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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."
If settlement talks fail and InterTrust prevails in court, it would be entitled to a court order halting sales of all those products.
... but hey ... we can dream right?
It'll never happen
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.
This eliminates the buy-out option.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
This presents quite a dilemma. Do I root for Microsoft and hope quell the tide of overly broad patents? Or do I root for InterTrust and hope this derails DRM for the time being? I guess I'm leaning toward the option where the trial drags out for two years, but MS eventually wins. That way at least the patent gets busted (because we know that MS would eventually license and implement DRM anyway).
While it's tempting to get a laugh out of a little company handing it to Microsoft for its use of DRM technology, of all things, this is yet another B.S. piece of patent litigation. InterTrust, according to the article, is now nothing more than "a patent portfolio, 30 employees, and this lawsuit." Microsoft, like all other technology corporations, has its own bulky patent portfolio --- which is useless defense against a company that makes no use of its own patents, much less anyone else's.
It'd be funny if Microsoft used its considerable political influence to fix this patent problem, and wound up killing SCO as a side-effect. Hey, it may be cheaper than licensing DRM from InterTrust...
Ok, you have SCO attacking Linux over licensing code. You have this small company (but backed by larger companies SONY and Phillips) attacking Microsoft. Where does someone turn to get away from all the legal hassles?
Ignoring the trolls, would a *BSD system be better off, because SCO doesn't seem to be claiming anything related to BSD.
Also, could this be a nail in the coffin of DRM? Or, would MS just pay the license fee, and jack the consumers for it anyway?
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
Intertrust won, and the courts found Microsoft guilty. This could potentially lead to every user of microsoft products infringeing IP! Their new licenseing agreements would totally backfire. Could be interesting...
Visualize the world of wine
If they are claiming that the .NET framework somehow infringes on their patents I'd be really worried about whether those claims could be extended to Java and J2EE.
If I was InterTrust, I'd be quiet about the patents. With as much "digital security" problems Microsoft has, I would find it rather embarrassing to say that they were mine. InterTrust, what integrity you may have had just went down faster than Jenna Jameson in a porno video.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
This guy is not claiming copyright infringement. Therefore he doesn't need to see the source code to determine whether or not infringement occurred. He simply needs to see a program which implements (via any source code) a technique that he's patented.
Let's use an example of what I mean. Mailblocks claim that they have a patent on an antispam technique called "Challenge/Response". Then comes along Earthlink who implements a C/R antispam option for their customers. Mailblocks sues Earthlink. Now Mailblocks hasn't seen any of the source code to the software that Earthlink uses. But they know that they have a patent on what earthlink is doing, because they can interract with it and identify whether or not Earthlink's system implements all of the claims of Mailblocks' patent. Then they file suit.
BTW, I don't particularly like the patent claim that Mailblocks is using. I think that there is a *LOT* of prior art that can be demonstrated for this particular patent. However it is useful to illustrate the point: that this guy does not need to see Microsoft's source code to claim patent infringement. He only needs to play with the software and see if it does something that he's patented.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
This is not copyright infringement, this is patent infringement.
If someone accuses you of infringing on their copyright by stealing sourcecode, you can disprove them if you show that your sourcecode bears no resemblance to theirs.
If someone accuses you of violating their patent, you must prove that your invention falls outside the scope of their patent OR that their patent is invalid due to prior art.
Therefore, your questions of how they got the code aren't terribly relevant. As for how InterTrust noticed that they were using patented techniques, well, I assume they probably keep up in the field and read some of Microsoft's whitepapers. Again, patents cover a scope of techniques, rather than an exact set of code instructions, so it's possible to gauge infringement without a sourcecode comparison in some cases.
Actually, I think Microsoft's future plans depend on this technology. Even if the patent expired tomorrow, they'd still owe a BUNCH of back payments should the case be decided in favor of Intertrust.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Before DRM was even heard of, MS did infact make a few visits to Intertrust and MS to remember the quote from teh article, "were given an education in DRM". Before that MS weren't doing this, after the many meetings, MS started to implement their own DRM solutions, similar to embrace and extend, however they didn't extend enough so much that they bought Intertrust when they had the chance. The first time i heard this story was nearly over a year ago and i thought this had died down, however since it has now gone to court, this all seems tangible.
Jonathanjk.com
I'm giddy with delight.
Let's face it, this may be a 'small' company putting the boot in, but it's a 'small' company owned (mostly) by Sony. Patents still only help those with very deep warchests.
