Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Applies For .NET Patent
Wojina writes "Microsoft has applied for a comprehensive patent on what appears to be the entire implementation of the .NET CLR (Common Language Runtime) and the framework APIs. Microsoft's CLR is an implementation of the CLI (submitted to ECMA for standardization). Does this bode ill for the Mono project? See the CNET News story." And a chaser: Nept points to this interesting Microsoft-funded .NET obfuscation project.
... When a patented or copyrighted product is one of many products competing in a market, antitrust issues typically do not arise from unilateral conduct. However, when a patented or copyrighted product is so successful that it evolves into its own economic market, succeeds in garnering a large market share, or is essential to compete in a market, the antitrust laws and the intellectual property laws collide. The antitrust laws' primary purpose of preserving competition is frustrated when the holder of a patent or copyright exercises the exclusionary market power that comes with those rights.
The United States Supreme Court has yet to deal with these knotty issues, although the Court apparently is seriously considering doing so....
Cheers, Joel
From Mono's FAQ
Question 122: Could patents be used to completely disable Mono (either submarine patents filed now, or changes made by Microsoft specifically to create patent problems)?
No. First, its basic functional capabilities have pre-existed too long to be held up by patents. The basic components of Mono are technologically equivalent to Sun's Java technology, which has been around for years.
Mono will also implement multi-language and multi-architecture support, but there are previous technologies such as UCSD p-code and ANDF that also support multiple languages using a common intermediate language. The libraries are similar to other language's libraries, so again, they're too similar to be patentable in large measure.
However, if Microsoft does patent some technology, then our plan is to either (1) work around it, (2) chop out patented pieces, (3) find prior art that would render the patent useless. Not providing a patented capability would weaken the interoperability, but it would still provide the free software / open source software community with good development tools, which is the primary reason for developing Mono.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
How are, for example, a web server (handles requests submitted by remote devices) and web browser (interface to present functions used to access resources) not covered by this claim? The next independent claim is:
Like, e.g. SETI@Home over TCP/IP? Or PVM?
Or claim 19:
...like, say, Mozilla.
Of course, there are dependent claims that try to make this more specific (ooh, using XML documents over a network, that's original). And, of course, the whole thing could be rejected by the patent office.
Still, it's like they didn't even make an effort to try and avoid the most obvious prior-art objections. Almost like they have complete contempt for the patent office, and confidence that no one will dare to challenge their multi-billion-dollar legal war chest if they ever do assert patent rights over someone. But no, that's crazy.
If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned & not shared. S. Augustine
Microsoft have applied for a patent,
Yes, and with the current state of the Patent and Trademark Office (as for the last few years), just about any patent applied for gets granted, especially if the applicant has deep pockets.
The PTO gets paid more for issuing a patent than for declining one, and the PTO is "self-funding". Furthermore, there's no penalty to the PTO if they're found to have issued a patent they shouldn't have (ie for prior art, obviousness, whatever) -- the penalty is all to those buying, er, obtaining the patent, and to the public for suffering bogus patents.
-- Alastair
Claim 1 reads:
Tcl-DP provided an application configured to handle requests submitted by remote devices over a network (the RPC server), and an application program interface to present functions used by the application to access network and computing resources of the distributed computing system (the dp_RPC command protocol). The client application mentioned in the dependent claims is provided by any application configured as an RPC client.
Well, to begin with, there's the Halloween Documents, which include amongst other things the quote:
The effect of patents and copyright in combatting Linux remains to be investigated.
Examples from Here include:
ASF: changing copyright rules by means of patents Microsoft has prohibited a Free Software programmer from writing import/export filters for its Advanced Streaming Format (ASF). The programmer wanted interoperability with a format that Microsoft is promoting. But for Microsoft, interoperability is in this case doubly disadvantageous: besides reducing the lock-in effect, on which Microsoft's platform strategy relies, it also can circumvent the locks on unauthorized copying, by which Microsoft wants to attract content providers to its ASF platform. Whereas in the DeCSS case a court ruling was necessary to enforce new draconian copyright provisions of the highly disputed Digital Millenium Act, in the ASF case a simple patent suffices to achieve the same legislative goal.
and
Microsoft bars GNU software from interoperating with CIFS During the 1st week of April 2002, Microsoft published a license for its new specification CIFS which it is trying to establish as a de facto communication standard. This license says that free software under GNU GPL, LGPL and similar licenses may not use CIFS. It bases this ban on two broad and trivial US patents with priority dates of 1989 and 1993. Preliminary search results suggst that these patents to not have EP (European Patent) counterparts. But there is nevertheless an EP patent which could possibly be used by MS for the same purpose. Critical network infrastructure such as Samba as well as new projects such as Mono seem to be affected.
There's also this account from Linux User (Warning: It's a pdf file):
Asked by CollabNet CTO Brian Behlendorf whether Microsoft will enforce its patents against open source projects, Mundie replied, "Yes, absolutely." An audience member pointed out that many open source projects aren't funded and so can't afford legal representation to rival Microsoft's. "Oh well," said Mundie. "Get your money, and let's go to court."
There are, I'm sure, other examples which could be provided, but this is just a small sample of Microsoft attitudes with respect to Patents and Free Software.