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Microsoft Claims IP Rights on Portions of OpenGL
An anonymous reader writes "Minutes of the latest OpenGL ARB meeting reveal that Microsoft is claiming IP over the vertex and fragment extensions, both critical for exposing the capabilities of modern graphics hardware. The minutes also include an update on the progress of OpenGL 2.0." The question is, what does this mean for Linux -- how will Microsoft exercise their "rights"?
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MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Of course and they have the "right". They bought a whole lot of IP from SGI a few months ago.5 6&mode=thread&tid=152
Check it out here:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/16/18242
the more times the word Microsoft appears in front of your eyes, the bigger the smil gets on their PR dept faces.. Slashdot is probably one of Microsofts biggest PR machines. Remember, there is no bad publicity..
Microsoft believes they have patent rights relating to the ARB_vertex_program extension. They did not contribute to the extension, but are trying to be upfront about it.
I have been pwned because my
It's an ARB requirement for any participant to state that they might have IP involved in a particular feature or extension. Try checking out previous ARB minutes where nVidia, ATI, and other companies have made statements about their own IP and possible conflicts. This is a non-issue.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the IP (patents, designs, etc) Microsoft recently bought from Silicon Graphics, Inc (SGI)...
I doubt they'll really care too much about Linux OpenGL (for now) because quite honestly it's not necessary to attack it on that front. That would be a little too obviously vindictive, even for Microsoft. I think the more likely conclusion is that they'll use it to leverage their stranglehold on the DirectX/Windows combo to make it not only the standard, but the only option. Once gaming on Windows is restricted to DirectX, then OpenGL will survive solely on Linux (if it survives at all).
As if it weren't bad enough with Microsoft owning the #1 gaming OS. They already own half of the graphics langage market with DirectX. They're trying their asses off to own the other part, OpenGL. Smart move for Microsoft, but when are they going to start deploying houses and hotels on DirectX / OpenGL? Imagine if DirectX or OpenGL cost money to use. Imagine paying for your Microsoft-licenced drivers.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Boy, I just flew in here, and boy, are my arms tired.
[audience laughter]
Thank you, thank you, you guys are so nice.
The question is, what does this mean for Linux -- how will Microsoft exercise their "rights"?
Oh, no doubt they're just being protective of their property and make sure that this aspect of the software ecosystem is managed responsibly and openly. I doubt they'll use this for leverage over independent vendors.
[audience laughter]
Thank you! I'm here all week!
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Ahh, how appropriate, I was just going to make a post on the "donate to Gnome" thread about how this whole Mono thing is a disaster waiting to happen (i.e., Microsoft will activate the .NET "poison pill" as soon as Mono becomes a threat, through patents or other means, and Mono users will have no place to go but genuine .NET).
Perhaps this OpenGL bit will blow over, or perhaps we should keep an eye on it as a sort of model for future Microsoft attacks on "open xyz".
Let's check the link, there are some quotes:
Ahh, there's the magic "reasonable" (to Microsoft) and "non-discriminatory" (except if you don't agree to the terms). How would this cross-licensing apply to implementations other than the official OpenGL?
Uh huh..what does "more effective in a corporate sense" mean exactly....
Well I don't know much about OpenGL licensing, or how much of this extension stuff is implemented in non-OpenGL implementations (like Mesa?) so I'll just watch and see what happens.
They'll have patent rights over OpenGL, among other things. Eventually, The Onion's article will be true. Did anyone else think of this?
s .html
http://www.theonion.com/onion3311/microsoftpatent
It's not too far off.
Danish != nationality
what about Apple? MacOS does a lot of things with OpenGL too...
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Read the bloody minutes, they arent demanding that OpenGL cease to exist, they are just declaring that they have related patents and as near as I could gather from the article they are being made available for use by OpenGL as long as the OpenGL people agree to allow Microsoft to use any OpenGL technology developed using them. It's a bit pre-emptive when we are hanging Microsoft just for having the patents, can we please use this effort on people who exploit their patents and not on those who simply posess them?
Slashdot: Proof that a million monkeys at a million typewriters can create a masterpiece
Wouldn't it be interesting if Sony were to license the "Emotion Engine" video technologies for the desktop PC market? As of right now MS seems to have a monopoly on the 3D graphics technologies market.