Lots of different ways to look at this case, and frankly i'm not sure exactly where my opinion on it stands just yet.
But this idea you floated about the litle guy making nothing off patents is clearly wrong. These were little guys who came up with their patents a while ago, they later sold rights to them to Sony and Phillips for 453 million dollars who are now trying to make the "big score" on their investment. If you ask me, the 453 mill "sure thing" they got was far from a pittance to a company of their size (even if Sony does make billions off it, they took a gamble with that 453 that they could have possibly lost)
Intertrust is a privately held firm, numbnuts. "Investors" haven't made anything -- just its parent companies.
Privately held firms are where it's at. All the flexibility and simplicity of small business combined with the clout of big business.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Right after Microsoft offers to pay for anyone intellectual propery claims against it's users, someone comes along and claims that MS is violating their IP rights. Theoretically, this company could send out cease and desist letters to all users demanding that they stop using all MS products containing the infringements, and then we could all hand our legal bills to MS to pay off for us, per their new program
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
If I had mod points I'd mod the parent as "insightful"... I agree strongly with the sentiment expressed therein. I would love to see Mickeysoft go down, but not at the hands of a bunch of guys with an IP portfolio. A situation like that would further engender this whole miserable environment of "intellectual property" enforcement.
The ends don't justify the means, especially in this case!
Standing at the very edge of my imagination, I peered into the inky void and realised -- I couldn't think up a new sig.
The Intertrust patents are pretty specific. They lost their business because Microsoft used their patents and essentially gave them away for free in their products, destroying the value for Intertrust in selling their technology. Though all that remains of Interust are patents and lawyers, at one point they had almost 400 employees. 400 employees worked for several years to produce technology that was co-opted by Microsoft. All of those employees lost their jobs because Microsoft used their patents.
Though the majority here just say that 'software patents are bad' , there is some justification for patents. The main problem with software patents is the USPTO and it's inability to properly check patents; issuing overbroad patents that cover overly generic stuff.
These aren't submarine patents or anything else as Intertrust sued Microsoft shortly after talks between the two companies broke down when Microsoft was first introducing DRM into Windows Media Player.
Actually in principal the whole patent/copyright system is a mess. This is just another symptom of it. What would be nice is if Microsoft woke up to that reality and began lobbying for some changes. Certainly they have some pull in Washington...
Since, as the article pointed out that an injunction would essentially kill Microsoft, Microsoft will obviously seek to setlle if it looks like things are going badly for them. But, for a minute imagine that InterTrust was out to get Microsoft, and was not going to settle. It seems that a number of branches of the government, determined to rely on Microsoft software for their security, view Windows as crucial to National Security. Therefore, is it even possible for Microsoft to lose this case?
According to this article from PCWorld Microsoft has agreed to pay for its customers' full legal bills if they get sued over intellectual property issues relating to its products.
My bet is that Microsoft agreed to that as a statement in the SCO battle. I'm wondering if they may soon be regretting that.
This reminds me of watching a Dallas Cowboys vs. Oakland Raiders game. The only thing I can root for is injuries.
I detest this concept of overly broad patents, I only dislike Microsoft extremely. I can't say I really want to see Microsoft win, but I *definately* don't want to see the mis-application of patents continue.
Ultimately I think overly broad patents and the mis-use of the patent system constitute a far greater threat to Linux and Open Source than anything Microsoft could do. In fact they constitute a huge threat to the entire concept of freedom.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
After reading about some major courtroom losses suffered by MS over the last few years, I wondered if they'd had any major leadership changes in their legal team.
o v0 1/11-21NeukomPR.asp
A quick search found the following article documenting Bill Neukom's departure at the end of 2001. Is it possible that he was really *that* good of an attorney? He beat the Apple case (or settled for a couple of bucks), he beat anti-trust, he beat Sun, he beat a class action racial discrimination, etc. After his departure, MS lost big to AOL, lost a class action brought by permatemps and lost in this hearing... Maybe Neukom's replacement sucks?
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2001/n
It's like the end of Jurassic Park, when the kids and the scientists are all cornered by the Velociraptors, and suddenly, the T-Rex comes along, and tries to eat one of the Velociraptors, and then the other two attack the T-Rex, and the humans escape.
It's great when two evils decide to attack eachother.
This is why competition is good, and monopolies are bad.
The US Govt - by the way, has a monopoly on awarding patents.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I am quite surprised.
:
/.
Lot's of "Urah" and "that's good"...
But just remember
1/ if InterTrust succeeds who's coming next on their menu ? However I do not think the future will take this path.
