Protecting Open Source with Patents
March 19, 2012
Cooperation and mutual protection. These are traits that have been all too rare lately in the world of potentially patentable technology. However, that’s what IBM and others are pursuing, according to CNN Money’s “The Open Source Movement Enlarges Its Shield.”
The Open Invention Network (OIN) was formed in 2005 by IBM, Novell, Philips, Red Hat, Sony, and NEC with the goal of fostering a nurturing environment for free and open source software. Since then, other big companies such as Google, Oracle, Fujitsu, and Facebook have joined the fold. The organization recognizes that the current patent-grab atmosphere poses a threat to open source projects. CNN senior editor Roger Parloff writes:
OIN has, therefore, acquired a defensive portfolio of strategic patents which it makes available, royalty free, to companies that commit not to assert their own patents against members of the Linux community. Every licensee also then enjoys royalty-free protection from every other licensee’s patent portfolio, at least as it relates to the specific Linux applications that are designated in the license. Today, the licensees’ collective portfolio includes more than 350,000 patents and applications.
OIN CEO Keith Bergelt expects more companies to join in the effort, including, perhaps, such heavy hitters as Samsung, Intel, and Dell. Eventually, he hopes that enough companies will have joined to induce a sense of isolation in the holdouts. Perhaps.
It is refreshing to read about companies protecting the concept of free and open software. Let’s hope the trend continues. The nagging question: Will open source players have the money to cope with a cashed up troll?
Cynthia Murrell, March 19, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
More on the Yahoo Facebook Matter
March 13, 2012
I posted a comment about the Reuters’ take on the Yahoo matter. To Reuters’ credit, the reporter connected Yahoo’s action against Google with Yahoo’s action toward Facebook. The Reuters’ story included the fact that Yahoo was using the same legal team.
I just read “Yahoo Sues Facebook for Patent Infringement, Which Social Network Calls “Puzzling” (Including Filing).” The most useful part of the write up was the direct link to the legal “complaint”.
I wanted to capture my thoughts before my short attention span moves forward:
First, the four Yahoo patents which I find interesting are:
- US6907566, “Method and System for Optimum Placement of Advertisements on a Webpage,” June 14, 2005, filed April 2, 1999. An Overture invention.
- US7100111, “Method and System for Optimum Placement of Advertisements on a Webpage,” August 29, 2006, filed February 14, 2003. An Overture invention.
- US7373599, “Method and System for Optimum Placement of Advertisements on a Webpage,” May 13, 2008, filed February 14, 2003. An Overture invention.
- US7668861, “System and Method to Determine the Validity of an Interaction on a Network,” February 23, 2010, filed September 20, 2007. A Yahoo invention.
The Overture inventions are quite interesting, and I think embrace some approaches which those younger than I assume are “textbook” recipes. Overture was ahead of the pay for placement and online advertising surge. In fact, when I learned about pay for placement, I was quite annoyed. The shift marked the end of precision, recall, and “traditional” assumptions about what results would match a search query. I was correct. Search results in the ad-supported arena are and seem likely to remain unsatisfactory for me. The Yahoo invention was added to the Overture patents in order to show that Yahoo is really a leader in online. I think the company’s trajectory over between 2002 to the present suggests that it is a on a path that tracks below my benchmarks for online success.
Second, the Yahoo filing resonates with the theme of “The Way We Were”. Poignant, bittersweet, and just plain bitter. Here’s the passage I noted from page 4 of the complaint:
Yahoo’s research and development has only grown since its inception. Since 1=997, Yahoo has filed thousands of applications for patens on innovative computing technologies that it has developed. Every year, Yahoo spends hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development so that it can offer its users the most innovative products.
As I have noted in my writings about Yahoo, the company has had some good ideas, but it has not been able to capitalize on them. In search, Yahoo lost out to Google. In pictures, Yahoo is facing threats from Google and Pinterest. In social, Yahoo, like Google, is eating fumes and road grit from Facebook’s diesel party bus.
Third, Yahoo wants more than money. Yahoo wants respect. Here’s the passage I found amusing despite the seriousness of the complaint:
Yahoo is harmed by Facebook’s use of Yahoo’s patented technologies in a way that cannot be compensated for by repayment of a royalty alone.
