patent protection

In a decision likely headed to the Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals upholds a patent court ruling that software and business methods can be patented only if they are implemented by a machine or transform something into a new or different thing.

The decision reverses a decade-long trend of expanded patent protection.

Microsoft says software that's licensed under a new version of a popular open source license isn't covered by the patent protection deal it recently signed with desktop Linux distributor Linspire.

Boycott Novell: "We made a start by asking for our protection as we might wish to install the GNOME desktop environment in the future and it's already extremely hard to get it preinstalled without Mono these days.

Here is the message we sent last night."

The acquisition agreement was signed on June 19, unifying two firms that have attracted criticism from the Linux community by signing patent protection deals with Microsoft.

2muchcoffeeman writes "Former Linspire president and CEO Kevin Carmony — whose relationship with his former employer has turned acrimonious, to say the least — reported on his blog that Xandros and Linspire signed an agreement in principle to buy Linspire June 19.

Carmody includes a scan of the memo to Linspire shareholders announcing the deal, which requires the former Linspire company to change its name.

According to the memo, the stockholders voted to change the company's name to Digital Cornerstone, Inc.

Last week, Red Hat settled an abusive patent lawsuit brought by a company called FireStar software. The patent in question covers some rather broad and obvious software concepts.

It looks like Red Hat has settled the lawsuit in a way that extends patent protection to the "entire free software community".