Sony is the only possible contender to come into my mind. Without competition, how soon until 3D graphics are only allowed to exist on Windows? Are we only one generation away from that? Does anyone other than Sony have a similar "mature" technology for 3D graphics, with the market clout to back it up?
What incentive would Sony have you ask? Well, MS makes the X-Box, which is based on DirectX. Sony has an incentive in my mind to keep DirectX games from being written for any platform. This is not too far from reasons the PS2 Linux kit came out...to train developers. Sony could be the next competitor, the current being Sun, to step into the ring and throw off the gloves with Microsoft.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
THIS is how microsoft operates. If they cannot "embrace and extend" they will litigate their way to victory. I'm really not surprised by this action at all. We already knew Microsoft was concerned about the competition linux might offer and it seemed like we were getting too much of a free ride.
The only thing we can hope now is that the monopoly case will take a little bite out of Microsoft. Otherwise, this will continue to the point that releasing software or drivers for linux becomes a LIABILITY. At that point, no matter how much better the OS is, it is dead in the water.
I'm a bit confused why chrisd put "rights" in the body in quotes. Either they bought the patent and have rights over the code and programming model, or the patent does not apply and they have no rights.
Well the, shouldn't it be a simple case of renaming and/or reimplementing the extensions over which MS claims to have IP rights for the final OpenGL2.0 spec?
As it is, the spec is still currently under work. If John Carmack (I suspect you're reading this) can use the new, shiny XYZ_vertex_program extension or simliar (which is of course very different to the Microsoft one) in Doom III, driver writers will naturally include it to make their cards run the Doom 3 engine, and we'll be home free.
Of course, although it might not be part of the official 2.0 spec they'd be free to include the old extension too, at their call. So, everyone wins except Microsoft, which should please the Slashdotters greatly.
In any case they've offered RAND licensing terms, so it doesn't look like they're out for blood this time. Since this whole article is based off a vaguely worded paragraph from the minutes of a meeting with no legal opinions offered, I somehow don't think that this will mean the death of OpenGL as we know it.
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So, they want to trade this one piece of IP for many pieces currently belonging to other people? Sounds like a really sweet deal for them. I'm not sure whether to accuse them of being sneaky or just stand in awe that they actually do understand the potentially non-scarce nature of information.
Does anyone who knows about how these comittees work want to comment on whether this is considered ethical? It would be better from an openness standpoint to have them just give it up, but reasonable licensing is better than having them try to exploit it after the standard is implemented (like happened with Rambus).
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
So, before going much farther, I would like to see what exactly they're claiming they own and see if everyone agrees with that. If so, it should probably be seen by the OpenGL-gurus whether it's something that can be designed around. If not, <SLAP_ON_WRIST>shame on the OpenGL developers /designers for using non-open things!</SLAP_ON_WRIST>
And -before I finish my rant- let that be a lesson to all of us to check twice before integrating some cool idea. Make sure you didn't hear it from someone who will say they own it later! (I don't know how this really happened. That may or may not be the scenario, but I've seen it happen that way before.)
"Let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average." - A. W. Tozer
Does this seem a little like and old msg to any one else? "Perhaps this OpenGL bit will blow over, or perhaps we should keep an eye on it as a sort of model for future Microsoft attacks on "open xyz". Let's check the link, there are some quotes: They're offering to license their IP under reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms; will license rights to the extent necessary, provided a reciprocal license is granted to MS. Granted on 1:1 basis for OpenGL 1.3, 1.4, and earlier versions. Ahh, there's the magic "reasonable" (to Microsoft) and "non-discriminatory" (except if you don't agree to the terms). How would this cross-licensing apply to implementations other than the official OpenGL? Microsoft suggests that other bodies have licensing terms that are more effective in a corporate sense, and we should look at adopting some of those terms. Uh huh..what does "more effective in a corporate sense" mean exactly.... Well I don't know much about OpenGL licensing, or how much of this extension stuff is implemented in non-OpenGL implementations (like Mesa?) so I'll just watch and see what happens. "
However, I'm a little confused. What parts of vertex & fragment shader are they actually claiming IP on? I thought it was nVidia that had IP on hardware vertex & fragment shader extensions, and that they licenced that IP to Microsoft for use in DX8.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Apple, in addition to a heck of a lot of other companies, would not stand for MS claiming ownership over parts of OpenGL. They're making heavy use of it in QuartzXtreme. But, thankfully, as someone noted, it appears to be a non-issue. Although, this kind of thing still is scary.
then OpenGL will survive solely on Linux (if it survives at all).
and MacOSx.
