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Microsoft's Patent Problem
pens writes "Microsoft suffered utter defeat at a crucial pretrial hearing in what appears to be the highest-stakes patent litigation ever--one in which a tiny company called InterTrust Technologies claims that 85% of Microsoft's entire product line infringes its digital security patents."
because you KNOW bad news for MS is popular...
The Articleand no thanks, don't need the karma nor the flames.
Microsoft's Patent Problem
.NET networked computing platform, to name just a few. If settlement talks fail and InterTrust prevails in court, it would be entitled to a court order halting sales of all those products. InterTrust CEO Talal Shamoon asks rhetorically, "How much would that be worth to Microsoft?"
In the biggest patent case ever, the tech giant is getting trounced.
FORTUNE
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
By Roger Parloff
Last month, when Microsoft announced its bellwether decision to award employees restricted stock instead of options, it also made news in a federal courtroom--the kind of news you keep quiet about.
Microsoft suffered utter defeat at a crucial pretrial hearing in what appears to be the highest-stakes patent litigation ever--one in which a tiny company called InterTrust Technologies claims that 85% of Microsoft's entire product line infringes its digital security patents. (See Can This Man Bring Down Microsoft?)
InterTrust's engineers developed and patented what they say are key inventions in two areas: so-called digital-rights management and trusted systems. The technologies are essential to the digital distribution of copyrighted music and movies, and to maintaining the security of e-commerce in general. At its prebubble height, InterTrust (founded in 1990) employed 376 people and marketed its own software and hardware products; today it consists mainly of a patent portfolio, 30 employees, and this lawsuit. An investor group led by Sony Corp. of America and Royal Philips Electronics bought the company in January for $453 million, hoping to convince consumer electronics and tech companies--beginning with Microsoft--of the need to license its patents.
Microsoft argued in court that crucial phrases in InterTrust's patents were too vague to be enforceable, and that others required such narrow interpretation that they would have been hard for Microsoft to infringe. But in her July 3 ruling, an Oakland judge resolved 33 of 33 disputed issues against Microsoft and rebuked the company's lawyers for wasting her time by promising proof that never materialized--legal vaporware, in essence.
"This is simply another step in a long legal process," says a Microsoft spokesman, putting the best face on it. "Microsoft will continue to defend itself against what we believe are groundless and overbroad claims."
As agreed before the hearing, the parties now enter a round of settlement talks. Though InterTrust declines to place a pricetag on the suit, it's hard to imagine the company settling now for any sum that does not have a "B" in it. InterTrust claims that its inventions cover technologies that Microsoft has been weaving into its Windows XP operating system, Office XP Suite, Windows Media Player, Xbox videogame console, and
That's what patents are for. They protect your "invention" against any other thing being developed that is the same. It doesnt matter if you never saw theirs, or even knew of a patent. The inventor is responsible for searching for pre-existing patents. A patent is different from a Copyright, where knowledge of existance might be important.
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
While it's tempting to get a laugh out of a little company handing it to Microsoft for its use of DRM technology
Read the article, InterTrust is owned jointly by Sony and Phillips. This is NOT David vs Goliath. It states that Sony/Phillips bought the company with the explicit intention of going after companies armed with the patent portfolio. Call it what you will, but this is not Good vs Evil, this is Evil vs Evil.
Also, don't miss another statement made about Microsoft just being the first. They wanted to go after the big fish, so all the other fish will fall in line once the big one falls.
The only reason SCO isn't attacking BSD is that BSD isn't as popular. The Linux and OpenSource/FreeSoftware communities are bursting with energy, and have produced a product superior to anything SCO can possibly think of producing. SCO might be able to compete with BSD if BSD stays small and contained within a relatively narrow developer cabal. Linux is just too much, particularly with SCO licensees like IBM throwing down.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Intertrust's suit could hardly prompted by SCOs as it has been wending its way through the court system for two years now. It's a company that was trying to sell DRM "technology" but could not because of Microsoft's fun competitive tactics. It currently has no assets other than patents because it essentially ran out of money (at which point Sony and Philips bought it to keep this lawsuit going.)
The cake is a pie
Then all you water drinking pirates would have pay me royalties!
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>Alright slashdotters, who's the good guy? The one being bagged on in the software patent arena, or the one standing up to the 800lb gorilla?
Neither.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
It's bizarre. But copyright infringement it isn't.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Well, since Sony bought InterTrust, I doubt that Microsoft will have as much luck killing it off as IBM will with SCO...
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Happily there are a few investors savy enough to realize these things, that's why Sony and Phillips bought this company for a half a billion, and SCO is still public (meaning that noone belives they have enough of a case to buy them out).
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Actually, you are not correct, although your position is commonly believed by most people today. In fact, developing something without knowledge of a pre-existing patent _can_ be a legitimate defense in many cases. Specifically, if you can show that, by using a body of existing art/knowledge, the "logical/natural" conclusion would be your invention, then the pre-existing patent can be ruled invalid. Case in point, the infamous patenting of XOR as applied to mouse cursor graphics. Although some jackass patented it (was actually granted a patent through the US Patent Office), it was thrown out as a logical, natural, and foreseeable application of a commonly known concept.
