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Yahoo! Settles Patent Dispute
theodp writes "NCR has settled the lawsuit it brought against Yahoo! last December for infringing on 10 patents related to e-commerce technology. The case, discussed earlier on Slashdot, was especially significant because it involved broad patents covering basic Internet functions. As part of the settlement, Yahoo! is now licensing the technology. Terms of the settlement and licensing agreement were not disclosed."
From the law.com article:
The patents at issue in the Yahoo case cover "ordering and downloading resources from computerized repositories;" a "computer system for management of resources;" and a "mechanism for dependably managing Web synchronization and tracking operations among multiple browsers," among other claims.
Great. Just great. So now ordering stuff over the Internet is patented. Fine for Yahoo, Amazon or other large companies who can afford to license this crap, but what about smaller businesses?
Just one more step towards making the Internet a worldwide version of the Shopping Channel. Thanks, NCR. I'll remember you in my prayers tonight.
"ordering and downloading resources from computerized repositories;" a "computer system for management of resources;" and a "mechanism for dependably managing Web synchronization and tracking operations among multiple browsers,"
So technically everyone who runs a dynamic database-driven website that serves up content is violating at least three of the ten patents NCR holds.
Yet another reason to hate ATM machines...
The link
-- everyones not everybody and neither is everybody like everyone.
Just a few quotes:
Indeed, for those of you who were here this morning and listened to the people in the software industry talk about how threatening this is to their businesses, as I see it, patents today are often entrenching the established at the expense of allowing the newcomer to come in. I question today whether a Steve Jobs could start an Apple or a Bill Gates could start a Microsoft in view of the web and thicket of patents that is out there.
Joshua Kaplan, Intouch
Oracle Corporation opposes the patentability of software. The Company believes that existing copyright law and available trade secret protections, as opposed to patent law, are better suited to protecting computer software developments.
Oracle 1994
The mind has always been sacrosanct. The claim that intellectual processes and logical procedures (that do not primarily manipulate devices) can be possessed and monopolized extends greed and avarice much too far. Algorithmic intellectual processes must remain unpatentable -- even when represented by binary coding in a computer; even when executed by the successor to the calculator.[..]The company for which I am speaking, Autodesk, holds some number of software patents and has applied for others -- which, of course, remain secret under current U.S. law. However, all are defensive -- an infuriating waste of our technical talent and financial resources, made necessary only by the lawyer's invention of software patents. Autodesk has faced at least 17 baseless patent claims made against it and has spent over a million dollars defending itself, with millions more certain to pour down the bottomless patent pit unless we halt this debacle. Fortunately -- unlike smaller software producers -- we have the financial and technical resources to rebuff such claims.
Jim Warren (Autodesk) 1994
The time and money we spend on patent filings, prosecution, and maintenance, litigation and licensing could be better spent on product development and research leading to more innovation. But we are filing hundreds of patents each year for reasons unrelated to promoting or protecting innovation.
Robert Barr (CISCO) 2002
Please help the Europeans to avoid Arlene McCarthys patent directive legislation. You shall sign the Eurolinux-Petition http://noepatents.org and support FFII http://swpat.ffii.org or other groups http://softwarepatents.co.uk
Talk to your EU representatives and tell them what you think about software patents, what they mean for your business. Stop the sausage machine as MEP Rothley (pro-swPat] denounced parliament legislation.
More information about swpat-legislation in the EU.
They are licensing the technology from NCR. I guess this way ended up cheaper than the lawsuit. That's sad too. The board of directors looked at the two options and chose the cheaper option, not the right one.
In this case, doing the Right Thing(TM) cost more than doing the cheap and easy thing. It's sad because they can afford to license this technology from NCR, yet many small companies are left in the dust. And, the fact that they are now licensing these frivolous patents only gives the patents credibility, making it even harder for the little guy to escape.
I realize, corporations are financially self-serving; but that doesn't make it right.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Do some research. NCR makes ATM machines. NCR makes POS(Point Of Sale) machines. They used to make networking equipment for their products(who knows if they still do). They aren't necessarily evil. They are broke. Doesn't make it right though.
They are nowhere near as bad as Microsoft. But, if corporations continue to bend over, they might get that bad.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
These are extremely dangerous patents. What if someone took a stove and added a keyboard to it and patented that. The two existed before. Does that mean that one should be able to patent the simple combination of the two?
The simple combination of the two, no. But if someone came up with some neat way to combine said stove and said keyboard to do something unique/interesting/useful (aside from 'just sit there' and 'make friends question sanity'), then that is something that could be patentable. The problem lies in the determination of whether or not the 'invention' is unique/interesting/useful enough to deserve a patent, which is the responsibility of the patent office. Unfortunately, these folks aren't exactly the smartest people -- not that they're particulary dense, but they just don't usually realize or understand the full implications of approving the patents that are submitted nearly as well as the companies that submit them.
Though I doubt that's legally possible, even if corporate regulation was popular around here.
sic transit gloria mundi
I always wonder whether it wouldn't be possible to demonstrate the absurdity of the system in a "real-world" way.
The point it that things are being patented that contain no innovation and require no research to develop. Sometimes they're not even developed at all, but still patented - just wild ideas.
Now it you look at the free software environment, there's tons of development going on all the time, including some substantial innovation - but hardly any of it registers on the economic "IP screen". The best one can hope for is that it can be used as prior art to shoot down some particularly silly patent.
To shortcut the argument: imagine the FSF or some such organisation going up to MS, SCO et al and being able to go "uh, no, dude, that's covered by such-and-such basic-tech-stupid-patent which belongs to - er, that would be us. Cash will be fine please. Repeatedly." - basically until it becomes clear to every last one of them that the economic environment just isn't going to work like this.
It all breaks down at the point that it sucks to formulate the patents, shove them through the [$laywer]-filter, have them registered etc. etc., and defend them. Plus, it costs a bit. And no, I'm not offering myself as a volunteer.
Ah, well.
yes, we have no bananas
What sort of moral foundations are behind so many of these companies today? Can they even be considered moral entities? I'm at a loss as to how to quantify the behavior I've seen the past few years with all the patenting, compromising government with bribes, outsourcing, and overall sleaze.
Animals at best. Monsters even.
If a city had wild and dangerous animals wandering the streets, they would waste no time addressing the problem. Why is it that these powerful creatures allowed to perform intellectual, legal, monetary, and diplomatic harm to the US without any action being taken?
They're becoming mad dogs, doing harm to all they touch while crying out the whole time "We must remain profitable."
Well, that raises an interesting question:
If a corporation pays little or no taxes and refuses to employ Americans, does it really matter to the United States if they remain profitable or not?
Time to have a good look at some of these mad dogs and seeing just how much they deserve government contracts, tax exemptions, and other little perks.
If they want to dump Americans and not contribute to the economy, lets dump them. What harm could it do to get rid of a few leeches? A little bit of political pressure, get rid of a handful, that's all that would be needed. the rest would fall into line. Just like how the IRS targets high profile tax evaders and the RIAA targets the rich kids.
I know IBM is kind of popular around here. I kind of liked them myself until recently. But 3 million outsourced jobs? FUCK YOU IBM. You evict that many people form their jobs and that's kinda mass murder. The pain of 3 million people out of work. If all of them cried out at the same time you could probably hear them clearly from coast to coast, no matter where you were at.
There's an undertone of barbarism to all this. Brutal and cold hearted people who could give a fuck what happens to the rest of America so long as they get their golden parachute and stock options.
Corporations are given a lot of responsibility and power in this country. And in the course of the past 5 years alone, we've seen scandals that stretch the imagination from just about every sector. A bunch of evil children running amok with the keys to the nation.
This story has a nasty, nasty feel about it.
NCR is the company where Thomas J. Watson Sr. learned the dirty tricks he needed to found and run IBM. By 1920, NCR had already perfected the techniques of capturing customers and smashing competitors (often literally, with sticks and stones). IBM did the same in a slightly genteeler way, Microsoft did the same a generation later.
So NCR is back and has cornered one of the few Internet success stories. Next, Google and Amazon? The patents appear to be so basic that they apply to every commercial web site, nay, every commercial software application.
Evil, dangerous, and cynically positioned to take advantage of other people's hard work and sacrifice.
Why does this kind of parasitical behaviour go unpunished? Because the ones doing it are part of the system, not outside it. Not only does the system allow this kind of abuse, it has pretty much evolved to support and protect it.
Conclusion: the modern political body is corrupt and survives by manipulating public opinion. Nothing new... two millenia after the fall of the Roman Empire, we are treated in the same way as the emperors treated their subjects.
Give them bread, and they won't complain.
Give them circuses, and they won't notice.
Give them security, and they won't fight.
Human nature lets such things happen, for a while. But eventually it revolts and the further it has been pushed one way, the more aggressive and reactionary the revolt.
If you want my website, you're going to have to prise it from my cold, dead hands.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I have to say that this sounds like a great way of making money.
Generate a bunch of very broad ideas, get the patent office to grant patents on them and then contact all the big web based companies and offer to license the Intellectual Property to them, or else.
Tell me again why everyone isn't doing it?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Great, let's propose MORE government to solve a problem that was created by government in the first place.
Seriously, it's probably time for a grass-roots push for a Congressional Inquisition (oooo, he said "Inquisition" and even capitalized it!!!!) into the patent crisis that is contributing great harm to our economy.
You're right, I should have paid more attention to semantics. Just to be clear, it is the notion of using force to accomplish a goal that I consider the root of the problem. I am of the belief that it is never moral or just to use force to achieve a goal, except for the special case of self-defense. Big government encourages the use of force by setting the bad example -- after all, everything government does is rooted in force, by definition.