Check this out http://www.apple.com/opengl/
It's sort of fundamental to the way OSX does 3D.
It's exactly this sort of crap that made me jump ship and buy a Mac in the first place. Of course Apple have been flexing their muscles a little too much lately too.
The DirectX 7 and 8 exposed programmable pixel/vertex shading abilities long before OpenGL did. The development of these DirectX versions and the first GPUs capable of them from nVidia et al were basically hand in hand.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
While i believe that Microsoft is not doing anything relevant to the current slashdot that is not completely within their rights, it is very important to remember:
"Microsoft has every right to do whatever they want" is currently an incorrect statement. Microsoft is currently legally determined to be an illegal monopoly. That means that until government correction, which has not happened yet, Microsoft's rights do not currently encompass "whatever they want". There are a number of things they do not have the right to do.
Of course, the things that they have no right to do because they are legally a monopoly are not relevant to the current discussion, like i said, but please keep that in mind-- they currently DO NOT have the right to act in an anticompetitive manner, in certain ways under certain circumstances that would be legal for an other company.
That said, the current article is just stupid. It would be interesting to have a conversation on the subject of exactly how much of OpenGL is subject to destruction by a malicious entity buying up and then denying public use of OpenGL-related patents, but the incendentiary attack in the slashdot blurb is totally unwarranted as MS has not given any indication of doing anything yet. The bit about MS buying bits of OpenGL is important but we've already had a slashdot thread on that somewhere.
why doesn't Linux?
Microsoft seems to be willing to play nice with OpenGL right now, but what happens if and when they change their mind and "suggest" people use DirectX for all games?
Is this the last generation of 3D graphics for gaming as we know it? MS holds all the cards...right?
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
What about the SEGA finding, where the court fount that if the hardware required the software to do something, then the hardware manufacturer didn't have a kick comming when a aftermarket software house released a game that did what the hardware required, even though the software company didn't license the code from the hardware manufacturer?
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
The idea is to avoid a repeat of the Rambus debacle vis-a-vis the JEDEC consortium. Anyone who takes part in a standards process is ethically and legally obligated to reveal any patents that may affect the availability of the specification being developed. Rambus didn't -- they waited until their IP had been integrated into a critical industry standard, then had their lawyers spring a surprise party on everybody.
This is actually relatively old news, and it isn't necessarily a showstopper. MS has historically been the victim rather than the instigator of legal action with respect to stupid patents.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/features/3d.html
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Hey, don't forget about Mac OS X. Apple is a huge player in on the Open GL field. There's probably actually more development for OpenGL apps and games for MacOS then their is for Linux.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Because Apple is a corporate entity, whereas Open Source is a philosophy?
If you consider the makeup of the board, only IBM has any kind of direct interest in Linux and I really don't think they want Linux for it's amazing leaps forward in GUI design.
The remainder of the board all have their own fish to fry and none of them are direct contributors to Linux, AFAIK.
So, boys and girls, time to nut up and get some corporation to back the OpenGL initiative on Linux, which means someone's gonna have to make some bucks off it somewhere to cover the cost of all that politicking.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
I thought that the writers of a standard which was designed to be open in its implemetation would be more careful so as not to include other companies' ideas in their product, whether it be Microsoft's of anyone else's.
Obviously intellectual property, as opposed to trademarks, patents and copyrights (i.e. ideas as opposed to actual code) is a fairly large, often equivocal area, but it seems that this, however innocent, could set a dangerous precedent. Microsoft is a business, and they are there to maximise profits. They have proved that they often use very unfair and illegal means to get to this end in the past, and this just seems to be a potential area of abuse once their lawyers get hold of it.
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
The answer is probably something like... voting member groups can join the ARB for $100,000 yearly membership dues. For that, you'll get a link to your company's website on the ARB's member list page. Member companies may also send up to 3 corporate research workers to the ARB meetings, which may be located in completely random places in the world.
My other first post is car post.
The question is, what does this mean for Linux -- how will Microsoft exercise their "rights"?
The question is, when will folks in the US make enough stink to get rid of software.. err.. I mean mathematical patents. Software patents do nothing but slow innovation and create a legal minefield as we see even by the fact that the OpenGL group is having to worry about it. Software patents are totally incompatible with free software, not to mention freedom of speech. How's that different from ordinary patents? Because software has a zero cost of entry and is often NOT developed as a commercial enterprise but rather a pasttime.