When I read this sentence, I wanted to pick up my red pencil and add, “Yahoo demands respect.”
I am not a legal eagle. Legal eagles frighten me whether flying alone or in Facebook formation.I think that Yahoo can sue if it wishes. I have been around too long and sufficiently close to some legal hassles to know that predicting the outcome of intellectual property and patent disputes is more difficult than getting the winner of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament right on the Courier Journal’s bracket page. Come to think of it, there will be as many players in this legal matter as there are teams in the NCAA tournament. I don’t even want a scorecard.
Stephen E Arnold, March 13, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Yahoo Reprises Its Google Legal Tactics
March 13, 2012
I read a couple of news stories by “real” journalists about Yahoo’s suing Facebook. A representative example of “real” journalism appears in “Yahoo Sues Facebook for Infringing 10 Patents.” Here’s the passage I noted:
Yahoo has used similar timing to its advantage in the past. Google agreed to issue shares to Yahoo nine days before Google went public in 2004 in exchange for a license to Yahoo’s patents. Google later took a $201 million non-cash charge related to the transaction. In deciding to sue Facebook, Yahoo has retained the same law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, used by Google and other manufacturers in many Android-related smartphone patent cases. Google is a player in social media with its Google+ service.
I recall to run up to Google’s initial public offering. Yahoo sued the Google. My recollection is that the allegations were related to Google’s advertising system and method. Yahoo obtained some know how when it purchased Overture. I think the Google spit out more than $200 million make the legal matter go away.
Here’s how I interpreted the Yahoo action. Yahoo sued Google for alleged infringement of the systems and methods for online advertising. Facebook has lots of Xooglers. Facebook developed online advertising. Therefore, maybe some Xooglers may ispired Yahoo’s action. I call this “where there are Xooglers, there is the possibility of intellectual fire.”
Those friendly, halcyon days in plastic fantastic land are now forever gone. Sniff. I smell a fire in the valley.
Stephen E Arnold, March 13, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
LexisNexis Fails to Make the Leap
March 2, 2012
Leap Day is a bit odd for everyone. It just seems strange to have the 29th added to February every four years. However, for the most part, everyone assumes that Leap Day will cause no major problems. That was not the case for some law librarians who reported their findings in, “Lexis Litigation Lists Lag on LeapDay.”
“While trying to run a Litigant Strategic Profile from LexisNexis’ CourtLink system, we kept noticing that the reports simply wouldn’t run. We contacted Lexis in the morning to see what the issue was and they told us that they would investigate the issue and return our call as soon as they figured out what was causing it, or when they got it corrected. Morning turned to afternoon, and finally we heard back from them with a surprising answer. Turns out that the Litigant Strategic Profiles couldn’t understand February 29th, and therefore the reports simply wouldn’t run. The solution was to not run the reports until March 1st, when the system would be back to normal.”
The author rightly points out that his $2 alarm clock recognizes Leap Day, but a very expensive subscription database cannot. Needless to say, anyone needing Litigant Strategic Profiles on February 29, 2012, would not be satisfied to wait until the next day to continue their projects. The news is a poor reflection on LexisNexis. While the company later denied the Leap Day connection, and maintains it was a non-related “systems issue,” this is a good reminder of how dependent we are as professionals upon information storage and retrieval systems.
Glitches are a reality, bugs a way of life, but when our systems shut down, we shut down. This is all the more reason to invest in trusted, vetted information solutions and have contingency and redundancy plans for when issues arise. Even then, problems will occur, but stay calm and trust those old-fashioned solutions: patience and common sense.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 2, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Exogenous Complexity 3: Being Clever
February 24, 2012
I just submitted my March 2012 column to Enterprise Technology Management, published in London by IMI Publishing. In that column I explored the impact of Google’s privacy stance on the firm’s enterprise software business. I am not letting any tiny cat out of a big bag when I suggested that the blow back might be a thorn in Googzilla’s extra large foot.
In this essay, I want to consider exogenous complexity in the context of the consumerization of information technology and, by extension, on information access in an organization. The spark for my thinking was the write up “Google, Safari and Our Final Privacy Wake-Up Call.”
