Microsoft says OSS violates its patents

They added that the company would pursue patent violators for payment of royalties. This threat could prove hardest on start-ups and smaller companies unable to take on the software giant, business and legal observers way. According to a Computer World report, start-up companies with business models based on open source software, or other small businesses, would least be able to afford the legal costs of defending against a patent infringement claim by Microsoft, said Matt Asay, of Alfresco Software. However, Microsoft may have more difficulty defending its patents because of a recent US Supreme Court ruling. In KSR International v Teleflex, the court ruled that if the innovation being protected is \'obvious\', the patent could be challenged. The standard of obviousness could be applied to Microsoft\'s claim, said David Olson, of the Stanford Law School\'s Centre for Internet and Society. Full Computer World report

Open source proponents are frustrated by Microsoft\'s repeated allusions to patent violations because ‘they never say what patents being violated, never make any assertions, never put the evidence out there,’ said Larry Augustin, a technology start-up investor who launched SourceForge.net, according to The Washington Post report. But Augustin also acknowledged that it\'s not in Microsoft\'s interest to do so: Open source programmers could rewrite their code to avoid infringing on specific patents, or the courts could find that Microsoft\'s patent isn\'t valid. If Microsoft were to start suing, it could also kick off a patent war on a grand scale. An organisation called the Open Innovation Network, funded by IBM, Red Hat and others, has amassed a vast number of software patents. In the event of a Microsoft lawsuit against open source companies or customers, the OIN would retaliate in kind. Full report in The Washington Post