Slashdot Mirror
Company Claims Patent on CD Writing
rborek writes "According to CNet News.com, Roxio is being sued by Optima Technology over Patent 5,666,531 which covers 'Recordable CDROM accessing system'. It looks as though the patent describes DirectCD and its packet writing technique. Many different programs and operating systems use this - including Linux, which opens the door for widespread patent licensing issues if the suit is valid and the patent upheld."
And in related news, the United States Patent and Trademark Office is being sued by SCO due to their patent on the process of reviewing and approving patents ;-)
It would seem, that in light of recent IT events, a business model build around patent litigation isn't as stupid as it sounds....
Darl is just peeing his pants in laughter right now, I bet.
Shoot me, shoot me now!
How Now Brown Cow
With recent price cuts to DVD writers, will anybody care in 18 months?
over the Internet?
Speed Demos Archive - Lots of speed runs!
I may have the acronyms wrong, but isn't DirectCD
just an implementaiton of the DVD filesystem
(UDF or UFD?)
There could be more interesting lawsuits to come!
I would have run out of lightning bolts to throw by now...
stop those patent issues, unless you have a really good case, or its an emerging technology! its nonsense to try to patent an existing technology that is in use dayly, except if youre from australia and takes a patent on the wheel!
*resistance is futile, or fuzzy, i dunno*
Its becoming a more and more common trend in that software is allowed to develop freely - and then come out with a patent and start suing.
I agree that Roxio should have looked at this patent, but an interesting trend nonetheless.
Filed : April 7, 1995
Granted : September 9, 1997
This might be hard to beat. Anyone using a cd burner 8 years ago?
Software patents sucks...
'Recordable CDROM accessing system'
Personally, I record to CD-R, not CD-ROM.
Just look at their home page:
Their "accomplishments" consist mainly of suing the pants off everyone they meet!Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
And if this didn't somehow affect Linux nobody would even care...
Get over it.
In looking over the patent, it does seem to describe exactly what DirectCD does - allows the disc to be continually written upon and accessed by other computers with a DirectCD-like reader on it. So it looks like Roxio might be screwed.
But does this affect the general user? I've personally never used DirectCD for anything; around our office we just burn a CD once, close the disc, and ship it out wherever it needs to go. Is there really a need for a continually writable procedure on a CD when there are so many other mediums more suitable and with more capacity than a CD?
Roxio Response: /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Roxio
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 16
(Nasdaq: ROXI), The Digital Media Company(R), today responded to Optima
Technology's allegations of patent infringement.
We are aware of the Optima '531 patent and the claims within and believe
that any claim of infringement by Roxio's software products is utterly without
merit. At Roxio, we respect the legitimate intellectual property rights of
others but in this instance there is no colorable argument that the claims set
forth in the patent read on any Roxio products. We intend to aggressively
defend ourselves in this litigation.
This seems to me like a specific example of an old technology, like virtual memory. It sounds like treating a physical media device as updatable memory. Which...is what I would think virtual memory is. Does making this specifically for writable CDs make this unique? Am I missing the uniqueness of this patent?
It took Optima 5+ years to figure out that all CDR Software/Hardware infringed upon their patent?
Just another happy case of
1) Patent some tech
2) Wait for tech to become standard
3) Collect the underware
4) Sue for profit!
Apple free since 1990!
<angry_rant>
I've seen numerous stupid patents over the past few years, and for some reason, this one got me really pissed. I love, and use this feature all the time in Mac OS X.
THE PATENT SYSTEM DOES NOT WORK FOR SOFTWARE.
When the hell will the government figure this out?
</angry_rant>
please let me know when we can begin the DOS attack on their web site, mail server, etc.
thank you.
... ride the LT (Litigation Technology) revolution or ...
DIE
Method of stylus-induced pits into clay, one tablet at a time.
Is the burning software in Windows XP licensed by Roxio to MS or is the technology behind it owned by MS? Could lead to MS being in trouble too.
I usually use a felt-tip pen, as it has much better marking characteristics than a ball point. I've written several things on my CDs, including "Pictures" and "Document Folder Backup 11/2003". This patent is obviously frivolous.
paintball
If, as it initially appears (I'm no expert in this area), this patent represented a useful step forward in CDROM technology at the time, and the technology was picked up and used by Roxio and others without license, then why shouldn't Optima get due credit and compensation?
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
http://www.petitiononline.com/pasp01/petition.html
I don't know if it will really do anything but any bit helps. Of course, getting someone into the patent office who actually has a clue as to how computer software/hardware works would be much more effective. These kinds of patents are akin to a rock band having a patent for a standard rock song chord progression and suing everybody who uses the same chords. Ridiculous.
-- tokengeekgrrl
September 9, 1997
The patent is over 6 years old and they're just now bothering to speak up about these "infringing industry standards".
Sounds like an awesome business plan to fall back in case your crappy company starts to flounder because it hasn't done anything useful in years. Keep your mouth shut for more than half a decade until your patented technology becomes an industry standard that everyone uses, then suddenly start launching lawsuits up everyone's asses.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Consider supporting the following groups:
Free Software Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
... and read
The Danger of Software Patents
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
The Recording Technique provides a directory which indicates the location of only the last version of any stored information or modified entry of stored information, prior versions being transparent to the operating system. The Recording Technique further provides a directory recorded on the CDROM which is transportable to other computers having the Recording Technique installed thereon. As a result, the user of a computer with a CDROM reader will interface with the CDROM in the same manner as with a non-volatile memory device that is read only.
OK, so I'm not a CD engineer, but:
All these things existed well before September, 1997, AFAIK!!
"Optima believes most every company in the CD-burner industry may be infringing."
I'm speechless. Or close to it.
Recklessness? Incompetence? Malice? Greed? Exploitation?
Once again we have to wonder about the timing of this lawsuit. It seems as though this case should have appeared much sooner. What is Roxio on? Version 6? As if the patent holder didn't notice the same infringement for the past few years?
There should be some requirement to enforce your patents in a timely manner.
Seems like the patent office can demonstrate quite a bit of prior art regarding Amazon's 'One-Click Shopping'.
I cringe everytime I check Slashdot. The world is getting downright surreal. Above this posting is a story about a broad patent on packet writing, and above that an ad for Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX, and to my left the Slashdot logo.
... hell?
Am I dead?
Did I blow it and not believe in Jesus the right way and now I'm in some sort of
I couldn't figure out whether this is the same patent or not. Maybe I missd something in the news article or the this article from optimas website: http://www.optimatech.com/settlefederalcase.html
It seems like they've won before against a "key macintosh software company". Who that is, I'm not sure.
Given that they have a direct link to the patent pdf on their homepage, I'd assume that is the one they are talking about. Since they've won a settlement before, does that give any more credibility to this claim once it hits the courts? If it ever does....
Hopefully rediculous patents like this will bring about a reform in software patents. We MUST join together and voice our opinion on this issue, especially those of us in the United States.
Even so, this patent says: "The Recording Technique further provides a directory recorded on the CDROM which is transportable to other computers having the Recording Technique installed thereon."
This is a recursive definition which, frankly, is much too vague and/or broad to possibly have been approved. This is rediculous! I have lost my faith in the whole patent system.
Does anybody have any idea on how to fight back against such rediculous patents (especially to prevent future ones)?
This company is amazing. If you read their corporate history, it's littered with stories of litigation. My favorite entry:
Feb. 2003: Optima partners with the Lava Group www.lavagroup.net to enforce Optima patents, trademarks, copyrights and intellectual property
Do they really think that their customers particuarlly care that they hired new lawyers?
Sounds like EOLAS 2: Electric Bugaloo, but the dates on the patent are gonna be hard to match.
Take any mundane activity, and add the phrase "over the Internet". There's already a patent on it.
Isn't the idea of having a directory with updateable files, showing only the last update, the same as having a versioning file system? Like VMS had, oh, about the en of the Iron Age?
-Lars
What next, someone is going to claim a patent on AC electricity?