2 / remember, InterTrust is backed up by Sony & Philips. That is not David against Goliath as some are thinking. That is Mamoths against Mamoth.
They will probably settle an arrangement. It is not good for Sony & Philips to test the validity of the copyright up to its end. It is far much better to let the shadow of it, in order to scare others. That is much better in order to force others into complying with their own agenda. Remember who are Sony & Philips ? They are not FSF advocates but music & multimedia devices suppliers... Remember who are their friends ?
Their agenda (InterTrust agenda) is probably to give Sony & Philips leverage on MS in order to implement THEIR technology into Windows. That will make money (licence + standard devices & albums disks) for them and cost nothing (no market to penetrate, MS does it & no trial for years). After that their technology will be all over the rest of the world.
The best thing (the worst ?) of all 3 is that it can even be good for MS who might end with 2 allies in order to propagate its technology (CE in Philips & Sony devices ? MS DRM in Sony albums ?).
Indeed that is very very bad for all of us.
We are living is a very sad world guys. Depressing to read
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
You run THIS story because it's anti-Microsoft and completely ignore the story that a company in the US claims to have a patent on all possible methods of streaming media of any type on the internet. Which would of course affect Linux and Linux based servers, ISPs and broadcasters.
That's objective journalism for you. Not.
They hold patents on DRM and claim 85% of microsofts product lines?
Um Visual Studio, MS Golf, MS Flight Sim, MS Office, heck 90% of windows has nothing todo with DRM I'd say.
Oh, and since no secure DRM exists how can you hold a patent on it? It's like holding a patent on cold fusion because your design "almost works but doesn't at all."
Not that I care one way or another about MSFT but this sort of shit has to stop. And if MSFT can put weight behind it I hope they squash it.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
As a die-hard Linux user (nothing else in my house for the last 6 years):
I hope these guys have something damn good to show, for such a large claim.
Sort of like SCO vs. ???
Just an attempt at being fair here, you understand. I expect fairness given for fairness offered. I'm not young really, and it's not naive to expect fairness: it depends on how badly an individual or company desires my respect and business, 20 years later even.
This points up the larger problem, IMHO: There is this new idea that:
Ethical ! == Legal
Business_good ! == Individual_good
or vice-versa even. I've made my choices, but it sure looks like a few trend-setters and business people need to go back to the 80's/90's (USA) and look in the mirror again.
Again, just IMHO. And yes, I'm US native (just for the curious).
C|N>K
Couple reasons:
1. Without patents, the little guy who invents something new won't be able to compete against the big corporations who copy his idea.
2. Patents are REQUIRED to describe sufficient details so that any reasonably skilled person in the "art" (computer science, electrical engineer, etc.) can actually use the patent to build the invention. This means rather than keeping useful inventions secret, the inventor benefits for about 17 years after which the general public can benefit too by having details available.
In other words, patents CAN help the lone inventor protect his invention and it helps foster an environment where inventors are incented to SHARE details about their invention with the public.
Like anything else, there are abuses and extreme cases but it doesn't mean there are no benefits.
While we all thought that MS was indemnifying their customers in order to present Linux in a bad-light, might that have been to assuage customers against this ruling? This news seems to be put MS WindowsXX in a much worse position than Linux/IBM is now. There is already a ruling against MS, as opposed to only 'legal vaporware' against Linux. Convince your company to stay away from MS based on this!!
All bow to his Noodliness!! His Noodle Appendage has touched me!
A copyright applies only to the specific wording of a program, does it not? If you want to protect the algorithm, does that not require a patent, or is there some other legal mechanism which should be being used?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Software patents are wrong in general. It seems as though this company has become a litigation engine for finding infringements of it's patent anywhere it can, even if it's a stretch.
I'm no Microsoft lover, but I don't like seeing software patents abused in this way.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
You can't have it both ways.
:-( Still, I don't see any moral ambiguity or double standard in my hopes.
Though I agree the parent comment was very insightful, I think I could have it both ways. One of the reasons I dislike Microsoft (Or at least its business practices) is because of the degree they have egendered/exacerbated the very IP problem mentioned in the parent comment. I don't think it's the tip of the iceberg per se, since MS itself was the tip, middle, and a good portion of the bottom of the iceberg. It would be a pleasure to see them suffer the literal consequences of their actions and it would be (at least) poetic justice, with the added bonus of knowing they would be forced to at least partly aid the fight against such patents and similar ip claims.
Though I must admit I'm not too optimistic that it will necessarily turn out that rosy
-Chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
I agree that software patents are a pain and are unethical.
But it's interesting to note who is attacking MS here and in what context. Philips and Sony are two of the greatest consumer electronics companies on the planet. Sony is an archfoe of Microsoft since Redmond released the XBox. Several large Japanese companies recently made a lot of noise about standardizing on Linux for consumer electronics, which is pretty bad for WindowsCE. Some observers wondered if the goal of that publicity wasn't just to score a marketing point against WinCE.
So this is the next episode in this war. This patent lawsuit is a single battle in a larger fight.
Watch for more blows exchanged between MS and consumer electronics companies.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Microsoft may now decide to harness some of its billions to lobby for laws *against* software patents.
On the other hand, they may decide that they'll need to accumulate the most massive patent portfolio in order to have ammunition if faced with something similar again.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Look, baseless claims are often made in IP cases. But who's to say that InterTrust didn't come to M$, layout it's proposals and say "This would be a good integration into your software" M$ says "We'll get back to you on that" and simply takes the idea and runs!? If that's the case, and it certainly is viable, then that puts a whole other angle on this. It certainly would be typical M$ fashion, no? JAV
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.
Normally I'd agree, but the typical technical patent simply is a restatement of the abstract, in all possible permutations of basic hardware and software setups. See the anatomy of a trivial patent for examples of that sort of thing. Combined with the way the Patent Office (and the rest of the system) is forced to take a broad view of patents, it regrettably is fairly valid to argue from the abstract alone.
There's no reasonable way to describe a true implementation of these ideas fully in the twenty or so pages most of these sorts of patents consume.
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.
Generally speaking, while that may be useful in non-software domains, software patent claims are uselessly vague. Showing prior art for a patent claim that literally boils down to "Sending encrypted data with a network" (as opposed to the next claim, which could involve sending encrypted data with a modem) is so easy, the legal system refuses to believe it, so they make it impossible, because while specified prior art certainly invalidates the broad claim, it doesn't quite match the exact implementation or something stupid like that. Frankly, I have a hard time keeping all the rationalizations that make software patents possible straight; they are so nonsensical that they make no sense to me anymore.
Ok. Let's say you come up with a great idea for a new chip fabrication process that could potentially increase transistor density by 1000 times. You start up a small business venture and get a loan from the bank and a small group of investors to fund this idea. However, it's very expensive to fully develop this technique. You spend several years and millions of dollars perfecting it (trying different frequencies of lasers, different combinations of semiconductor materials, etc.) but finally get it right.
You start making your chips using this new process, but don't patent the process because patents are bad, mmmkay? Since your chips are so much better than the competition they sell pretty well. In fact, your small business is overwhelmed by orders and you run out of your reserve supply trying to meet the initial demand. However in order to break even on all the money your poured into initial R&D you need to sell tens of millions of units, and it will take at least a year or two just to manufacture that many.
Then, 3 months later, your competitor, which is an entrenched behemoth semiconductor manufacturer, reverse-engineers your process and starts making a duplicate product at much, much lower prices than you charge. Since they don't have to pay back the R&D expense, and their larger facilities mean lower fixed manufacturing costs per-chip, their margins are better even though their price is less than half or yours.
Well, thanks to this new competition you now have to lower your prices to match just to get any sales, meaning your margins are extremely tight and it will now take decades to pay off all those research costs. Plus, your sales are down significantly since the market is now diluted with copycats, and the competition has better brand recognition. You can't sustain enough profits to pay back your debts in a timely fashion (you had to borrow money to conduct research and build your facilities, after all) and are forced into bankruptcy. Thanks to the fact that you didn't have a patent for your invention, you just gave your best idea to the competition for free, and got yourself into bankruptcy to boot.
We will never know the outcome of this case. When Microsoft settles with InterTrust, InterTrust will be forbidden to disclose the terms of the settlement. Only InterTrust and their lawyers will know what the payoff was, and their lips will be sealed.
They had a bogus data compression patent that they successfully sued Microsoft over. The result was that Microsoft bought out Stac for something like $120 million and incorporated the Stac algorithm into Disk Doubler.
Quarterdeck STAC wasn't bogus at all. It actually worked, while Disk Doubler was nothing but trouble. AFAIK, the lawsuit wasn't about patents, but that MS had verbatim copied code from STAC into DD.
Se eg. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/12684.html
MS never bought Quarterdeck (of QEMM and Desqview fame). MS hated Quarterdeck with a passion, probably because of Desqview.
