In a move that today stunned industry observers, Microsoft Corp (MSFT) has
defused what is widely viewed as the biggest threat to its operating
system monopoly by patenting the Open Source movement.

Open Source is considered to be the biggest rival to monolithic
application and operating system development, methods epitomised by
Microsoft but used by almost all other major software companies with the
recent exception of Apple Computer (APPL). Instead of all work on a
computer program being done in-house by one company, which then jealously
guards the instructions needed to make it  -- the "source code" -- the
Open Source movement freely distributes the source code with the programs.
It is there for anyone to examine, modify, tweak or, more importantly,
fix. "Bugs often take a while to be discovered, tracked down and then
fixed." said Raymond S. Eric, a leading light of the Open Source movement.
"Instead of waiting for the company, a user can simply fix it himself".

The user would be encouraged, though not forced, to make this change
available to others but cannot charge money for it. "The Open Source
concept has been proved in Linux, networking security and cryptography and
it looks set for the big time" said Mr Eric. But now, perhaps not.
Microsoft appears to have nimbly side-stepped this threat by a clever use
of intellectual property laws. In its patent, headed "Multi-Optional
Nodeless Open Protocol Outsourced Licensing Yield", Microsoft has laid
claim to a method for "program development by multiple authors given
almost unrestricted access to source, subject only to the necessary
conditions needed to self-support the enterprise". According to Microsoft
spokesman Mr A.C. Doyle, it is a perfectly legitimate application: "Well,
we knew we couldn't beat it, so we did a quick search of the USPTO [US
Patent & Trademark Office] database to see if anyone else had registered
it and when it was free, we thought 'sod it, it's as much of a 'process'
as any other in the decided cases', so we nabbed it, along with a couple
hundred other unclaimed things, like cold fusion, bottomless bit buckets
and a machine to recycle 'chad' '."

Microsoft also reportedly paid $10,000 to acquire the "opensource.org" and
"monopoly.com" domains, after sending around men in dark glasses to
convince the former owners of the inevit^H^H^H^H^H^H wisdom of this move.


The success of this initiative has spurred other efforts on the software
giant's behalf. Microsoft is also expecting final evaluation of its Boies
patent, which should end the long-running antitrust suit against it. The
patent, "Effective Methods of Cross-Examination by the Utilisation of
Contradictory Circumstantial Evidence", would mean that Microsoft would
own all means of asking embarrassing questions and showing up
inconsistencies by directly contradicting witnesses' testimony with their
own previous words.

"Microsoft is finally taking as much control of the courtroom as it does
of the desktop", said one observer, "although we hope they won't try to
make us use active channels in court". Said Mr Doyle: "If the patent is
approved, Mr Boies will now have to pay substantial licensing fees if he
wishes to continue pursuing us in court, or change his methods to avoid
infringing on it. Maybe he could stick to asking questions about the
weather or the great new features of Windows 2000". If the patent is
approved, there should also be no opposition to  acquiring Mr Gates'
ultimate objective, the patent on "The Use of Metal or Paper Medium as
Currency", in which the Government would be forced either to use
Microsoft-minted currency for circulation in the economy, or license the
greenback. "We don't really want to get rid of our trusty old currency,
but the nifty little OEM code and holographic sticker should help the
treasury defeat counterfeiting, or money piracy as it would know be
known," said Doyle. However, he refused to be drawn on claims that the
licensing move might also require putting Bill Gates Jr's faces on all
banknotes, claiming that only the ones on the front of the banknote might
need to be replaced, perhaps in a compromise for putting Steve Balmer on
the 20 dollar note. The Governments of several African and European
countries are said already to have agreed, in principle, to start using
MS-Money(TM) instead of their own currencies, as part of a
Microsoft-sponsored equity for debt bail-out. But, as Mr Doyle conceded,
"we don't really know how popular the MS-Drachma or MS-Mark would be among
the populace".