This is crazy. How long has there been packet-writing software? The a**holes who think they have a patent on it should have pounced at the beginning. It's too late now - they can go to hell. IANAL by any means, but don't you have to assert your patent in a timely fashion for this sort of thing to stick?
This patent business is beginning to make me sick.
Alright our competitors are finally starting to level off, they've been rising now they are finally leveling off. There we go.
"On your Marks, Get set, Sue!!!!!!!"
-Certified TechnoWeinie
for everyone to download LaTeX and emacs to live disconnected from the internet!
Evolution of Language Through The Ages: 6000 BC : ungh, grrf, booga 2000 AD : grep, awk, sed
Anybody else finds it interesting that Roxio was sued shortly after they opened an online music store?
I doubt that a connection between its competitors in the online music business and Optima can be traced easily, but why didn't Optima sue earlier?
It seems to me that copmanyies very often sit on a patent until their 'invention' becomes very popular before enforcing the patent. Perhaps patents should be more trademarks, either enforece it, or lose it. As it stands, each copmany that wants to bring a product to market would have to do a thorough (and costly) patent search to avoid litigation. This seems counter-intuitive for ideas that have established themselves, or even become standards, such a packet writing. After all, if countless other companies are producing it, why should I expect to have any trouble myself? But then, boom, the company holding the obscure patent comes out of nowhere.
It's unfair of a company to keep quiet about patent infringement until their invention has become a standard, and then try to leverage their way into a monopoly with patent litigation. If they had been forthcoming about their patent in the first place, perhaps other (better?) standards would be invented. Or, if the idea behind the patent really is that good, the original copmany would en up with most of the market share, and come by it honestly.
In conclusion, patents should be more like trademarks. Use 'em or lose 'em.
Stupid like a fox!
I just picked up a USB flash drive. Granted, it's only 256 MB, but my laptop doesn't have a floppy drive and I was getting sick of burning a CD every time I needed to move one file around when a network wasn't available. Corporate networks are fast enough nowadays that you can send a CD's worth of data over the network faster than you can mail it.
Anyway, USB ports are getting so prevalent nowadays they're effectively disk drives. Bonus: No RIAA Tax.
I imagine CD's will maintain their place for data archiving, but that's probably about it. Once the music industry finally folds and goes to digital distribution we probably won't even use CDs for music anymore - just download it to your flash card (either at home or at the store) and put that in whatever player you want.
paintball
I have the feeling that some companies who patent an idea and are unable to put it to any good use just decide to sit on it until others make good use of it. You can't tell me that Optima hasn't heard of Roxio burning software until just lately. It sure seems like they were waiting for some money to come into play, then pursue litigation to cash in. Dirty play.
They only thing that can persuade me otherwise is if Optima started this whole thing back in 2000, and in that case I'll just submit to the RTFA rants.
this is my sig, be amazed.
I worked for a company that bought a "WORM" (Write Once Read Many) drive for backup purposes in 1987. We were amazed at a technology that could store over 650 megabytes on a single replacable CD-like platter! It cost something like $10,000.
The cake is a pie
All these software patent fights and the "let's sue everyone" mentality... I really hope this doesn't export itself to Europe.
From their site:
"we will also soon file over 45 Federal Lawsuits against others who are in violation of one of our key patents (U.S. patent 5,666,531)"
Kill *ALL* the lawyers....
01001001001001110110110100100000011001110110111101 10100101101110011001110010000001110100011011110010 00000111001101101011011101010110110001101100001000 00011001100111010101100011011010110010000001111001 01101111011101010111001000100000011000110111010101 10110100100000011001110111010101111010011110100110 11000110100101101110011001110010000001100111011101 01011101000111010001100101011100100010000001110111 01101000011011110111001001100101001000000110111101 10011000100000011000010010000001101101011011110111 01000110100001100101011100100010111000100000
I am starting to think that this sue-crazy atmosphere that just gets thicker and thicker with lawyers will be the downfall of Western Civilization. Sure, we have to protect intellectual property and all, but sheesh...this is just downright predatory. It's dangling bait out in front of an industry until they all adopt it, then biting down on them with litigative teeth. At this rate, someone will come up with a patent on breathing...and we'll all have to pay up or desist.
check the filing date and read the claims
the examiner cited:International Standard ISO 9660; Information Processing--Volume and File
Structure of CD-ROM for Information Exchange, First Edition, Switzerland, 1988,
31 pages. Jan. 1988.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Is the Optima Technology patent the ONLY way to write to CDs? If not, then somebody else can innovate around the patent. The nice thing about patents is that they fully disclose the invention so that others might create even better inventions.
Aside from the stealthy nature of the patent application process, I would think that most technologists would think patents irrelevant. After all, a patent assumes fairly slow moving rates of innovation -- that the patent wil be valuable for tens of years. Yet I would think that the rapid pace of innovation would make any patent useless after a few years.
Its time for innovation.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Two danish companies are jointly patenting "snail mail from computer". At the click of a button the mail is printed, enveloped, stamped and sent by the mailhandling company.
I don't know much about it yet, but the article (danish, sorry) mentions a "printer driver" so it might presumably utilize the Windows printing API.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
if this patent deals with DirectCD, then what are they suing Roxio over?
I'm asking as Roxio dropped DirectCD from their product line starting with EasyCD ver.6 due to instability and causing machines to crash
the history of the world
Darl is just peeing his pants in laughter right now, I bet.
I think not -- chances are, his pants are down around his ankles right now. Which means that he is, in fact, peeing on his secretary right now.
-kgj
-kgj
Dead and propped up for the photo with a 2x4 rammed up his ass!
I think we all have to thank SCO for this on slaught of little companies trying to make a buck. It happened with Microsoft with Eolas. Now it is happening to Roxio.
Let me ask this why is all of the sudden this a problem for all these companies? EZ CD Creater has been around forever. How will this effect Nero and some of the other OSS versions.
I was messing around with a cd burner by HP that used directcd over USB just last night. It works so darn well I threw it in the trash after fighthing with it for hours. Not a big loss...
Got Code?
amazing you can write, as you obviously can't READ... well, i guess you can read the Title of the post, but nothing more...
All this patent stuff is now out of hand... General knowledge often provides 95% of the "original idea". Most geeks could probably fill the gap bases on what is known to date if they get a good nights sleep with pen and paper close by. The problems almost hark back to the invention of the telephone which IIRC was "invented" by two people at more or less the same time http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bltel ephone.htm
As the base of common knowledge increases this will only get worse until something gives....
I think its even more of a problem because you dont even have to have a working implementation AFAIK.
Lordy
Yes there is. I think CDNOW purchased it, but I don't know if they ever did much with it. (Something like selecting the tracks to burn ,then they send you the CDROM.)
Huh! Who would've known that Optima Technology had some Rambus folks on their board of directors?...
("...it's a joke, Son...")
Just wondering if this patent could be shot down as it applies to other media. Even it it were filed during the early days of CD-recording, if it were already done on similar media in a similar way does that mean prior art (on the method itself, if not on the fact that it is done on CDs).
Of course, that arguement doesn't seem to apply with the multitudes of patents with an appended "via the internet"...
Sep. 2003 Optima Technology files multi-million dollar lawsuit against Network Solutions
Jul. 2003 Optima Technology Settles Federal Patent case in California
May 2003 Optima Technology Corporation took an innovative action today and offered a $1 Million bounty
Apr. 2003 Optima approved by court to be excluded from EZ-Datatech's Bankruptcy and now continues to push forward in both its State and Federal Courts regarding patent and trademark infringement against EZ-Datatech, Michael Decorte as well as others.
