Slashdot Mirror
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."
People claiming that someone copied DRM.
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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If Microsoft doesn't own the patents on DRM, and will have to pay royalties to include it, what incentive will they have to include it in their operating systems?
Black and grey are both shades of white.
chown -R microsoft * / /
chmod -R 000 *
Now microsoft owns your files, and not even they can read them!
The worldwide owner of DRM technology patents capable of stopping the XBox being sold will be Sony, the people who make the PlayStation? That's hilarious.
Remember back in the day when Sony fought like hell to make VCRs legal, saying consumers had a right to copy? At Sony Music, do they look back on those court cases and laugh?
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.
That's the nightmare scenario, sure. But I can see some good outcomes, too:
... and eventually we end up with a world where content is available primarily on less restricted platforms. Alternately, Philips stays in the fight and the rest of the content world just kind of grows around the quagmire.
1) InterTrust wins, and wins big. Maybe they then get bought out by Sony and Philips, maybe not; either way, Microsoft has to pay some huge amount of money (and maybe continuous royalties) to someone else -- or scrap years of work on their products and start over. Bad for Microsoft == good for pretty much everyone else in the world. And Microsoft can't just buy InterTrust because they've spent so much damn money paying off the settlement, and/or Sony and Philips (which between them can probably outspend even Billy-boy) throw in their money to keep it from happening.
2) InterTrust loses, and loses hard enough to set a precedent against questionable patents. Although this would be good for Microsoft in the short term, it might be good for everyone in the long term by establishing the precedent that ideas aren't patentable, only implementations, which is the way it should be all along. Unfortunately the article doesn't go into enough detail to judge whether that's a possible outcome, but if it did happen, it would be a Good Thing.
3) The case stalemates (probably because, as in the anti-trust case, Microsoft is clearly guilty, but their money and name recognition keep the case in endless appeals) and Sony and Microsoft end up fighting a years-long war with Intertrust as the proxy. Meanwhile, Philips dissasociates itself from the case and starts working with more consumer-friendly companies
(2), which would probably be the most useful in the long term, is also IMO the least likely. But (1) and (3) seem like real possibilities.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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It never worked. So, like all internet boom companies that had ideas, but just vapourware, they are reduced to suing everyone in sight. This is one I want to see Microsoft win.
Actually, MS are salivating over DRM for an entirely different reason: they think business will pay them pots of cash for it.
Just imagine how good a "your documents can't be leaked, can't be stolen, changes can be tracked and you have total control over which employees see what" must sound. It'd make business confidentiality much easier. Pay-per-play is a lucrative area, but DRM has far wider uses than just that.
I've been told by MS execs that there is kind of an internal debate raging about whether micropayments or DRM is the way forward, but that DRM was winning because it could be commercialised and sold as a feature to business. They didn't seem to regard the content industry as the main target for it: individuals and organizations who wished to control their own business information were a big deal.
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)
As a former Intertrust employee, maybe I can shed some light on this.
There are a lot of comments stating that Intertrust had nothing more than a patent portfolio. As someone who ran Intertrust's product live on the internet for demos and trials, I can attest that that is not true. Intertrust provided SDKs to companies interested in DRM technology, and we had an in-house product showing one possible implementation. The product was real.
Second of all, this lawsuit has been in the works for years. I heard about it in mid-2000 when I worked there, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were working on this in 1999. From my understanding, it came about from ITRU's talks with Microsoft, which resulted in Microsoft putting out white papers on DRM technology that looked amazingly like ITRU's white papers, except with the ITRU logos replaced with Microsoft logos. Really. I expect a decision in ITRU's favor, which will be stuck in the appellate courts for approximately eternity.
Anyway, Microsoft is evil, and perhaps ITRU is evil if you don't like patents, but there are plenty of good uses for DRM (think medical records), and anytime someone can stick it to Microsoft, they should.
Cheers!
I'd love to be an IP lawyer. That way I could indulge my love of money and hatred for mankind in one easy step.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.