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InterTrust Says It Owns DRM, Sues Microsoft
Rinisari writes "Fortune.com has a story about Santa Clara-based InterTrust Technologies is claiming that their suite of 26 issued patents and 85 pending patents covers digital rights management technology currently in use by Microsoft. InterTrust is seeking an injunction barring distribution of about 85% of Microsoft's product line, including WindowsXP, OfficeXP, and Xbox. Slashdot previously mentioned InterTrust when Sony and Philips announced they were attempting to buy ( and still are attempting to buy) the DRM outfit."
Anybody who takes on one of the world's largest corporations (with probably the most high-paid lawyers on its payroll) and attempts to shut down 85% of their product line is very courageous indeed.
I wonder what makes them think they can pull it off.
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..but if Intertrust wins, it could lead to a similar 'media tax' that the RIAA wants people to pay when they buy CD-R's and other forms of recordable media.
There is everything stupid about them. One of their 26 patents is 500 pages and lists clsoe to 1500 claims, or was it 2000? The text showed every sign of having been produced using an automated tool.
The field of DRM long predates Intertrust and their patents.
At this point the company is down to a bunch of lawyers and they have staked the entire company on the Microsoft suit. They don't have any engineering at this point, it is pure patent exploitation.
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Well, they had to wait until Microsoft had actually infringed on their patents before filing a suit. From the article, it seems pretty clear to me that they tried to negotiate a legitimate deal and Microsoft, as usual, screwed them over.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
If MS is forced to remove any and all DRM code, they'll just issue a hotfix that'll remove it. I don't see it bringing down Windows.
Now, it may hurt their Windows Media format being used by Hollywood-types since DRM was one of its selling points.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
InterTrust own a whole bunch of patents. In fact, that is about all they own. They derive basically all their income from suing other companies who in any way attempt to limit the copying and transferrability of works in the digital space. (a.k.a. Digital Rights Management)
I expect them to sue: Microsoft, OpenTV, Liberate, PowerTV, Nagravision, NDS, Canal Plus, and just about anyone who has anything to do with conditional access if they haven't already.
You can thank overly broad patent protection that allows you to patent an idea (remember 1-click ordering), instead of forcing the patent holder to develop a product or implementation that actually utilizes the idea.
The only thing InterTrust has ever done is create a major payday for lawyers.
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Me, I'm cheering for endless litigation. That will delay any implementation of DRM. If MS fights to be a player in this arena, that's what you'll see. OTOH, if InterTrust is just looking to shake them down for the rights to use DRM, they might well pay up.
Always look on the briight side of life! (whistle, whistle)
Noting the history of MS and it's policy, this is the mating ritual of a company that wants to get bought by MS. They are just making sure that their asking price gets accepted.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Wouldn't it be valuable to start a "Prior Art Foundation" where EVERYONE could contribute ideas, process or whatever, and that the "prior art foundation" will only certify at what date the document arrived at the "Prior Art Database". Add some metadata and serach capabilities and we'd be able to cover mostly anything in 5 years, and overly broad patents days will be over? I mean, we should all submit ALL kind of idea, even if stupid , obvious or the "only way to do it" abeit trivially. It doesn't matter if we'd want to do any of those, but at least there would be specific documentation somebody said that first, so that they can't claim a patent. Even worst, they'd have to research this HUGE archive of "anti-patent minefield" because if not, they might end up putting resources in a field that is anti-mined, so they want to be able to go sue happy as they planned (ie: 0 unfair revenue, which is what they want).
unfinished: (adj.)