Feb. 2003 Optima partners with the Lava Group www.lavagroup.net to enforce Optima patents, trademarks, copyrights and intellectual property
Feb. 2003 Optima seeks Federal Court's approval to void Michael Decorte/EZ-Data bankruptcy on grounds of Fraud
Nov. 2002 Michael Decorte/EZ-Data whom Optima sued for fraud and stealing of trade secrets avoids multi-million dollar Federal Court judgment by filing Chapter 7 in Bankruptcy court
Oct. 2002 Optima files for default judgment in Federal court
May 2002 Optima ships CDR-Access Pro(TM)v4.7 for Macntosh OS 9.2
Apr. 2002 Optima ships DeskTape Pro(TM) v5.7 for Macintosh OS 9.2
Mar. 2002 Optima files Federal lawsuit against EZ-Data, Michael Decorte, alleging patent and trademark violations on its software's: DeskTape Pro(TM), CDR-Access Pro(TM), DiskArray Pro(TM) and Xchange(TM) and Xchange Pro(TM)
Feb. 2002 Optima Technology Corporation hires law firm Cox Castle Nicholson www.coxcastle.com with key attorney Frederick "Rick" Kranz to protect Optima's Intellectual Property from company's unwilling to respect Optima's Royalty rights on patents and trademarks.
Dec. 2001 Optima Technology Corporation hires Los Angeles based law firm Katten Muchin Zavis Rosenman www.kmzr.com to take over State Patent and trademark lawsuit against former employees and companies.
Jun. 2001 Optima files lawsuit for patent and trademark violations against EZ-Data and former employees Michael Decorte and Raymond Martin
May 2001 Optima reopens its Irvine, CA office and moves its corporate office to USA
Apr. 2001 Announced release of CD-R Access Pro (TM) for Macintosh OS 8.5
Feb. 2001 Announced release of DeskTape Pro (TM) v5.5 for Macintosh OS 9.1
Dec. 1999 Optima ships DeskTape Pro(TM) v5.1 for Macintosh OS 9.0
Jun. 1999 Optima moves corporate office to Paris France
Mar.1999 Optima reorganizes its office's and closes Irvine, CA
Jan. 1999 Announced release of CD-R Access Pro v3.6 for Macintosh OS 8.5
Nov. 1998 Announced release of DeskTape Pro(TM) v4.6 for Macintosh OS 8.5
Mar. 1998 Announced release of CD-R Access Pro v3.1 for Macintosh OS 8.1
Feb. 1998 Announced release of DiskArray(TM) v2.0 for Macintosh OS 8.1
Jan. 1998 Announced release of DeskTape Pro(TM) v4.5 for Macintosh OS 8.1
Dec.1997 Released CDWriter(TM), the world's only super fast rewritable DVD/CD drive with up to 21.9 GB capacity
Nov. 1997 Released GigaBank(TM) Fibre Channel and Ultra Wide SCSI RAID subsystems
Nov. 1997 Release Award-Winning RAID Bundles for Windows 95/98/2000/NT/XP
Nov. 1997 Released SCSI Inspector(TM) for remote configuration, testing and monitoring of RAID systems
Sep. 1997 Patent 5,666,531 awarded to Optima Tehnology on Recordable CD ROM Accessing System
Jul. 1997 Announced release of DeskTape Pro(TM) v4.0 for MAC OS 8.0
Jul. 1997 Announced release of CD-R Access Pro v2.3 for MAC OS 8.0
Jul. 1997 Released DeskTape(TM) video, enabling QuickTime movie playback direct from tape
Jul. 1997 Matthew Bahrami is elected as Optima's new Chief Executive Officer
Jan. 1997 Released DisKovery (TM) 7300 CDR and CD-R Access Pro to enable write/read of 7.3 GB of data onto a standard CD
Jan. 1997
/bender/ /bender/
Roxio can kiss my shiny metal ass.
---
IMHO, of course.
May the SOURCE be with you.
So when are Wright Bros. descendant going to start suing Boeing
And China could sue all the US automobile makers for their use of the Wheel.
And Italie should sue France for wine
And I could sue my neighbor for my snow shoveling technique
And SCO could sue all of the above for stealing their business model...
It cost me an arm and a leg and burned CD's at 1x and made toasters way too often.
There was no DirectCD software as we think of it now. At least not for the average consumer.
Just becuase you have never seen a computer slower then a PIII does not mean we are all young, ignorant, Linux zealots who have no appreaciation for technology.
The first Linux distro I installed was Slack with a pree 1.0 Kernel.
Dumbass
Yep, I had a SCSI CD burner hooked up to a friend's Pentium running Linux. I think it cost about $400 to buy the burner.
According to the patent: "The Recording Technique provides a directory which indicates the location of only the last version of any stored information or modified entry of stored information, prior versions being transparent to the operating system."
Packet writing does not leave behind the old data and only make it "transparent" to the operating system....it in fact rewrites the sectors that are not allocated in directory entries (file allocation table??); I would also assume that this multi-session writing is already an ISO standard.
"The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
-Thucydides
I don't believe it! Why has there not been a Slashdot story about this: Cowboy Neal is serving in Iraq!
The owls are not what they seem
... because it's so much better when other people can rip off your hard work and research without compensating you. ...
Think about that
If you disagree, reply, don't moderate.
What were you doing with it. Making Thermite to blow up your teachers car or raising termites to eat through your mothers wooden leg.
Jaysen
..why I'm not sorry.
e xm as2k21152.shtml
:(
http://www.digitalblasphemy.com/dbgallery/1/blu
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! IT COULD BE YOUR LAST ONE...
Yes, I read the patent. Optima has a patent describing how to use a CDROM like a hard-disk (UDF format). This is not really a software patent. It covers how to write to a disk multiple times and keep the current version of the data in order. This is not the same as a multi-session CD, and this technology was not available until a few years after the first CD writers were available. This patent may indeed be valid. As to whether Roxio has infringed on this patent, IANAL. It will be interesting to watch this play out.
There are many groups pushing for abolition of software patents, but no-one appears to be pushing the complete and absolute abolition of all IP. Are there any groups with this philosphy?
The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime - Floyd, Pink
1) Quietly Collect UNDERPAteNtS
2)Wait for some company to make lots of money totally legitimately
3)Sue until your stock price doubles!
Patent holders have to actively defend the patent... and of course patents do expire.
I think this is more interesting. Is Roxio going to get StaXored?
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
3)Sue until your stock price doubles!
SCO stock didn't just double, it went up twenty-fold at one point. If you are as smart, you'll short the stock like some of the smarter geeks out there. The stock will eventually be sued into the ground and you'll have made 100 percent on your investment (minus comission and interest).
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
You guys need to get out more. The Pentium II 150 seems to exsist after all. http://www.jinr.dubna.su/tsap/Koi/cpc_ind6/ADJP.ht ml
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,834570,00.asp
http://www.mysimon.com/STREET_ATLAS_USA_HANDHELD/4 014-3513_8-20734215.html?tag=lst&q=
Google is just soooo cool
In patent circles Lemelson was the name of the game .... The basic concept was to file a patent, and then let it sit and sit and sit, and when enough people were using the patent, then Lemelson would get the patent issued and sue. Not exactly the same here, but as some other posts have mentioned, the effect is essentially the same. The Patent Office recognized this and I think designed systems to avoid the Lemelson Strategy ... I think these were also called the "submarine patents."
So, it is adopted as a Standard, and then Optima sues after almost every CD burner is using it ....
From the Lemelson Patents Online Website http://www.lemelsonpatents.com/
I haven't been following the Reno case, but sure do hope that the Roxio defense is successful, and it cripples Optima's patent enforcement efforts. Best of luck Roxio.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
I worked for a company that bought a "WORM" (Write Once Read Many) drive for backup purposes in 1987. We were amazed at a technology that could store over 650 megabytes on a single replacable CD-like platter! It cost something like $10,000.
.... [so as to make] any previous versions of said data which are still present on the CDROM ... transparent to the operating system."