Here’s a clever action. MIT students put a red truck on top of the dome. For more see http://radioboston.wbur.org/2011/04/06/mit-hacks.
If you do not have an iPad or an iPhone or an Android device, you will want to stop reading. Consumerization of information technology boils down to employees and contract workers who show up with mobile devices (yes, including laptops) at work. In the brave new world, the nanny instincts of traditional information technology managers are little more than annoying nags from a corporate mom.
The reality is that when consumer devices enter the workplace, three externalality happen in my experience.
First, security is mostly ineffective. Clever folks then exploit vulnerable systems. I think this is why clever people say that the customer is to blame. So clever exploits cluelessness. Clever is exogenous for the non clever. There are some actions an employer can take; for example, confiscating personal devices before the employee enters the work area. This works in certain law enforcement, intelligence, and a handful of other environments; for example, fabrication facilities in electronics or pharmaceuticals. Mobile devices have cameras and can “do” video. “Secret” processes can become un-secret in a nonce. In the free flowing, disorganized craziness of most organizations, personal devices are ignored or overlooked. In short, in a monitored financial trading environment, a professional can send messages outside the firm and the bank’s security and monitoring systems are happily ignorant. The cost of dropping a truly secure box around a work place is expensive and beyond the core competency of most information technology professionals.
Second, employees blur information which is “for work” with information which is “for friends, lovers, or acquaintances.” The exogenous factor is political. To fix the problem, rules are framed. The more rule applied to a flawed system, the greater the likelihood is that clever people will exploit systems which ignore the rules. Clever actions, therefore, increase. In short, this is a variation of the Facebook phenomena when a posting can reach many people quickly or lie dormant until the data load explodes like long forgotten Fourth of July fire cracker. As people chase the fire, clever folks exploit the fire. Information time bombs are not thought about by most senior managers, but they are on the radar of those involved in a legal matter and in the minds of some disgruntled programmers. The half life of information is less well understood by most professionals than the difference between a uranium based reactor and a thorium based reactor. Work and life information are blended, and in my opinion, the compound is a dangerous one.
Third, vendors focusing on consumerizing information technology spur adoption of devices and practices which cannot be easily controlled. The data-Hoovering processes, therefore, can suck up information which is proprietary, of high value, and potentially damaging to the information owner. Information is not “like sand grains.” Some information is valueless; other information commands a high price. In fact, modern content processing and data analytic systems can take fragments of information and “fuse” them. To most people these amalgams are of little interest. But to someone with specialized knowledge, the fused data are not god nuggets, the fused data are a chunky rosy diamond, maybe a Pink Panther. As a result, an exogenous factor increases the flow of high value data through uncontrolled channels.
A happy quack to Gunaxin. You can see how clever, computer situations, and real life blend in this “pranking” poster. I would have described the wrapping of equipment in plastic “clever.” But I am the fume hood guy, Woodruff High School, 1958 to 1962. Image source: http://humor.gunaxin.com/five-funny-prank-fails/48387
Now, let’s think about being clever. When I was in high school, I was one of a group of 25 students who were placed in an “advanced” program. Part of the program included attending universities for additional course work. I ended up at the University of Illinois at age 15. I went back to regular high school, did some other Fancy Dan learning programs, and eventually graduated. My specialty was tricking students in “regular” chemistry into modifying their experiments to produce interesting results. One of these suggestions resulted in a fume hood catching fire. Another dispersed carbon strands through the school’s ventilation system. I thought I was clever, but eventually Mr. Shepherd, the chemistry teach, found out that I was the “clever” one. I sat in the hall for the balance of the semester. I adapted quickly, got an A, and became semi-famous. I was already sitting in the hall for writing essays filled with double entendres. Sigh. Clever has its burdens. Some clever folks just retreat into a private world. The Internet is ideal for providing an environment in which isolated clever people can find a “friend.” Once a couple of clever folks hook up, the result is lots of clever activity. Most of the clever activity is not appreciated by the non clever. There is the social angle and the understanding angle. In order to explain a clever action, one has to be somewhat clever. The non clever have no clue what has been done, why, when, or how. There is a general annoyance factor associated with any clever action. So, clever usually gets masked or shrouded in something along the lines, “Gee, I am sorry” or “Goodness gracious, I did not think you would be annoyed.” Apologies usually work because the non clever believe the person saying “I’m sorry” really means it. Nah. I never meant it. I did not pay for the fume hood or the air filter replacement. Clever, right?
