Now that Microsoft's attempt to ramrod its semi-open OOXML standard through the ISO standards body has fallen short, writes Bernard Golden, what happens next? Strangely, he says, Microsoft appears to be soft-pedaling its own standard.

After an interesting free software licensing event in Helsinki, I got thinking about licence complexity. At the conference, people had two types of questions (a) Why didn't GPLv3 additionally solve X problem? and (b) Why is it so long?

I've just heard from the Software Freedom Law Center that the BusyBox-Monsoon Multimedia GPL-enforcement litigation has been settled on the following terms:

Another request from an attorney to pick your brains. Ray Beckerman asks the following in connection with the UMG v. Lindor litigation:

In the sleepy village of Santa Clara, there lived a very wealthy but very frightened giant named Intel. Intel was plagued by a fearsome band of evil trolls -- patent trolls, to be exact -- who wanted a glittering pot of gold in exchange for doing absolutely nothing. And they were very powerful because they said they owned the patent on some of the magic Intel used to become rich."

Microsoft has been slapped with a lawsuit filed by Korean instant messaging program developer Digito.com, which is claiming millions of dollars in anti-trust damages.

Sometime computer maker and intellectual property clearing house IBM has threatened the fabric of space-time by attempting to patent profiting from patents.

Having watched how Microsoft included patents in its deal with then EU (more on this in the next post), it is worth pointing out that the US won’t extend antitrust sanctions, despite rising opposition and the recent decision in Europe.