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Microsoft settles with TomTom. Is this good or bad?

By Sean Michael Kerner on March 31, 2009 9:58 AM

From the 'now what?' files:

After a brief but very media-hyped period, Microsoft and TomTom have settled their patent dispute - apparently in a way that is not incompatible with the open source GPL license. Though the two parties have settled their dispute, the overall dispute over Linux patents is far from being settled in my opinion.

Microsoft made a patent deal with TomTom in this case, and it affects TomTom alone. In that way, this deal is similar to Microsoft's patent deals with Novell, Xandros and others which are fundamental cross-licensing deals with specific vendors.

The cloud of doubt -- call it FUD if you want - that still hangs over open source and Linux is that Microsoft still has intellectual property/patent issues with open source software.

This case was not settled in a big public courtroom setting (like a SCO) and it didn't in the end, involve the wider legal fire-power of the Linux community. By settling with Microsoft, TomTom might well have implied that the Microsoft claims against Linux and open source are valid. That assertion however is not one shared by Linux vendor Red Hat.

"Red Hat was not a party to this case," Red Hat's legal team wrote in a statement."Even so, without a judicial decision, the settlement does not demonstrate that the claims of Microsoft were valid. Patent litigation is a difficult process, and there are many reasons besides the merits of the case that a defendant such as TomTom might have chosen to settle in the present economic environment. As the terms of the settlement license have not, to our knowledge, been made public, it is not possible to comment on their compliance with open source requirements and principles."

So this one case is settled, but the wider issue of patents remains the same for open source and Linux users as it was before this case started.

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