What happens when folks from the type of academic experience I had go to work in big companies. Well, it is sink or swim. I have been fortunate because my “real” work experiences began at Halliburton Nuclear Services and continued at Booz, Allen & Hamilton when it was a solid blue chip firm, not the azure chip outfit it is today. The fact that I was surrounded by nuclear engineers whose idea of socializing was arguing about Monte Carlo code and nuclear fuel degradation at the local exercise club. At Booz, Allen the environment was not as erudite as the nuclear outfit, but there were lots of bright people who were actually able to conduct a normal conversation. Nevertheless, the Type As made life interesting for one another, senior managers, clients, and family. Ooops. At the Booz, Allen I knew, one’s family was one’s colleagues. Most spouses had no idea about the odd ball world of big time consulting. There were exceptions. Some folks married a secretary or colleague. That way the spouse knew what work was like. Others just married the firm, converting “quality time” into two days with the dependents at a posh resort.
So clever usually causes one to seek out other clever people or find a circle of friends who appreciate the heat generated by aluminum powder in an oxygen rich environment. When a company employs clever people, it is possible to generalize:
Clever people do clever things.
What’s this mean in search and information access? You probably already know that clever people often have a healthy sense of self worth. There is also arrogance, a most charming quality among other clever people. The non-clever find the arrogance “thing” less appealing.
Let’s talk about information access.
Let’s assume that a clever person wants to know where a particular group of users navigate via a mobile device or a traditional browser. Clever folks know about persistent cookies, workarounds for default privacy settings, spoofing built in browser functions, or installation of rogue code which resets certain user selected settings on a heartbeat or restart. Now those in my advanced class would get a kick out these types of actions. Clever people appreciate the work of clever people. When the work leaves the “non advanced” in a clueless state, the fun curve does the hockey stick schtick. So clever enthuses those who are clever. The unclever are, by definition, clueless and not impressed. For really nifty clever actions, the unclever get annoyed, maybe mad. I was threatened by one student when the Friday afternoon fume hood event took place. Fortunately my debate coach intervened. Hey, I was winning and a broken nose would have imperiled my chances at the tournament on Saturday.
Now more exogenous complexity. Those who are clever often ignore unintended consequences. I could have been expelled, but I figured my getting into big trouble would have created problems with far reaching implications. I won a State Championship in the year of the fume hood. I won some silly scholarship. I published a story in the St Louis Post Dispatch called “Burger Boat Drive In.” I had a poem in a national anthology. So, I concluded that a little sport in regular chemistry class would not have any significant impact. I was correct.
However, when clever people do clever things in a larger arena, then the assumptions have to be recalibrated. Clever people may not look beyond their cube or outside their computer’s display. That’s when the exogenous complexity thing kicks in.
So Google’s clever folks allegedly did some work arounds. But the work around allowed Microsoft to launch an attack on Google. Then the media picked up on the work around and the Microsoft push back. The event allowed me to raise the question, “So workers bring their own consumerized device to work. What’s being tracked? Do you know? Answer: Nope.” What’s Google do? Apologize. Hey, this worked for me with the fume hood event, but on a global stage when organizations are pretty much lost in space when it comes to control of information, effective security, and managing crazed 20 somethings—wow.
In short, the datasphere encourages and rewards exogenous behavior by clever people. Those who are unclever take actions which sets off a flood of actions which benefit the clever.
Clever. Good sometimes. Other times. Not so good. But it is better to be clever than unclever. Exogenous factors reward the clever and brutalize the unclever.
Stephen E Arnold, February 24, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Oracle Presses for Bigger Payoff in SAP Suit
February 17, 2012
Oracle is a feisty outfit.