Well, it could be interesting to recall whether the system for writing the WORM drive in the 1980s allowed for recording data on successive parts of the disk at successive times. If it did that, then was the WORM system also set up so that it ignored old or superseded editions of data (files or directories)? (That is, ignoring the earlier data when something that had been recorded on the disk on one occasion was superseded by a revised version at a later recording session?) The question is put in a way that deliberately avoids referring to 'tracks' etc, because at least some of the patent claims are indifferent to that aspect. One of the features that apparently characterizes the claims in the patent refers, in one way or another, to "entering new information on a recordable CDROM
The US appears to be the only country affected by this particular patent (5666531). The original application was April 7, 1995, so maybe the WORM drive system (if it had the relevant features), or any other relevant material that was printed and published before 7 April 1994, could possibly imply invalidity of this patent.
-wb-
Why does their patent's number appear on this page at the USPTO website:m ?
http://www.uspto.gov/go/og/2001/week46/patexpi.ht
How can they enforce an expired patent?
As far as my own opinion of this debacle, I'm confident that prior art will be found to invalidate the patent, whether it's expired or not.
But if Roxio settles, this company is going to come after small companies. You bet they won't tangle with Microsoft or Dell or anyone like that.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
It was an external SCSI unit that was housed in a unit 2 inches high by a foot square. The unit was marketed by a third party Mac vendor, but the drive IDed itself as a Ricoh. The unit sold for ~$350 dollars at the time. The pack in software was Mac only, so I had to sit on the drive for a short time until I got Corel EZ CD Creator 3. (Yes, corel published it at that time).
Trust me, it was a pain in the ass being the only guy I knew with a CD burner. Suddenly everyone wanted a favor. It's a bit like owning a truck. Everyone is your friend and wants help moving.
So Optima can kiss my ass! I know there's prior art, and their patent is shit!
Is it possible to patent the business model of filing frivolous lawsuits? Think of the money that could be made. "Our lawyers believe your lawsuit is frivolous and therefore violates our IP and business model. We shall now sue you."
Sounds like there is a need for a limitations rule whereby someone who doesn't enforce their patent for a certain period of time (preferably a short one) causes that patent to fall into the public domain. There has been too much abuse of just what AaronStJ mentioned. A court may need to decide if it was reasonable for the patent owner to have known about the defendent's actions so some guy in his basement can't cause the inventor to lose their patent rights, in this case though it was well known.
If someone had known that they were infringing in the first place they would have contested the patent, set up licensing, or not have used it. The current system seems to encourage sitting on it until others become dependant on it then they unleash their lawyers to basically perform legal extortion.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
..but when is patents EVER a good thing?
I used to think it was a good thing in the area of medicine, because it can take over 10 years of research to create a new drug.
But now I don't even know if that justifies it. See: South Africa, millions dying because of over-priced medicine.
I'm beginning to believe that research would've been done anyway, because the advantages of being first are so big..
Will code a sig generator for food
Well looking over the patent it doesn't seem to cover ISO images so if worst comes to worst all you have to do is get an ISO image and then distribute that via FTP or similar. On the client side just have a cd emulator that opens it and read it
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I was just looking over the patent, and it isn't for just any burning to a CD, but compression and allowing for up to 1.3 gigs to be stored on a CD using their software. So unlike all the other stupid patents, this one acutally has merrit and a base.
Would be a great porn star name. They best not let that domain registration lapse.
Just another happy case of
1) Patent some tech
2) Wait for tech to become standard
3) Collect the underware
4) Sue for profit!
Work smarter not harder.
Ironic sig you have there...
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
ok ok it should have been: UNDERPAteNTS :-D
You know, if there was a country out there that really wanted to destroy the US's economy, I think we've given them all the necessary legal means to do so.
All a competing country would have to do is start a front in the US and patent everything imaginable. As soon as some useful technology that is somewhat covered by patents starts to become popular, the company could simply sue the real US companies and refuse to license the patent to them
By doing this, they could prevent useful technological advances in the US using the US's own legal system. It's so ingenious.
I would suspect that SCO is currently under the control of another country based on similar reaosoning.
True story.
Maybe these weren't standard for home users, but perhaps the recording industry's mass burners can be considered prior art?
This sig no verb.
I hereby patent gluteus soothing.
The process to which I want my patent is:
Soothing the gluteus using the calcium deposits residing on the end of one or multiples of epidermaly covered digits extending from one's arm.
I'm gonna make a fortune, especially from all those patent clerks and M$ goons.
It seems that's all the do all day
People usually don't say what they will do, and rarely do what they say.
How many of these lawsuits are on patents which would have to be many years old (or just stupid patents with truckloads of prior art), and only come up once the company being sued for the alleged infringement is successful? These patent holders never intend to make anything, they just let someone else do the actual work and then try and shake some money out of them.
Assuming the patent wasn't bullshit to begin with.
...to have 666 in their patent number.
Of course, IANAL and this was gleaned from the web:
It's been mentioned here before, but a patent holder has to make reasonable efforts to secure their patent in the marketplace. If a patent holder neglects enforcement of their patent when an infringement occurs, the patent holder may be guilty of a "submarine patent", where the patent holder specifically withholds action on infringement to maximize allowable damages. The defense to such ocurrences is termed the doctrine of laches and was laid out in a Supreme Court ruling.
The doctrine of laches defense has two elements:
- The alleged infringer will suffer serious harm to their business if the patent were enforced or if the period of time before action was such that important evidence or witnesess were lost.
- The patent holder delayed action for an unreasonable and inexcusable period of time.
Typically, six years is held to be a reasonable amount of time before the doctrine of laches may be used as a defense. Note that the burden of proof rests with the infringer and that both elements must be proven on the proponderance of the evidence and any further infringement is actionable.
That's as much as I could find.
if (&HumanLogicCheck("This sentence is not true.")) {
- die "You can never get here";
else {- die "You can never get here";
}btw, wwwtp is what's wrong with this picture
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
The reason multiple sessions were important? Disks were outrageously expensive.
Oh, and the entire read-write process was properietary. These disks were not readable on standard CDROMs.
And finally, there should be no patent for whimsical (or not so whimsical) ideas, only actual produced items. (ie, to actually get a patent, you have to produce a working sample. This does not preclude you from filing prior to achieving a working sample. However there should be an expiration to the patent office offer to award a patent before the next filer is able to present their working sample.)Ideas are cheap, realization of an idea may not be.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Are patent attorneys "buying" patents from patent official in order to open the doors to lawsuit?
So, what happens if SCO were to purchase Optima Technology? I'd be willing to bet they could get a new licensing fee from Microsoft to help them in their other legal pursuits...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Or is there no truth the rumor that he tried to patent breathing?
So, after reading all I can about it, it appears...
Hardware vendors put together a system by which, and by intent, you can write a "single packet". "With this hammer, you can pound in nails!"
Software vendor uses the hardware exactly as it was intended, and calls it a "patentable discovery". "Hey! I can pound in nails with this thing!"
USPTO then issues patent to a 3rd party for using something exactly the way it was intended to be used. "Usage of a nail-hammering device for the purpose of hammering nails".
I'm gonna go get a patent for hitting morons with a bat.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Just wondering, how is this different? Or are they next to get sued? I think InCD works on CDRWs only, but I might be wrong on that.
It's called a "submarine patent".
No point in suing poor people, is there?
Clear, Dark Skies
If a work was published before 1922 (?) everything is in public domain. However, after 1923, the copyright holder had to renew the copyright every 15 (?) years or it expired. I was looking at some books that were printed in 1923 and up that I wanted to republish. Well, they are public domain if they were not renewed, however the only real way to find out if they were renewed is to do a lot of expensive research, and if that is the case, the books aren't worth messing with. Keep in mind this is research for a couple of books that really narrows the search down because the author was known. Think about blanketly trying to research all patents that might affect you if you were trying to bring a totally new product to market! Big companies love this stuff because they know the little guy can't get his foot in the door. The Transporter
I'm going to be wearing a hockey mask when I go off on everyone...
People have been saying that here since the stock was far less expensive than it is today. If you're going to short, make sure you have enough cash on hand to cover any interim rises... ie. have cash on hand at least double what you expect to make on the short.
Of course, when you have to keep that much cash on hand, it doesn't seem like such a great proposition...
