While we wrote previously “Novell paid Microsoft 40 million to prevents patent law-suits. Microsoft there already acknowledge that patents would intervene its own innovation.”. The release of an IRC chatlog [text] seems to suggest that the grounds of the need for that patent are even less genuine that thought before.
Reading from the transcript, the 40 million was made up with the number of patents Microsoft was holding and their revenue stream compared to Novell. Especially since Nat asserts that none of the technical Novell employees was consulted and Novell has stated that no infrigment exists, it has all sign of a mob-collection. You can talk abuse if the relevance of patents themselves doesn’t matter anymore but just that you are a big company with many of them.
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