Microsoft aims patent guns at Red Hat
[Quote:]
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has warned users of Red Hat Linux that they will have to pay Microsoft for its intellectual property.
“People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us,” Ballmer said last week at a company event in London discussing online services in the UK.
The IP laws require that when an IP owner notices an infringement they have an obligation to notify the infringer of the exact nature of the infringement in order to allow them to mitigate the damages by removing the infringement. Failure to do that will render any subsequent claims for damage moot. Microsoft has been at this game so long that any claim they now specify will be laughed out of court.
“Every time an Eolas comes to Microsoft and says: ‘Pay us,’ I expect they eventually would like to go to the open source world [as well],” said Ballmer.
Except they don’t, despite the fact that the source is there for inspection. Apparently, that must mean they aren’t infringing, Steve.
October 10th, 2007 at 3:28
As a PR stunt, the FUD spawned by this kind of M$ claim is more valuable than any patent suit could be: e.g. Novell’s SUSE growth since its legal intercourse with M$.