Software is not something you can patent because of fundamental differences in the nature of the end product and how it is manufactured.
Can you imagine someone patenting a device called "method for using a fork to emulate a comb" ? Well that is just what patenting software is mostly about. While when you patent a way to acheive a goal in real life patents you patent the goal in software patents. If i want to do A in software HAVE to use method B, very often because that is the obvious and right way. If i dont do it that way i have to take unessecary steps to get around the obvious solution, often by doing something different than i first set out to do (before i had even thought about how).
The patent becomes the gatekeeper to an end goal and not to one perticular way of acheiving this goal. It is all to evident that software patents is going to inhibit US development of software and give Asia and China etc an enourmous advantage.
I could swallow it if the patents wore carefully examined and very restrictive but the USPO seems to give patents out like the green card lottery.
HTTP/1.1 400
That's what I don't get. Why was Linux mentioned? What impact will this have on Linux users, over Windows users? Windows has Roxio Direct CD Built in, for crying out loud. Linux doesn't. Sure, there are tools, like cdrdao, k3b, X-CDRoast, etc that are commonly included in the distributions, but no more so than what comes bundled with a Mac, or a Windows box. Maybe I'm just a cynical moron, but I think that ever since SCO, everyone feels that the only way to get people to read the news is to mention something about Linux getting in trouble. In this case, WINDOWS, not Linux is the one that could face some (alibiet small) legal troubles. Anyway, how many Linux users do you know that will actually care? This one won't... *notes the DVD playing on the background of his Linux Desktop* See what I mean?
--Mac "Nine point eight meters per second squared: The Best Damn Windows Accelerator, Ever."
1) Patent something completely obvious
2) Don't tell anyone about it
3) Wait 19 years for READING A FSCKING CD to gain widespread use
4) Sue everything in sight
I think Patents should be treated just like trademarks. If you don't enforce your patent rights IMMEDIATELY, you LOSE them, NO EXCEPTIONS.
(Disclaimer: I wrote the UDF support in FreeBSD, but I have offer no other legal or technical advice)
/. headline is vague and misleading. This doesn't look like it applies to CD recording itself, or even packet writing. Instead it looks like it applies to the VAT in the UDF >= 1.5 spec. Basically, the VAT is a sector remapping table. Since CD-R media can only be recorded sequentially, and obviously cannot overwrite existing sectors/packats, the VAT makes this linear recording look like a normal random access filesystem. The VAT is not used on CD/DVD RW media so those are probably clear, and definitely is not used in iso9660 volumes. So at worst this means that the UDF spec becomes encumbered when using the VAT. I'm not clear on whether the OSTA, IEEE, and/or ECMA bodies knew about this patent when they ratified the various specs that contribute towards UDF, but this definitely looks to be an abuse by the patent holder.
As usual, the
Worst case scenario is that this patent is upheld and Roxio (and others like Nero) start paying royalties. The Linux distributors might have to remove VAT support from their kernels. Commercial OS vendors would have to decide on whether to license it or remove it. I'm not sure if DVD mastering software will be affected since the VAT is not part of the UDF 1.0 spec. mkisofs might be affected also if it impliments VAT. Whether the OSTA committee responds with an alternative remains to be seen. But, it's not the end of the world. Like I said, I don't think that this has any bearing on CD-R's that are recorded with traditional iso9660 filesystems. Supporting write-once media and VAT is a PITA anyways, so this gives me a good excuse to not care about it in my implimentation =-)
Cat, the other, tastier white meat.
Hi... How's it going? (shaking hands) ... i'm sorry but you cannot shake hands like that I have a patent on that, you owe me $100 for that instance and an additional $100 for all previous events.
WHAT'S LEFT?
I can't use my sig - my computer can't read my handwriting.
I guess the question should be asked:
What is the statute of limitations of enforcing a patent when you know, and have known for years, that others are using it without your permission?
-Valiss
Oh man, and driver support was THE SUCK back then. I remember getting a cheap (well, $400) Wearns 1X CD-R. The should've called it the 'coaster-maker' since that's all it seemed to do most of the time.
70+ minutes to find out that the burn failed anyway. CASSETTE TAPE was more reliable! Grrrr...
Interesting that this claim goes back that far. I wonder if they decided to wait until Roxio's spin-off and later reorganization took hold before filing. That would explain why the claim is only now being called.
`
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
It's difficult to find any SCO stock to short since a lot of it is already shorted. Plus the short interest is steep.
WORM file systems using such techniques have been around since at least the 1980's.
You mean people were copying that piece of junk? ;)
Lawsuit happy companies just need this kind of public attention so people can stop giving them $$. I won't buy it for sure now. I still won't buy gateway computers after they sued that guy who had owned gateway.com for years before they started business. I just don't like the companies that pick on the little guys for fun & profit.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
...did you know that a British inventor invented a dog doorbell, but couldn't get a patent because a dog used a doorbell in a Beano comic?
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
Now, my little brother made a Mp3 player with Visual Basic 2 years ago, and the player had that feature (he wanted to control his Mp3 player when playing games, ah, 16yo... ;-)). Should he have patented the idea back then ? We'd be billionnaire... but why be billionnaire when you can be... MILLIONNAIRE !
Err, ok, no more Austin Powers for me. But that would have been total nonsense, just like this case is.
If this is true, what's all the hubbub, bub?? I have never used this function of my Adaptec software, and have no desire to. I prefer to build a list of files, and burn my CDs once.
While the arguments about taking too long to sue for infrignment have merit, I think the actual impact to most users will be minimal.
Why that is so difficult (as the patent claims) I don't know. Probably a PEBKAC issue.....
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
In order to address the issue with the patent system, the RIAA, SCO, the MPAA, and any other acronym you decide to dislike today, we have to figure out what it is the patent / copyright holders are requesting and what customers want (i.e., the reason innovation is Good).
Firstly, let's say I have just come up with a neat little gadget. Now if I'm a small operation, I don't want some giant company to come and use my idea to beat me out of business through mass production. I simply want to be able to make a living off my idea. If I'm an artist, or an author, I want to be able to make a living off my concepts / performance. There's a little difference between both these concepts, so I'll focus on the patent idea.
A patent, historically, applied to a new device or a new way of doing something (there are process patents, but typically they apply to things like "here's what you need to do to make chemical X"). Now, consider a patent to be something like an "implementation right". Basically a patent says that only the patent holder or the holder's approved agent may implement the said concept. This is similar to a copyright, which states that only the copyright holder or the holder's approved agent my copy a work. I don't have a problem with either of these concepts - with some caveats but I won't discuss those here.
Now, we can argue whether or not it is good for society to have a single entity or authorized group implementing some process. It is generally assumed that it is good for the person implementing it - assuming that the implementation yeilds something for which people are willing to pay. However, what about situations where the person holding the rights to implementation isn't really good at it, and someone knows they could do it better but aren't allowed to because the original holder won't give them approval. This would be a Bad Thing.
Now, what we see here is that independent of what is being implemented we can have unintended consequences with any "exclusive rights" kind of philosophy. What it is saying, though, is that such philosophies only work for "the greater good" if people are inherently altruistic, which history continually demonstrates is not the case.
On top of the above idea, there is also the question of "what constitues an idea for which the implementation authority should be limited?" This is the current hot-topic with IP, specifically patents. What implementable ideas should be protected? What are the costs and benefits of both? Who benefits from the choice? Rarely do we see some small company which is unable to manufacture many things, with small market presence, and some company comes and stomps on them by "copying" their idea. Typically we see one guy with a patent, no ability to produce it, not trying to produce it, but only waiting for someone to copy it. From time to time we may see a small entity with a patent and license (i.e., authorize) some company to produce the product. That is the intended purpose of a patent - to allow the authorized to get started. We also see large corporations, with no real risk of losing their "livelihood", with large portfolios of patents - typically they use these to keep other people out of their industry by requiring large licensing fees, which is opposite the desired effect of patents - they prop up artificial barriers to market entry.