You can read a little about the ARB here.
My other first post is car post.
"Processor for geometry transformations and lighting calculations", assigned to Microsoft Corporation, issued today, July 9, 2002.
One has to ask, what does the name OpenGL imply? If they (or a company they bought IP from) did develop IP and contribute it to OpenGL, then, while they might still have a patent on some expression of an idea, I would expect that they can't go very far on controlling what they contributed to an OpenGL standards group.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
"Linux" is not. Do you mean just Linus Torvalds? Some kernel developers? Mandrake, SuSE, Red Hat employees? Patrick Volkerding?
Lalala -- it's all madness, that's why LSB exists, and why United Linux is trying to exist. It gives a nice, corporate friendly coherent entity.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
However, just so much of this is bad news that a whole lot is coming back for this post.
Microsoft believes they have patent rights relating to the ARB_vertex_program extension. They did not contribute to the extension, but are trying to be upfront about it. They're offering to license their IP under reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms; will license rights to the extent necessary, provided a reciprocal license is granted to MS. Granted on 1:1 basis for OpenGL 1.3, 1.4, and earlier versions.
Who here wants to bet that Microsoft, who they admit didn't contribute to the extension, were the ones that used the term "reasonable and nondiscriminatory"? I find it surprisingly unprofessional of the transcriber that they kept the wording as fact. I also find it surprising that anyone can say with a straight face, "If you want to use this extension to shade the corners of your polygons, you must give us the right to use all of your software, and all of your old software, any way we see fit. It's 1:1." If it really was one to one they would walk away with a method of optimizing bump mapping, or some such.
IBM thinks it's premature to vote on this without seeing the MS license terms. NVIDIA wants to vote it in at this meeting. SGI thinks if we can't deal with IP claims, we might as well all go home.
Ah, IBM is wise in the ways of patent warfare. IBM, today being played by Suzy Deffeyes, knows all too well that if an opponent signs on the line before the contract is written, your terms will only seem "reasonable" as in the eyes of a conquering army. NVIDIA, Nick Triantos and Pat Brown, shame on you! You may be great engineers, but you are horrible lawyers.
Microsoft suggests that other bodies have licensing terms that are more effective in a corporate sense, and we should look at adopting some of those terms.
Microsoft is now suggesting the term "OpenGL" should mean open for business, and not Open doors. Notice this is a sudden attack on the very nature of OpenGL, not to mention it's ability to compete.
Technical issue - 3Dlabs doesn't find 1.4 all that compelling without vertex programming, but finds the vec4 architecture underlying ARB_vertex_program too hardware-specific to include into 1.4 except as an optional subset. Seems short-sighted to incorporate into the standard when this assembler-level functionality is likely to be quickly superseded by new silicon generations; but it serves a tactical purpose, to take advantage of current market conditions.
And so we see Microsoft's plan starting to take form... The fellowship is breaking.
Bill asked about Microsoft's IP position on just the program management framework; Dave was unable to comment at this point.
Forgive me for being so pessimistic, but when you run in and say you have a patent claim on part of the development spec for your project... Couldn't you have a little more background information available? At least for your own knowledge?
Suzy asked Microsoft to figure out their IP claims, if any, against just the program management stuff.
Once again, Suzy, I salute you.
However, I really have to question the purpose of having microsoft on board. They disagree with the business model, the offer a competing product which they have made every effort to set as the defacto standard, and they have a long history of joining competing projects in order to destroy them. Java anyone? Microsoft doesn't make graphics accelerators, chipsets, or computers like everyone else on that board does. They are the OS, but they are also a competitor to the group's mission. Why do you invite the wolf in to protect the sheep?
My god, it's been a long time since I hated microsoft this much. Thank you again, Slashdot, for reminding me what is important in life.
(Sigh, time to go punch the Microsoft butterflies again. The stuffed ones, not the foolish ones.
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
I seem to remember Brian Paul, author of Mesa, as being on the ARB but I don't see his name there. Is Precision Insight still alive? Is Brian still alive?
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Some people would disagree.
There is considerably more to the computing world than PCs. High-end 3D graphics don't get done on PCs, just the low-end stuff that makes it into games. Even here there's no monopoly - Sony has its take on gaming, as does Nintendo.