Not satisfied with its slashed settlement, “Oracle Wants New Trial Against SAP After Reduced Verdict,” reports Bloomberg Businessweek. Jurors had awarded the company $1.3 billion for now defunct SAP unit TomorrowNow’s illegal Oracle software downloads; SAP never disputed the charges.
U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton disagreed with the logic of the jury, which determined the generous amount while contemplating a hypothetical license Oracle might have granted to SAP in a different reality. Writer Karen Gullo reports:
Hamilton said there was no evidence that Oracle had ever granted a license that would permit a competitor to use its software to compete for Oracle customers. Oracle can’t recover lost license fees because, without such evidence, any award would be subjective and speculative and not based on objective evidence, she said.
Good point.
Oracle’s pursuit of a new trial suggests that Oracle will keep on with legal proceedings regardless of the outcomes. What does this mean for the Oracle vs Google trial? Our prediction: big paydays for lawyers.
If I were a Google attorney (which I am most assuredly not), I would tuck away the notion that Oracle just keeps suing and suing and suing, just like an Energizer Bunny with a law degree.
Cynthia Murrell, February 17, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
New Google Lawsuit Targets Google Tags
February 9, 2012
More legal hassles for Google, this time over little flags for maps. Couldn’t this one have been handled with a couple of phone calls? Online Media Daily reports, “Google Sued Over Defunct ‘Tags’ Program.”
The Google Tags program gave business owners the change to attach photos, coupons, and other information to their local listings. Rachel Frezza and Mauro Rodriguez, owners of two separate North Carolina businesses, have filed suit after participating in a free one-month trial. It seems they found some unexpected Googley charges on their credit cards. I submit that most of us have experience with “free trials” that resulted in errant charges. I never considered suing over them. Well, not seriously.
Suing Google is a popular move right now, though, and I suppose Frezza and Rodriguez couldn’t resist. The case could turn into a class-action suit. How far will it go?
Besides billing mishaps, the article states,
Both entrepreneurs allege in their complaint that the company refused to delete their billing information. They argue that California law requires merchants to delete financial data upon request when it’s no longer needed. They also allege that Google’s retention of the data places them ‘at a heightened risk of identity theft, fraud and catastrophic financial loss.’
Yeah, them and anyone else who has ever entered account information at a merchant site. If you want to protect your sensitive info, keep it off the Internet. Ever heard of a prepaid debit card? Problem solved.
Cynthia Murrell, February 9, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Privacy Thunder Clouds Forming for Google
February 3, 2012
I come from the school of thought that when you do ANYTHING on the public Internet, that action will be monitored or will be monitorable. I am okay with this, but I understand some folks are made nervous about predictive modeling, real time analytics, clustering, log file parsing, entity extraction, and data fusion. I suppose folks need to learn what methods are in wide use and do some thinking about what actions online are appropriate for them. I caused a bit of a stir at one of the text analytics programs last year when I shared research results which indicate that online actions can be tweaked using some interesting, but little known, methods. In short, privacy is one of those things that uninformed people talk about. When the conversation involves those who understand nuances of online, the definition of “privacy” needs to be nailed down. Most folks don’t bother. Everyone knows what privacy is, right?
I find the thunderclouds forming and heading toward Google both amusing and somewhat disturbing. There are folks who have been doing more exciting and interesting things with user data for many years. Nope, I won’t provide names. I am not a journalist, although some home economics majors at public relations firms find this fact tough to swallow.
Consider this Reuters news story. Keep in mind that Reuters is part of Thomson Reuters, and it has quite a number of online properties and a significant amount of information about its users. The company acquired ClearForest, at the time one of the leaders in filtering information for flakes of gold. Thomson Reuters also licensed or bought the Lexalytics’ system to do some interesting things with the unstructured text flowing through the Reuters and Thomson systems.
Now navigate to “EU Regulators Want Google to Halt New Privacy Policy.” The news story asserts that the regulators see Google as having a moped. Just hit the brake and stop. Actually Google is more like a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. Stopping the darned thing takes planning, time, and quite a bit of work. Toss in a turn and one has to figure out how to get the fishing boats out of the way. When the aircraft carrier is chugging along at cruising speed, sudden maneuvers are not part of the captain’s expected routine. What happens if the stopping or maneuvering goes wrong? Well, check out the Costa cruise captain. He’s under house arrest and easy to find.