As an aside, I have some issues with performance copyrights. For instance, people might be paying to see a particular person perform a song, not hear the particular song performed. For instance, me performing Beethoven's 9th on a kazoo is hardly the same as the London Symphony Orchestra playing it. So performance pieces, oddly, have a weird effect of there is the thing that is being performed i
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
sign the petition to abolish the US DMCA. Only 17k+ signatures there so far..
BTW, it does make a big difference if you get a petition with +1m signatures. Every self respecting slashdot reading geek should have a link to these petitions on their website (and a link to something short and concise explaining the logic behind them).
Taxpayers don't fund the PTO. The PTO is a revenue generator for the government.
just stop granting them as a matter of policy.
Patents only exist for the good of the public, so if the negative sideeffects become too great, just stop issuing them.
a company with patents like this might have a decent site. But it's done with Frontpage 5.0 and uses graphics where text would suffice and half the navigation links are broken.
This is not a very onto it company.
That was a lame remark. The tech patent mess is a big serious issue that many people are upset about. Whether this specific patent involves Linux or not isn't the issue.
This would have still been news if Linux didn't exist.
Get an account. AC is for suckers.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
...you crackhead mods. It's pretty fucking obvious that he was pointing out just how much the British patent office pays attention to prior art in that they actually even look at children's comics! Stupid morons. Give him the karma he deserves. Don't mod him down just because of the shortcomings of the USPTO.
Here is an idea to thwart these pirate lawsuits. I call them pirate lawsuits because I see companies using a deliberate strategy of waiting for others to do the hard work of developing businesses around a technology, then swooping in, with government backing, to steal the profits. It's like the days when piracy on the high seas was sometimes sanctioned by kings.
One solution would be a statue of limitation for infringement. If patent holders had a one- or two-year time limit for filing infringement suits, they wouldn't be able to wait for billion dollar industries to develop before asserting their rights. People with technology they consider worthwhile would have to protect it in a timely fashion.
An actual lawsuit shouldn't be necessary as a first step, as the cost of litigation might be prohibitive to fledgling innovators. But a patent holder should have to lodge a complaint within the time period. There would be no injunction against the party using the technology. The complaint would be like a building permit, and would have its own expiration date of a year or two before the holder would have to take legal action or drop the complaint.
OK, so didnt the hardware guys have to develop software to test the functionality of their devices? So, doesn't this invalidate that patent. Prior use and all?
I don't know patent law, so this is a valid question.
No, you're Anonymous Coward. All anonymous cowards go to hell.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Last I checked it's a wealthy, peaceful country. The weather might be shitty, but there's not terribly much they can do about that...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I just realised that if you people would get off your collective arses and write your represenatives maybe someone would finally look into this. Esp if you live in Texas it might take 3 months but they will get back to with a ton of paperwork of what they dig up and what they intend to do.
For those of us who dont exactly know the difference between packwriting CDs and burning an ISO , could someone explain what the differences are ?
Technical descriptions are great, I just have no idea where I should look to learn about this. (I tried googling, and it really turned up some unsatisfactory results)
TIA
--Cyberfunk
Why doesn't Apple support packet writing on OS X if it's possible on Free BSD? Just curious...
If you read the claims in the patent, simple multi-session CDs are covered as well. The patent was filed April 7, 1995. I'm fairly certain multisession technology was implemented on CD-ROMS before then.
Also, the patent only applies to "CDROM"s. It does not apply to DVD-based media.
I also think the patent is invalid because they had to limit their patent to applying to CDROMs. Meaning it was already in use for other types of media (other filesystems, whatever.). Meaning it is one of the "logical next steps" the patent office isn't supposed to approve.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
"The Recording Technique provides a directory which indicates the location of only the last version of any stored information or modified entry of stored information, prior versions being transparent to the operating system. The Recording Technique further provides a directory recorded on the CDROM which is transportable to other computers having the Recording Technique installed thereon. As a result, the user of a computer with a CDROM reader will interface with the CDROM in the same manner as with a non-volatile memory device that is read only"
It says CDROM... which means Compact Disc Read Only Media. How the hell do you write to that? And IIRC my older CD-ROM would not read discs read in DirectCD format, while my HP Burner could. So this is more of a hardware issue it seems (according to the 2nd part) and not an issue with Roxio as their system can't be read by my older CD-ROM Drive, plus the 2nd issue is this company patented a way to WRITE THIS INFORMATION TO A CD-READ ONLY MEDIA! Hell I guarentee you Roxio's software doesn't work when "burned" to a CD-ROM!
While most agree that an inventor should get credit for his invention, and be able to sue anyone that tries to steal it, this technique of 'stealth patents' need to be abolished.
If it can be proven you intentionally sat on your patent while it became embedded into a large part of society before you stood up, you should be denied the claim to your patent.
If it can be proven you didnt know.. then all bets are off and sue the pants off the offenders...
THis is pretty much how trademark law works now... why should patents be any different?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Well, not everything, but most everything we use on a daily basis and take for granted.
We need to find a way to deal with this fact, instead of running around with blinders on and hoping the patent holder is benelovant.
Also might be good to start collecting ALL source you can find, before its taken out due to the patent holders down the road.. And i dont just mean software source, but also books, formulas, etc..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Until the USPTO get funded as (e.g. a hypothecated tax) from all US citizens which also includes picking up the bills for the legal costs of those who lose a patent in court through not identifying prior art then the current lottery will prevail.
A US patent should never stop any Open Source project from developing what is claimed if the method is obvious and found to be obvious through peer review. If there is only one way of doing something then its obvious.
Given the US at just 5% or so of the worlds population its perverse to presume that the experts in the field of the endevour that is being patented are all located in the one company that filed the claims. Especially true with software which requires a lot less capital to get involved compared to e.g. pharma/drugs, medical or high tech engineering.
If the test for obviousness is looked at globally there is little that is patentable BUT when it is then it truely deserves the protection. The trouble is that patents are viewed as a cheap way of gaining a monopoly in a business area without the hard graft and legal issues that e.g. Microsoft, have had to go through to get their monopoly.
Science is not advanced by someone patenting the obvious and society does not benefit if the claims are not exploited until someone else does the hard work of bringing a product to market and then gets stung for punitive damages from the original patent holder who has done nothing to progress their patent.
What you say is literally true, but it is way too shallow an analysis. Yes, it is true that on any given application, the application fee has already been paid. But the only way to encourage lots of applications is to approve lots of applications.
If the patent office denies a large fraction of applications, then they will discourage applications in the first place, and their revenue from application fees will go down. It is very easy to see why the patent office has a financial incentive to approve as many patent applications as possible.
OS X doesn't match this patent. The linux driver might be made to match this patent, but does not at the moment.
The patent cannot apply to application software, it relates to the way an operating system creates/reads files on a cdrom.
I live in a giant bucket.
Hey, if Compaq could reverse engener the IBM bios, oh, so many years ago. Why can't we make somthing like this "packet" writeing thing and GPL it?
While flipping through the patent page, i wondered at the potential similarities to the original patents for the floppy disk. Much of the actual patent appeared to comparing their idea to other forms of media such as the floppy disk. Couldn't a floppy company as easily come forward and claim that their concept was stolen and applied to CD's with minimal change?
Is it just me or is anyone else smelling similarities with the SCO fiasco?
How can it take seven times longer to research an application and write a letter citing existing patents or prior art, than to research an application and write a letter granting a patent?
Oh, our poor, poor PTO.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
It's still been six years since they were granted their patent. Assuming it's a valid patent (for the sake of argument), why did they wait all these years to file suit? DirectCD has been around for at least three or four.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Surreal? Slashdot? You're just talking about this, right?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
It is generally called a submarine patent. Things are done quietly. Some idea becomes popular, someone totally unrelated to the popular idea quietly applies for a patent on the idea, the idea becomes popular, and SURPRISE! they want money for someone elses idea. ...the only thing that kills these roadside poachers are something called prior art. If the original company can prove that their product came out before the squatters got their patent, the patent is given to the rightful owners, and not the poachers (who wind up crying in their beer -much like SCO). TODO: 1. Show prior art. 2. Sue poachers for squatting.
