Heh, see what happens when I go away to visit my folks for a few days…

OK, so a company by the name of IP Innovation has basically sued Red Hat and Novell over a patent they own which they say something in those companies’ Linux distributions infringes.

The patent in question is : “User interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects“, patent #5,072,412 .

PJ at Groklaw once again has written a great entry on her website about this.

She’s also since then written up a Call To Arms, for looking for Prior Art against the patent lawsuit, so anyone reading this and can help, please do so!

Yes. For this to occur almost right after Steve Ballmer’s FUD-ridden talk, of which I opined about earlier on this site, strikes me as an astounding coincidence. No doubt certain people and companies will make a meal of this situation in the coming weeks and months. I’m hoping the FOSS community will - once again - pool together and destroy these claims. And I’ll be keeping a look out for the ensuing FUD attacks that are surely to come.