Here’s the passage in the news story which I noted:
In light of the above, we call for a pause in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis.” The European commissioner in charge of data protection, Viviane Reding, welcomed the move, saying it was a necessary to establish that EU data rules were being firmly applied. “The Commission therefore calls on Europe’s data protection authorities to ensure that EU law is fully complied with in Google’s new privacy policy,” she said in a statement.
I also found the grace note poignant:
Google said the raising of concerns came as a surprise.
Google has several challenges on its hands. Let me capture them before my addled goose brain awash with weird medications fails me:
- There is the advertising revenue problem; that is, traffic up, spendable dough down. Add to this problem the fact that mobile advertising is not as rich of a golden goose as the 2004 to 2007 online variety, and you have a looming revenue / net profit problem unrelated to Google’s friends in government.
- There are financially and technically capable competitors: Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft, among others. Unlike the period from 1998 to 2007, Google now has to cope with marketplace push back and active resistance from competitors with different core competencies.
- There are a broad range of business fronts on which Google is focusing resources. Trimming small scale projects is essentially irrelevant in light of the market sectors in which Google is actively trying to expand market share: mobile, online advertising, enterprise services, and consumer social services. As a result, management’s ability is put to the test and, as the financial results for the last quarter suggest, is stretched.
- Legal challenges abound and some seem to be open ended and add friction to the smooth operation of the company; for example, books and the dispute with Oracle.
The net net is that Google’s scrutiny at privacy may bog down the company even more than its on going activities. Unlike a dollars and cents issue, unease about privacy may end up one of the more costly challenges Google faces. Opportunity cost may outweigh the legal fees associated with the European storm which is racing forward.
Stephen E Arnold, February 3, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Enough Already with the Books
January 29, 2012
The fire continues to burn. According to the IT World article “Google Wants Groups Removed From Books Lawsuits,” Google asked a federal court to dismiss copyright claims against its Google Books project by The Authors Guild and The American Society Of Media Photographers (ASMP). Google argues:
The associations are not proper parties to this copyright infringement case because they themselves do not claim to own any copyright at issue.
In 2005 The Authors Guild and The American Association of Publishers brought a lawsuit against Google in order to block them from scanning books and making the digital content available in libraries and online. They argue Google did not get permission to scan the books and by doing so they are violating copyright laws. ASMP filed their own lawsuit against Google in 2010 and the two lawsuits are being considered together. Interesting enough, Google did not file a dismissal motion against the Association of Publishers and it is believed that a settlement is in the works between the two.
Enough is enough, get on with it already. Hopefully an end is in sight because this fire fizzled ages go.
April Holmes, Janaury 29, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Proportionality Cuts eDiscovery Costs
January 28, 2012
There is no question that eDiscovery has gotten expensive and collateral discovery disputes are on the rise. In response to this trend, the concept of proportionality is being emphasized. Existing provisions are often bypassed and numerous are in support of an amended federal rule regarding proportionality. In fact, an amended rule is already in place in Utah. An interesting article titled “New Utah Rule 26: A Blueprint for Proportionality in eDiscovery” tells us more. The article informs us:
Utah Rule 26 has changed the permissible scope of discovery to expressly condition that all discovery meet the standards of proportionality. That means parties may seek discovery of relevant, non-privileged materials “if the discovery satisfies the standards of proportionality.” This effectively shifts the burden of proof on proportionality from the responding party to the requesting party. Indeed, Utah Rule 26(b)(3) specifically codifies this stunning change: ‘The party seeking discovery always has the burden of showing proportionality and relevance.’
Utah Rule 26 could be a potential model for implementing a federal rule and make proportionality the standard governing eDiscovery. The new federal rule based on this blueprint could be amended to expressly condition discovery on meeting the principles of proportionality. This could drastically lower the costs surrounding eDiscovery. On the other hand, when clients pay, advisors bill. Ultimately clients have to manage legal fees, proportionality or not.
Andrea Hayden, January 28, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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