If you do anything you WILL be sued is more like it. I am sure that the current system "encourages progress" after all some bonehead company patents a vague idea, then sits around for about 10 years watching everyone else using that idea and then sues for backpayment of all lost royalties. This (and US breaking international law showing Moron Hussein POW on TV) make me sad to admit being American
is limited only by how much you invest.
If you want to treat the stock market like a slot machine and have a hundred or so lying around, this would be a historically good type of slot to play with. It's not a stock you put your savings on. It's a stock you put your beer money on and throw a kegger if it pays off.
The other good slot is airlines since the government rarely lets them go out of business. If they're having a rough time, you can wait it out with a pretty good chance of eventually making a return. After 9/11 AWA went up 400% (I made quite a bit on that one) and has dipped down back to a $1.00 a share and gone up 1500% since then. It's now hovering around $11-13 a share.
I thought it would be smart not to put a nickel in the same slot that already won me money so I missed out on the ride. I told a friend to put some money on it but he bailed when it doubled because it was too wierd.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
I just read the patent ... it looks like a description of read-modify-write in the context of a CDROM.
Prior art? Yep. Easy to prove/defent in civil court? Nope.
-rick
There needs to be some Control done on this stuff. Patent Enforcement should have a a deadline of some sort... Companies that wait untill someone infringing on thier patent hit mainstream and establishes a market should loose the ability to enforce thier patent. Its just plain and simple. Something should also be done with Patent squatters.
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
In the real world you make sure that your exposure is limited. Better protection costs more, but you can certainly control the maximum amount you could lose.
As a trivial example, let's say that the stock costs $100 now and you're shorting it. You can limit your exposure by simultaneously buying a put at, oh, $120. If the stock ends up below $100, you make money and the put is worthless. If the stock ends up between $100 and $120 you pay the difference and again the put is worthless. But if the stock is above $120 then the put comes into play and you only have to pay $20 for each share shorted. In the first two cases who ever went long has made some quick cash, and in the third case they're forced to cover the difference. That may be less of a problem than you think, if they are covering their position with stock - they may still be selling it at a price substantially higher than they paid for it.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I wonder if this patent have relation with M$ FAT patent... what is first the egg or the chicken?.
:) or maybe I feel very capitalist ... because tomorrow I will get my patent of "the way mamals breath", mmmh.. money from the world for "every breath you take".. ooops this phrase its a song.. damn! I dont think to pay nothing to you Sting :) :)
And is time to make our voice sound.
To think about it...
Why if some Technology has been arround a lot of time. And If I never see code or documents from optimatech, I can't make software to burn CDROMs?. I feel comunist rigth now
Ahh and "windows" is a word and "m$windows" is a time bomb!
The next cube (PDF) had already an optical disc. And that was in the 80'ies. While different from the CD technology, it had already all the principles described in the silly patent "Recordable CDROM accessing system".
You definitely could delete or change stuff on the one we used as well, though it was so long ago that I do not recall the technical details. I don't recall who made ours.
The cake is a pie
Patents are required not to be obvious. This one is obvious - if you are writing a multisession CD, there is really only one way to present a uniform directory, and this is it. It should have been thrown out, but nobody at the PTO is qualified to determine what is and is not obvious, so they simply don't apply the obviousness test.
Excuse my ignorance, but is it supposed to be not obvious before, or after you read the patent brief? Because there are some things that seem really obvious once someone has spelled it out for you, yet somehow it took ages before someone actually came up with the idea. Which might mean there was a novel and innovative approach used, while the result might seem obvious in retrospect. That should be patentable, in my opinion.
Or it can simply mean that the problem was so obscure, so trivial or so "fuzzy" that noone had bothered to file a patent on it yet, but if you gave a reasonably qualified guy the task, he'd come up with approximately the *same* solution within 5 minutes, because there's really no other way. That should not be patentable.
For your average patent officer grunt, it's difficult to determine if this really is obvious - so obvious it shouldn't be patentable. Maybe he think he might be missing some reason for why this is non-obvious, is it something about multisession CDs that make it really difficult to present a uniform directory? That this is a novel solution to the problem?
It requires quite a bit of abstraction to determine if this patent is simply an implementation (Doing X over Internet, Method of listing a list: List first item, list next until done.) or if it has novel and innovative properties. Also we have very limited fields of expertise, and it's very hard for someone outside that field to "overrule" the experts.
They got years of education in this field, and you're telling them that what they found is so obvious it can't be patented? There's a definite difference between that, and being obvious to an expert in the same field. Particularly that you must also be so "into" the problem that you can with confidance claim "I'm not missing out on anything novel and innovative in this brief".
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Optima Technology sounds like another SCO or PanIP clone. ie. let's patent something ridiculous and make money off other people doing the work for us. Well, those cretins aren't getting any of my (or my company's) money. I have no respect for them.
is limited only by how much you invest.
When you short a stock, you are borrowing a security from a broker and selling it, with the understanding that it must later be bought back.
If the stock price continues to go up, then your buy-back price is, indeed, unlimited. In practice, you'll have to cover your position sooner or later because the broker isn't going to let you maintain the short position indefinitely. So if you don't time it properly (a good example being the uncertainty of when SCO's stock will drop value), then you can really end up screwing yourself.
Well from this history: http://www.roxio.com/en/support/cdr/historycdr.htm l
We can see that we've had publicly available burners since prior to 1995...
As for the patent itself it seems to argue that it doesn't require any special mastering program, which it does, if it's been merged into the shell it's still there, and looking at it, it would require a similarly set up computer at the other end... So it's incompatible with a standard CDR... even if its not, the process of squirrelling away the interface should not be patentable (this would be like patenting the layout of buttons on a calculator).. tough IANAL...
To be or not to be.-Shakespeare
To do is to be.-Nietzsche
To be is to do.-Sartre
Do be do be do.-Sinatra
Who needs nukes and guns when we could be plagued by boredom in life after the patent war ends.
Optima Technology's patented data boosting technology, U.S. patent number 5,666,531,allows users to store up to 1.3GB on a standard CD-R or CD-RW disc. Unlike traditional data compression techniques that sacrifice speed for capacity, data boosting increases capacity while increasing read/write speed-all on-the-fly and transparent to the user. CD-R Access Pro(TM)'s data boosting process increases disc volume capacity to an unprecedented 1.3GB while allowing you to read and write data at up to twice the normal speed.
Funny how they are touting it as a data compression piece of software for CDRs...then reference the patent as part of it....Guess Ahead Software is next?
The Patent office just needs to scrap all this crap and start over.
I just don't understand how patents can really be upheld for a function of a piece of software. Copyright, sure.
It's like patenting the use of an automobile to deliver pizza's, or the use of a bucket to draw water from a well.
And this has what to do with my statment of disallowing people to sit on a patent for years before others encroach on it enough to be a profitable suit?
I never implied they are secret.. Only that if a person intentonally decides to not enforce their patent when they *know* its being violated, they waive the right to do so later on....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm gonna make a patent that yearly I must have my salary tripled. In the event I am laid off, they must continue to pay me forever. (with the same yearly increase in pay)
OK, we all know this is patent thing is out of hand, and the odds of getting rid of software patents are now approximately nil, thanks to the $$$$ that some folks are making or hope to make from them. However, there might be an alternative way to handle this...
Create a new type of submission to the Patent Office, called a Documentation Of Art. Unlike a patent it doesn't have to go through the $$$ process of evaluation, since it would grant no rights to the person filing and wouldn't have to be checked extensively. What would happen, however, would be that the idea is filed in the archives of the patent office, to be checked whenever anyone files a new patent on something related to the DOA as a possible example of prior art.
