I can't find it on Oracle's website any more, but thanks to Internet Archive, we can find Sun Microsystems writing about software patents in 2006 and explaining its position. This was back when the European Union was for a while considering adopting software patents. You will not believe what Sun's position was. It's definitely relevant to the Oracle v. Google litigation.

Sun's position paper was titled, "Software Patents: A European Union (EU) Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions must not Jeopardize Interoperability." The title says it all, but I'm going to show the entire statement to you in all its glory, so Oracle can't pretend, as it tried unsuccessfully to do with the Jonathan Schwartz corporate blog, that it wasn't an official company statement. Sun strongly urged that Europe, if it adopted the Directive, "allow for the creation of products which can interoperate with the protected products to safeguard competition in the sector and to provide greater choice and lower costs for consumers."

Imagine that. Sun said publicly that interoperability was more important than IP rights, even patents, because it led to competition and hence greater choice and lower costs for consumers.

I'm so excited to tell you that we have all the publicly available trial exhibits from the Oracle v. Google trial. We should thank this judge, the Hon. Willaim Alsup, because he is the one insisting on keeping the trial as public as possible. I know you join me in saying thank you for this treasure.

Now, logistics: there are a lot of them, and I could use your help.

Auto Hop has content industry hopping mad

In the latest episode of the US ad-skipping saga, Dish Networks is facing the wrath of broadcasters such as NBC and Fox, but winning praise from customers and no doubt causing a little churn among competitors. That at least is the intention of the Dish PVR ad skipping feature called Auto Hop, with the company gambling that the gain in subscription revenue will make the pain of having to defend a possibly protracted case against it from broadcasters worthwhile.…