Jobs replied, saying that “[a] patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other open source codecs now.” The news spread like wildfire. This episode provides a good example of how software patents harm innovation and why they are ultimately incompatible with Free Software. Any program - Free Software or not - is threatened by patents.

A roundup of software patent news that Free software watchers need to know about

Red Hat reveals details about Microsoft's marketing of anti-FOSS patents; other patent news summarised

"After that introduction, I am sure many of you want to know about Free Software. But unfortunately that's not what I am supposed to speak about. In fact, this topic, software patents, is not very closely related to the issue of Free Software. Software patents are a danger that affect all programmers and all computer users.

Patent news about Free software, Microsoft, and Microsoft-affiliated patent trolls

A roundup of many software patents-related developments, including the way they affect Free software

Patents threaten every software developer, and the patent wars we have long feared have broken out. Software developers and software users – which in our society, is most people – need software to be free of patents.

The latest news about patents (software in particular) that affect Free software

Microsoft has these 235 patents that they say GNU/Linux is infringing on. Patents they never identify. Is it because they plan to dribble them out one by one to patent trolls who will then grind down free software companies in an endless series of lawsuits?