KDE e.V. (
http://ev.kde.org/), a registered non-profit organization that represents the KDE Project in legal and financial matters, has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Microsoft Corporation. The issue in question is "manipulating Graphical User Interfaces of any kind of software by means of mouse and/or keyboard events". Microsoft has got 10 working days to respond.
Eva Brucherseifer, President of KDE e.V.: "Since prior art doesn't seem to play any role in granting patents anymore, we applied for a patent covering user-generated events to interact with softwre. Now it's only natural to use our patent. Microsoft either has to stop using mice and keyboards or pay us a license fee."
Aaron Seigo, board member of KDE e.V. and one of the most active KDE developers, on dealing with other software manufacturers: "First of all, we will grant free licenses to all software projects under a recognised free or open source license. No reason to worry. Proprietary software houses are another kettle of fish. We are currently discussion the matter with a number of them and hope to reach amicable solutions. Everything is possible."
Cornelius Schumacher, Vice President and Tresurer of KDE e.V., on the future: "We are investigating all kind of possibilities of further patents. Our most advanced idea is to apply for one covering the addition of two numbers. We are confident we will be able to put it into language that covers all possible algorithms. This, of course, will have consequences not only for software but also for hardware manufacturers. CPUs, after all, do exactly that, add two numbers millions of times. It has been high time to find new ways ti finance free software projects. As usual, KDE leads the quest."
