Glyn sez, “A patent infringement suit has been filed against Novell and Red Hat for allegedly infringing user interface patent. The first ever patent infringement litigation involving Linux.
IP Innovation LLC filed the claim. Groklaw has more details and also tracks the flow of Microsoft employees into the company just before launching the law suit.”
And now let’s play, where’s Microsoft? You know, like where’s Waldo? Betcha he’s in the tree’s leaves somewhere if we look close enough. We had our first hint when Steve Ballmer said in his speech the other day that he figured other folks besides Microsoft would want Red Hat and FOSS to pay them for their patents. Remember? Is he a prophet or merely well informed? Or is there more to this? When I lay out all the research, you can decide.
IP Innovation is a subsidiary of Acacia, one of the leading patent trolls in the field (they are responsible for the ridiculous patent on all forms of streaming media, a patent so ridiculous that EFF is seeking to overturn it). Now that these guys are turning into a client state of Microsoft’s, who knows what kind of mischief they’ll get into?
(Thanks, Glyn)