DevPlug.net

After a lull where few new open-source vendors were signing patent-protection deals with Microsoft, the pace has begun to pick up again. On August 26, Tuxera Ltd anounced it has signed an intellectual-property (IP) licensing agreement with Microsoft; joined Microsoft’s exFAT driver-licensing program; and joined the Microsoft Interop Vendor Alliance. Tuxera, based in Helsinki, Finland, was founded by the NTFS-3G open-source project. As a result of the deal, Tuxera is claiming to be the first independent software vendors to offer exFAT drivers. From Tuxera’s press release: “Tuxera has now access to the exFAT specifications, Microsoft s source code implementation of exFAT, and testing and verification tools. Tuxera exFAT for Embedded Sytems will be first available for Linux.” Tuxera CEO Mikko Valimaki added that Tuxera “cannot …

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Open source file-system vendor signs patent deal with MicrosoftZDNet BlogsAfter a lull where few new open-source vendors were signing patent-protection deals with Microsoft, the pace has begun to pick up again. ...Microsoft signs confidental IP deal over NTFSZDNet UKTuxera signs up with MicrosoftLWN.netTuxera signs IP deal with MicrosoftThe Hall 3 news articles »

Tuxera

Tuxera, a company based around the NTFS-3G filesystem project, seems tohave come up with a new line of business based on the recent FAT patentscare: they have signed a deal with Microsoft and are offering proprietary"exFAT" filesystem drivers for Linux. "As an open source company, we feel excited to sign an intellectual property agreement with Microsoft. They are a great partner, and I am confident that our agreements, and this collaboration, will ensure a bright future for file system interoperability and data portability that benefits device manufacturers and consumers alike."

EFF busts bogus Internet subdomain patent

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced the winning of a case against a bogus patent."The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office hasannounced that it will revoke an illegitimate patent onInternet subdomains as a result of the Electronic FrontierFoundation's (EFF) Patent Busting Project campaign.U.S. Patent No. 6,687,746, now held by Hoshiko, LLC,claimed to cover the method of automatically assigningInternet subdomains, like "action.eff.org" for the parentdomain "eff.org." Previous patent owner Ideaflood usedthis bogus patent to demand payment from website hostingcompanies offering personalized domains, such asLiveJournal, a social networking site where each of itsthree million users may have their own subdomain."

Can Crowdsourcing Curtail Patent Abuse?

Some of the biggest players in the technology industry complain that the U.S. patent system is broken -- putting too many patents of dubious merit in the hands of people who can use them to drag companies and other inventors to court. Blaise Mouttet, a small inventor in Alexandria, Va., thinks he knows why. The problem, he said, is that "there are too many lawyers and not enough inventors involved with the patent system."

Black

Black Duck Software, thought all along to be a patent abjurer, has gotten a software method patent on core technology that automatically resolves software license obligations and conflicts. It’s U.S. No 7,552,093 B2 and covers the widgetry at the heart of the Black Duck Suite, a comprehensive management platform for controlling the use of open source in a multi-source development process. It lets Black Duck scan an organization’s code base of open and closed-source software components using various licenses to determine which license obligations are in effect and which licenses obligations may be in conflict.read more