This would allow the open source community and other companies to return some sanity to this game. If a DOA is filed, then the assumption is the idea must have been trivial enough that someone didn't expect to make $$$$ off of it. Or, alternately, the original inventor chose to give up his monopoly on the idea freely. Open Source groups and companies tired of patent wars could file very large numbers of well organized DOA forms and make sure it's at least harder for the patent office to characterize something obvious to the tech industry as non-obvious.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
The prior art for WORM discs is much earlier than '94. I'd probably venture to guess you could find some information on it pre-cdrom era years. But all that aside, simply read the prior-art disclosure from the current patent in question. It discloses (5,040,110) which is a patent specifically aimed at packet writing to a WORM disc and was issued in 1991.
In any event, just looking at Martin's (5,666,531) makes you really wonder how well it would hold up in court. Check the cited prior-art, and it's prior-art and you'll come to a quick conclusion that with such a broad patent as has been granted here, it's doubtfull that it will utimately turn out to be vaild.
The plaintifss cannot possibly claim that they didn't know that this technology has been ubiquitous for some time, they should have filed years ago. They gave consent by not acting.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
CDs are going to be obsolete before they can settle the law suit. The patent is on CD writing methods, right? Atleast that's what the title says. DVDs should be safe.
When a post becomes too insightful, it often becomes funny.
Isn't this Raymond guy the same fella that invented the hyper quill ?
...that this sort of physically describes how multisession CD-R and CD-RW is implemented at the hardware level, and that Roxio (and other software) is merely an interface to this. Why exactly is Roxio being sued? Would not the various CD color books prove to be prior art?
Patents aren't stupid -- the patent office is. It seems to me that they're taking the approach that if the applicant can hold a reasonable argument for a process they don't understand, they issue the patent under the assumption that the courts will sort out the garbage fromt the useful patents.
Well, I renember how in the 80's people would admit that the USSR (the former Soviet Union) had a horrible and inefficient bureauocracy. So it often completely amazed me how many of the same people would deny with insanity that such a system was inherently unjust. For whatever reason, they just couldn't grasp that unjust systems by their very nature lead to screwed up and unaccountable bureauocracies.
Well the same is true of the patent system. The system is an inefficient and horiffic mess specifically because they DO assert the "right" to restrict what inventions other people use. It will always create problems, always create uncertanties, always create powerfull interests that protect and secure a failing system, and always create accountabilities that encourage expansion at the expense of other freedoms.
While there are a lot of such failing systems (insert looser government program here) the patent system is especially evil. Old people die because of the way patents influence the direction of research and cost of medicines. Children in Africa needlessly died of AIDS because of the way patents had locked out generics. And when the African nations got fed up and decided to manufacture generics anyhow, the pharmacutical industries sued.
Patents ARE evil. They are not a free market property right any more than slaves on the plantation were. They are a form of controll and opression. They are a quiet violence that simply must be removed at any cost.
The first CD was in 1988 http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0, ,sid5_gc,508949,00
Not quite. Knowing when is important for a stock option (a PUT in this case). The only way you are going to lose money on shorting a stock is if it continues to go up. You can basically hold a short as long as you want. Do you really thing SCO is going to keep going up NOW? The initial craziness is over. People are now looking for real meat in their claims.
And as someone else mentioned, you can hedge your bet with options. The example mentioned was flawed, as you would actually want to buy a call (not a put) so that if the stock goes up you make money to offset what you lose on the short. The option is time limited, but if done right it would not be too expensive to do the hedging.
Seems like one of the better gambles around actually. And using a combination of selling short and options you can construct a risk/reward curve that makes sense to you based on your perceived odds of SCO going down the toilet.
Or you can just buy put options well below the current price, where they are cheap, and if it falls below that price you make a buck for every buck below that it drops (minus the initial cost of the option). It does take a while to set up an account for options though, as you have to convince the brokerage you know what you are doing, since options can wipe out your money VERY quickly if you don't understand them.
Granted, with options there a time factor, which is figured into the cost of the option. So it is more difficult than shorting, but takes less money too (often a LOT less money). When you know the company and the market situation very well, options can be very useful in circumstances like these.
Sure, many large/corporate law firms do litigating and defending. But there are a lot of personal injury law firms that just sue.
I'm thinking of the ads-on-the-the back-of-the- phone-book, cheaply filmed late night TV kind of firms. The ones whose ads start with "have you ever been in an accident? Tripped and fallen? Gotten fired from your job for excessive drinking and forgeting to wear pants? Did someone once hurt your feelings? Then you may be entitled to a HUGE SETTLEMENT!
.
I have blog like everyone else
Thank you.
paintball
http://www.icdia.org/faq/
Frankly, there ought to be a law which prevents the SCO's of the world, (and others), from pulling this kind of crap if they don't jump on the percieved violation within a set period of time. Waiting for a technology to be developed, promoted and made ubiquitous world-wide and then pounce is purely greed motivated. A mis-use of the law, I think. If these parties were truly being grieviously hurt by 'violations' of their 'intellectual property,' then they should have started complaining earlier so that their innovation would be spared the ravages of expensive, world-wide development and guilt-free application; --so that they could continue to continue virtuous garage-lab development with their own resources. You know, the route that takes actual work and dedication. . ?
If it feels fishy, it probably is. And the Law should reflect this.
-FL
Technically, music CD-Rs may have a special code that allows them to be used in stand-alone music recording devices. These stand-alone devices check for the code
Hey, anyone know if this "special code" can be burned onto a data CD first, and then have it look like an audio CD to these devices?
I realize, it's rather silly, but hey, anything to mess up the system is all good in my books.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Have you noticed that when someone manages to get an overly vauge patent on a concept which is semi-obvious (I mean, who wasn't thinking to themselves back in the day "When are they gonna make writable cds?"), that they always wait to file the law suit until after its a multi-billion dollar industry?
Surely there should be some sort of time limits in place. Either your protecting your intellectual property so YOU can be the one who uses it to profit, or you're simply trying to be a leech. A simple time-frame for filing a law suit could go a long way towards determining which are which.
What happened to the good old days, where if a company was going out of business they would either innovate something new, or surcome to not being able to keep with the pace.
This really is what will slow down progression more than anything else. Not patents, I a big supporter of them, the US patent system. What they are doing for money is a joke, soon there will be more lawyers than all other professions combined. I remember mourning the day when there was more lawyers than engineers, now the thought of it just seems normal.
Which economist said that a countries innovation was proportional to the number of engineers, and a countries rent seeking was proportional to the number of Lawyers?
VENI, VIDI, VICI, DIXI
I ignore if that would count.
I installed or maintained 11 WORMs (Write Once, Read Many) devices for a goverment dependency in Mexico in 1993.
The disks looked indistinguishible from CDs and it would not suprise me if they were the same or very similar to a CD burner.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
A bunch of idiots back then patented a memory cache.
I guess there is a bit of prior art there.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
looks to me like vast tracts of this patent talk about CDROMs (Compact Disk Read Only Memory). i wasn't aware that CDROMs could be written to, although i've certainly written to CDR and CDRW disks in the past...
-duncan
So, we just send in our $699 and we're good, right?
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
I think it is time to create a court system for dealing with patent issues. If intellectual property is going to become a litigous cash cow comodity for businesses, I think we should move the work load of handling these cases out of the federal court system. The courts are overburdened as it is without having to deal with crap like this. I think it should be a process more like arbitration than a full blown court proceeding.
There could bea pool of technical arbiters (maybe former engineers and such) assigned to cases based on the relevance of their experience areas to the involved patents. They could better process the cases based on the merits of the patents, and they would be more likely to know of applicable prior art without extensive research. That would streamline things a great deal.
Then for fairness, maybe the parties could appeal the case directly into the appeals court. But at least all of the major research would be completed, and the information would be available easily to the appellate judge.
They don't have enough room to store all the working models, that's why the USPTO dropped that requirement.
A possible working replacement for that test is to require that the invention be in production for two years before the patent can be applied for. This would demonstrate that the invention was actually usefull, and, if it hadn't been duplicated during those two years, that it was non-trivial.
In production means the invention is used to make a product, or is used as a product.
You are not alone in this view.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist