Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

No, Google, Amazon and Microsoft should push for patent reform. Not use their arsenal of patents as a protection racket. And because of IV Microsoft is - indirectly, at just about one plausibly deniable arms length - one of the bigger abusers of patents in this way.

One way in which they could have done this that would be clean would be a blanket statement that would cover parties no matter where they are hosted. To make this a competitive advantage for Azure is fairly disgusting.

Another thing they could do is assure the world without any weasel words that Microsofts patents will never again be used to seek rent on innovation, or better yet, to place them all in the public domain.

View on HN

They can push for reform _and_ provide legal protection like this. They're not mutually exclusive.

I'm assuming by IV you mean Intellectual Ventures..? Are they tied to Microsoft? I thought they had _sued_ Microsoft..?

> Are they tied to Microsoft?

http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Intellectual_Ventures

http://techrights.org/2014/12/16/trolling-not-working-out/

Ok, it was started by a former MS exec and funded by Gates... that's shitty, but Microsoft has lots of former employees and I'm sure Gates invests in lots of things. For all we know it was a family office investment that he wasn't even aware of... or the dude was a friend or something.

Microsoft doesn't have a stake in the company nor do they provide the company with any assistance..? Unless there's more to the story I think it's kind of a stretch to say that this is a Microsoft operation. According to Wikipedia they've actually _sued_ Microsoft.

> According to Wikipedia they've actually _sued_ Microsoft.

That is not what I read there. What it says is they raised money from Microsoft, that's something else than suing Microsoft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures

Can you point out the exact paragraph that you feel describes IV suing Microsoft?

Upon closer inspection it appears that you are correct. I interpreted "raised" as "extorted." That still may be the case (the cited source is a dead link) but I think you are right... particularly since some of the names listed are venture firms.

Whatever the case, IV is quite an enigma... founded by the creator of MS Research (which is a great group), funded by Reasonable People, but apparently sketchy as hell. I'm intrigued and will definitely be digging deeper into their story. Thanks for bringing them to my attention.

People who like Bill Gates believe it is a bad idea to volunteer your time. If you can earn $60 an hour, you should earn that $60 doing whatever you have to do so thus way you can later pay for four hours at $15.

I don't know. I mean it looks better than earning that $60 and not putting towards a charity?

Linking to TechRights on tech is like linking to Infowars on politics when there are obviously better sources...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures

Which I already did 11 hours prior.

> They can push for reform _and_ provide legal protection like this. They're not mutually exclusive.

Who is this protection designed to protect from? Would it, coincidentally be Microsoft?

    > No

    > Google, Amazon and Microsoft should
    > push for patent reform

As a paying customer, I'd much rather they took advantage of the fact that these aren't mutually exclusive.

Found a quick description of IV in Google for readers that didn't know the acronym or history:

https://www.cnet.com/news/inside-intellectual-ventures-the-m...

Are you sure they haven't?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com