I think you're oversimplifying. If patents were all as simple as writing a simple overview of what the "invention" was supposed to do and then waiting for others to implement that idea in any fixed form, then they'd be too vague as to be valid. A patent needs to be specific enough so that someone skilled in the art can use the patent as an instruction manual for constructing said device. Patent protection is then extended only to a device that could be reasonably considered to have been constructed using the patent. Of course, the way things have been going, who knows what it's possible to convince a judge/jury of these days.
I do not have a signature
It's absolutely amazing how many "nerds" can't figure out how to use a search engine.
Search results from USPTO, or go to the USPTO homepage and do it yourself.
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
actually it is copyright law. they are suing for damages based on code in the linux kernel and demanding, prior to judgement, license fees from all linux users. How is that not copyright? The court case might involve a contract dispute but it is based on copyright infringement. They have to prove that linux contains copyrighted code.... Copyright law will be directly involved, the contract is just an easy way for SCO to claim that IBM was tainted with SCOs copyrighted code, which is probably bogus and a ploy by microsoft (maybe something like, 'well invest some money in you, SCO, but only if you start suing linux companies, and consider the investment a downpayment on your attourney's fees).
A description in an abstract has no legal bearing on the scope of the patent granted, nor does excerpts of language drawn from the specification. The claim is the thing. Arguing in general terms from a broad sweeping apprimation of the patent craft is simply quibbling about a straw man. As to your conclusion, you might be right, you might be wrong -- but you haven't come anywhere near making a slightly credible case.
If you think a claim from a patent is valid, spell out the claim, offer a plausible construction of the claim and tell us what is the prior art. then we have a useful conversation going.
Anything else is sloppy demagoguery.
That's what patent engineers and patent attourneys are for - to make the broadest possible claims on anything you have made, without it being so broad that it invalidates the patent altogether.
...", but the way the patent system works nowadays, I would be lying...
Some years ago, I would have written "...broadest possible well-founded, legitimate claims
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
While many of us have feared that GNU/Linux and other free OSs will be targets of patent infringement lawsuits when they start to take Microsoft's core desktop market share, Microsoft has probably not considered that their business could be severely hampered by the same sort of litigation. Of course that's probably not what will happen. In all likelihood Microsoft will settle this out of court, and it'll result in a licensing deal with InterTrust. Either that or Microsoft will countersue for an unrelated patent infringement on InterTrust's part, and cross-licensing will commence. It's predictable, like clockwork. But there is a small chance that InterTrust will not go down easily, and that must have Microsoft execs worried.
In the long run it's best for Microsoft, as for the rest of us, that software patents be abolished. Microsoft would balk at the idea right now, but after a suit like this - or years of similar suits - they might be convinced it's not productive. They'd make a good ally if convinced.
You can find specific patent numbers they claim MS is in violation of, such as US Patent No. 5,940,504 which I guess is about product activation. (I'm to feeling lazy right now so you go look up the patents.)
I'm not feeling that lazy so here's a quick cut and paste of MS's stuff they claim is violating their patents.
# Xbox
# My Services
# Windows Hardware Quality Lab and Windows Logo Certification
# Windows File Protection System
# Windows XP Home
# Windows XP Professional
# Windows ME
# Windows XP Embedded
# Windows CE.NET
# Office XP Standard
# Office XP Professional
# Office XP Professional with FrontPage
# Office XP Developer
# Access 2002
# Excel 2002
# FrontPage 2002
# Outlook 2002
# PowerPoint 2002
# Project 2002
# Publisher 2002
# Word 2002
# Windows Media Player
# Microsoft Reader
# Digital Asset Server
# Internet Explorer 6.0
# ASP.NET
#
#
# Visio 2002
# Visio Enterprise Network Tools
# Visual Studio
# Visual Studio
# Visual Studio
I wonder if they missed one?
>
um, sorry?
BSD already went through this same thing a decade ago. The litigation that tied up BSD for years was actually one of the reasons that Linux became so popular to begin with.
SCO can't touch BSD because UC Berkeley and AT&T already went to court and settled on this matter.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
Scratch my previous comment. When you patent a invention, you have effectively told everybody in the world how your thing works in the patent document (eg pseudocode etc.). Patent and Non-disclosure don't go together, Unless you are talking about copyright, which is a different beast.
Don't misunderstand me I really hate MS use of
DRM technology and part of me think that they deserve whats comming to them, but the idea that you should use the legal system as a way to make money instead of a proper business model really have to stop. Nowdays it seams impossible to chose an OS that isn't in some kind of legal problem.
Linux is under fire from SCO for introducing Sys V features into Linux.
Apple is under fire from Open Group due to their
use of the Unix trade mark owned by Open Group in their marketing.
And now Microsoft again, as if their recent Timeline business wasn't bad enough.
It seams that it is more profitable for software companies to litegate than actually making what they are supposed to be good at, i.e. software.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
The article uses the phrase "trusted systems". From what I've seen of XP and Longhorn, they're not Trusted systems. This is a trusted operating system. Does XP or Longhorn prevent users who don't have high enough security clearance from copying (using software) text from a document they are reading? This is what Trusted Operating Systems are all about - preventing people who don't have appropriate security clearance from gaining access to information they shouldn't be allowed to see, and preventing people from making data on the system available to others.
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