If you're suggesting that Microsoft offers the dominant 3D API for Microsoft platforms, well then yes - it does. But then where's the surprise in that? Sony offer the dominant API for Sony platforms, and Nintendo offer the dominant API for Nintendo platforms.
Don't be too quick to cry 'monopoly'. It devalues the term, and makes it lose impact for when it's really needed.
Cheers,
Ian
The question is, what does this mean for Linux -- how will Microsoft exercise their "rights"?
Like they always do with patents: only force them when someone squeeses MS' thumbs for a couple of bucks. MS patents a lot of technology, but not for money, but for the possibility to KEEP using the technology without having to pay a huge amount of money or worse: having to battle in court.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
If they start exercising many of the patent rights they bought from SGI, they will have to remove the Open from OpenGL. Hmmm, dosen't DirectGL have a nice ring to it?
From my observations over the years, I think MS only finds things humorous when financial pain is present in their competitors.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Audience applauses
Thank you, Thank you!
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Microsoft may well be aiming to use this to exclude open source from the table--commercial vendors that are part of the consortium cross-license their patent portfolios related to OpenGL and Linux is out in the cold. That is, after all, what Microsoft really wants. They know they can beat down Apple and SGI, it's Linux they are afraid of.
You have two processors: the CPU and the GPU. You partition execution of the graphics code between them in a variety of ways and you standardize that. What, exactly, is the invention supposed to be?
The idea of OpenGL 2 is to be backwards compatible by reimplementing the old (1.3) fixed vertex processing model, as a vertex program on the new vertex shader hardware. Same thing with blending, texture lookup etc versus fragment shaders. If you need to drop the shaders, this all falls apart, and GL2 becomes merely an exercise in reintegrating a bit of the extension-jungle into the core -- that'd be OpenGL 1.4 or something, not 2.0.
RAND, of course, means commercial cross-licensing. Microsoft is using this as a tactic for excluding open source. They know they can kill companies like Apple in the market, but they are deathly afraid of Linux and open source. OpenGL is a particular thorn in their side since it just won't go away, and Microsoft's own junky 3D interface hasn't been able to kill the competition. So, Microsoft is now trying underhanded legal maneuvres
I think the only way for open source to play will be to have an open source patent portfolio and to bring that to the table. Open source needs its own bargaining chips at the table.
Maybe they will just rename it ClosedGL.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
If they don't, then they should. While Windows and MacOS have monolithic, unwieldy GUIs that are constraint by a need to cater to legacy tastes, Linux and X11 neatly modularize the major functions of a window system: 2D graphics, input methods, window management, inter client communications, network transparency, resources, authentication, etc.
In Linux, you can actually try out new window management styles, new input methods, or new kinds of widgets without having to start from scratch.
The real problem is that almost nobody is doing research in human-computer interaction anymore--everybody just keeps tinkering around with the same old paradigms.
I personally am not surprised. Microsoft, in the person of nerdboy Gates and sweatfactory Ballmer, must have been insenced recently in reading all the press reports about the desaster that the XBox has become. Microsoft will never just drop it completely. They will do as they have done with every single other product that they have: They will modify it into version 2.0 and 3.0 etc until it finally gets accepted through sheer weight of numbers. My idea is that this is simply Microsoft at it's best trying to deny market access for anyone else who doesn't want to get owned by them. They will obviously try to patent key areas of OpenGL, only in order to later deny anyone else the right to use it, all to the advantage of DirectX. This will all go into XBox2, with which MS will probably try to make it illegal to use OpenGL.
I am very glad that it looks like the EU is going to ban Software Patents. In the end Europe will be more inviting to competition in the Software field.
I like this quote from the minutes:
:-)
IBM thinks it's premature to vote on this without seeing the MS license terms.
It looks like IBM learned its lesson really well when dealing with Microsoft 20 years ago, and now are going to be really watching what agreements they sign.
As well, SGI's response is curious:
. SGI thinks if we can't deal with IP claims, we might as well all go home.
I wonder if they mean that they don't want to worry about the IP claim, and are trying to just ignore it. Or if they agree with it, and just want to leave it at that.
Good meeting though, nontheless.
~ kjrose
...becase if they continue to show their true MS colors, they can kiss my business goodbye, and hopefully others will follow suit and show them that we don't appreciate and will not tolerate that kind of business.