They could have done this from the start, but it's obvious that the company with a patent on a "secure operating system" has no respect for other people's "intelectual property". How absurd it was for them to argue that Intertrusts patents were, too vague to be enforceable, and that others required such narrow interpretation that they would have been hard for Microsoft to infringe.
One thing's for sure, neither Microsoft nor patent law can win. Without strong patent law, Microsoft will fall to superior free software. If Microsoft wins, patent law suffers. If they lose, they can be ruined and that would be shocking. It would be better for Microsoft to lose.
The absurdity of patent law must be demonstrated and this is a great way to do it. Patent law has worked to the disadvantage of others and should work to Microsoft's disadvantage too. Microsoft's defeat and ruin by forgein firms might just shock the US population into examining and overturning the laws that idiots like Bill Gates pushed for. Sony and Philips have invested more than half a billion dollar in this 30 person firm and patent portfolio. It is right and fitting that Microsoft be destroyed by the laws they helped create and then used to abuse others. It will be sweeter still if their destruction leads to the end of software patents.
Who am I kidding? Microsoft is going to win, patent law will continue to be available to the hightest bidder and US courts will still be the finest money can buy. It will be interesting but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If you ignore the jokes, it is pretty clear that Slashdot unaimously thinks Microsoft is the one to root for. Read the comments please, and find one serious one that does not say that the InterTrust is evil for this.
As one of the named inventors on a pending software patent application, I call BS on this. The patents you usually hear about, particularly on Slashdot, are bad. But that doesn't mean that "almost all" software patents are for stuff that was obvious when they were filed. In 1999, was the use of stego to encode digital watermarking information really obvious? The first academic conference on stego-related issues wasn't even created until 1996. I know some of the people who worked at Intertrust during its heyday - and they're damn smart crypto and security researchers. Look at some of the research papers from Intertrust. If you know anything about security, you'll recognize some very good computer scientists in there. Martin Abadi invented the logic used to analyze security protocols. Robert Tarjan quite literally wrote the book on advanced algorithms and data structures.
Now, contrast that with something like "a patent on the use of a web server to sell things" -- well, duh. But a patent that describes the method by which you use the high frequency components of an audio signal to digitally watermark an audio sample? It sounds kind of obvious in 2003 because that's how everyone's doing it, but the technology was quite new five years ago, and Intertrust was doing some of the preeminent research on it.
Don't blast all software patents because some are stupid. The system has a problem - a big one - but the fundamental concept of software patents isn't as silly as you might believe.
Software is not about big ideas, it is about implementation. I wouldn't know one software company that has become big on a patented idea. On the contrary: people who have the first implementation usually fail.
However, you shouldn't regret those first comers too much. Just talk to some smart programmers and you will showered with vague ideas of big new implementations. The people who make the first implementations are actually the second phase in how software develops.
E-bay is a very good example. With their perfectionism they took online auctions to the next level and in the process they got the market.
Microsoft is the king of implementation. Sure, they need a few versions to get there, but the always end up with the best implementation.
I am sorry to see that Microsoft has by now so many legal bruises that they even have a hard day in court when justice is on their side.
Exactly. And do you notice that those who have monopolies tend to do a shoddy job of things? Face it - MSoft has got their OS monopoly - well basically. And inlight of "spending millions on security" they still come out with holes in thier software. Am I about to rant on Microsoft? Nope.
But consider this: if MSoft holds soo much of the world market share in OS and according to most ./'ers does such a horrific job of it - what has the US patent office been doing lately?
It seems these days that anyone can get a patent on anything. Have we taken the idea of IP too far? or patents in general? Patents on something very specific are understandable. You come up with a new data encoding technology for hard drives for example. At this point its a wonder the Patent office isnt issuing IP patents for say... "a device to reproduce audible information from a personal computer by electrical impulses." Wham, US patent office grants it and suddenly our $10.00 PC speakers are 200.00 because someone sues the hell out of every speaker manufacturer on the planet for patent infringement.
Pretty soon ideal growth is going to grind to a halt. Why? no one will develop new ideas or technologies for fear of getting sued by someone else claiming they had the idea first.
And the source of the problem? People working in the patent office who don't realize that granteing these broad encompassing patents hurts growth, industry, research, courts, and the economy.
Wonder if I can get a patent on air? I bet if I phrase it right I can be granted a US patent, and therfore a monopoly on Oxygen. Think not? give someone time and the right phrasing. I'm sure the patent office will be happy to oblige.