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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."
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.
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!
$8.95/mo web hosting
>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.
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.
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".
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.
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.