Direct X get a lot of its "goodness/acceptable" performance by copying and integrating OpenGL specs?
I seem to recall John Carmack/Romero ranting about how poor the API for direct X was (20 lines of code to rotate an object vs 3 for OpenGL vs 2 for Glide...not the right #'s but that was the gist).
Granted, this was in the pre directX 6 days, but the Glide/OpenGL specs and implementations were heavly used in DirectX, were they not? (Probably leading to the purchase of SGI's patents...were those patents royalty free or something?).
Granted DX8 so far is a capable API, but no matter what it still seem "top heavy" compared to OGL.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
>Microsoft is currently legally determined to be an illegal
> monopoly.
Wrong. They are a legal monopoly.
Umnh... you mean that they have been legally determined to be a monopoly that engages in illegal acts, yes?
I can't parse that sentence in any other way and make it align with the facts and reported "findings of facts" that I know.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The laws may be vague around the edges. Probably on purpose. But MS has be in flagrant wholesale violation. And forging evidence for use in court (I still haven't seen any prosecution coming out of that).
Mind you, I don't really consider it bad because they broke the law. I consider what they did bad, and hope that they broke the law will provide the government sufficient reason to come down on them. Hope is the word though. It's looking more and more like they bought their way out. And whether it was legally (probably*) or illegal (possibly also, but I havent' seen any proof) it was just as vile a deed in either case.
* This includes, but is not limited to, campaign contributions, advertising campaigns, charitible donations, etc.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Are you trying to argue that Microsoft is really just engaging in civil disobedience against an unjust law?
If so, good for them. Now they get to experience the part where they accept the punishment and gain sympathy for their cause.
If not, then the law's the law and they have to follow it. dura lex sed lex
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
Microsoft is a legal monopoly that has been found to act illegally in some areas. If they were an illegal monopoly they'd be in a lot more trouble.
--
E_NOSIG
is FreeGL. OpenGL exposes open standards that are available to all, that are "open". It's this sort of confusion that has made the Free Software Foundation emphasize freedom instead of the nebulous openness.
No, I see this misconception every time a patent story appears on Slashdot. A trademark does not expire, but can be abandoned.
A patent lasts about twenty years, but does not have to be uniformly defended. In fact, a company with a large patent portfolio (especially one acquired through mergers) may not be immediately aware that a current technology infringes one of its patents. BT's hyperlink patent is a controversial example of this.
In other cases, companies attempt to popularize a patented invention through a standard to develop a revenue stream. Unisys's GIF patent is an example of this. Rambus apparently tried to patent JEDEC-related inventions. The MPEG-4 standards are laced with patents.
While patent abandonment is not an issue here, the following may be:
You're being naive.
No, I was being sarcastic.
-- MarkusQ
It's actually "To win the game, you must kill me, John Romero." It's all the same in the end though. :-P
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
There seems to be a tendency for what I call "close proximity" patents or "I was in the room when" patents.
Open GL is the work of SGI not Microsoft. The 3D rendering on the PC is the work of vareous card makers. Microsoft happend to "in the room".
But they were not "in the room" when it was invented. The 3D rendering we see on desktop PCs today was originally on mainframes and super computers nearly 20 years ago and workstations 10 years ago. Microsoft was still selling Basic when this stuff was intented.
Basicly Microsoft has as much right to Open GL as Netscape has to the web or AoL to the Internet.
In reality this is a "Well nobody patented yet so we will" patent. The patent office in issuing such a thing is doing sloppy work and shows the state of patents today to be one of the patent office version of "first post".. and this one came 10 to 20 years late.
Spec bodys should consider a liccens stating that members will not seek patents on the specs should they violate this they release those rights to the specs group or agree to be banned from access to the specs.
I know it's the software interface layor on Intel platform that Microsoft is patenting leaving SGI super computers, Amigas, Macs and thousands of prior art untouched however this genetic enough to be a creative patent on existing technology.
I don't actually exist.
If they don't, then they should.
Why should they? IBM has narrowed their field of interest down to the server - for that you need a GUI? You might need it on the terminals used to monitor the system, but you don't need a gui for that.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Do you really think Gore would have done any differently?
Remember why MS had to go through the whole deal - not because there was a democrat in the White House. MS didn't "lobby" and "donate" (ie, pay off). Their competators did. Microsoft no longer makes that mistake.