Microsoft has charged that Linux and open source violate 235 Microsoft patents but these patents have never been disclosed in public. Which patents Microsoft is talking about?
We doubt they know and they are unwilling to say, citing paper overhead as a reason. Their figure is from an Open Source report about the problems with software patents. The author of that report repudiated its use by Steve Ballmer. Microsoft has a lot of patents, but the bar for acceptance in the USPTO is exceptionally low and therefore many patents, including Microsoft’s, are very poor. They are too broad in terms of scope and therefore they intersect with many other programs, including ones which predate patent applications from other companies with lust for patenting. A ‘collision’ of ideas, as opposed to implementation (which copyrights cover), is more likely to exist where the ideas are obvious and there is prior art. Our personal belief is that Microsoft’s number is either made up, pulled off the sleeve (as suggested and shown above), or refers to some of the poorest of patents, which are easy to have re-examined and invalided based on grounds of obviousness/prior art. That woul
