Two weeks ago a US federal court ordered Microsoft to pay nearly $300 million for patent infringement and banned the sales of one of their flagship products, Ms Word*. This makes me smile…
Lets remember that until the mid 90s this people (I mean Microsoft) and particularly Bill Gates spoke against software patents and warned that patents could bring innovation to a standstill and wipe out smaller firms (most programmers still believe this). In fact, Microsoft had only relied on copyright and not patents until 1991. And yet, in 1994 they were the “only” software company to advocate for software patents at a hearing with the US Patent and Trademark Office.
So why did they change their mind? Well, in 1998 some light was shed on this issue when an internal document outlining strategies relating to Open Source software was leaked to Eric S. Raymond**. This document not only admitted that Open Source and Linux in particular were seen as a major threat, but also proposed a number of strategies to disrupt their development.
Among the proposed strategies was the patent issue. They thought that by acquiring software patents they could effectively force Open Source software and users to keep clear from their software or else go to court, where they would always have more resources: money.
For a company that claims to be on the side of the law and that actively accuses its competitors of “piracy” it is surprising when you look at their record. Microsoft has probably paid more in fines for unfair competition*** and patent infringement than the whole Open Source movement together.
So who is the “real” pirate?
References:
* Judge bans Microsoft Word sales, BBC News.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8197990.stm
** Microsoft Halloween documents leak, Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Halloween_documents_leak
*** Microsoft loses landmark EU antitrust case, AFP.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hWOR1Eve6Igfk0CCQP11LhJNEyaQ
Tags: copyright, piracy, software patents
