date.