Koz and Effect

You can’t make this stuff up…

I read this today.

The EFF and Apache are filing amicus briefs supporting Microsoft in their desire to overturn patents relating to the ability to edit XML, a key feature of Office 2008. Earlier this year a small company sued Microsoft over those patents, threatening an injunction against Microsoft and their ability to sell Office. Microsoft is trying to get the case examined by the Supreme Court as an example of how broken the patent system is.

Later today, I read this.

Microsoft is suing Motorola for using it’s patents on things like “Generating meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device” on Android smartphones.

With a company as big as Microsoft, I can understand instances where the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. But when these instances are followed by long winded blog posts about “protecting innovation” or “reforming the system to prevent abuse by patent trolls”, I really feel like it’s all a bunch of BS. They’re playing both sides depending on who’s holding what and what they can sue/prevent from the other.

If there was ever a clear need for patent (and tort!) reform, this is it.