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TVI to Sue Over MS Autoplay Feature
scubacuda links to this Infoworld article, which reads in part "TVI charges Microsoft's autoplay feature infringes on four of its U.S. patents. TV Interactive Data Corp. (TVI) of Los Gatos, California, claims that Microsoft infringes on four of its U.S. patents, three entitled 'host device equipped with means for starting a process in response to detecting insertion of a storage media' and one entitled 'method for starting up a process automatically on insertion of a storage media into a host device.", writing "I hope no one has a patent on the shift key, because that's what I hit when I insert a CD. (That is, when I haven't already edited the registry)" Wouldn't automount / autofs fall under the same shadow?
The Mac has a 'detect on auto insert' for as long as it's had a floppy drive! (IIRC, the Amiga did too.)
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
The patent numbers are 5,597,307; 5,795,156; 6,249,863 and 6,418,532.
My Amiga would detect when a floppy was inserted and start automaticaly and this was back in 1988.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
The Commodore Amiga had this from atleast the Amiga 500, possibly earlier and that was in 1986.
Well, as soon as someone hands me a newspaper, or a book, i start reading it, without thinking about it.
then im sometimes attracted to a particular thing, typically on the frontpage, and it draws my attention to the point where my consciousness reads it too.
prior art, i guess cave paintings would be about the same.
Xiph
I'm afraid that isn't a valid comparison and won't count as prior art in this case. Bootable floppies do not autostart when inserted into the floppy drive. It is only during the boot-up process that these floppies would be accessed and read without human interaction.
Wouldn't automount / autofs fall under the same shadow?
No, autofs/ automount automatically mount media (be that an NFS share or whatever) when they detect it is needed (so the process is demand driven rather than media driven).
Perhaps you're thinking of supermount
"Linux is a serious competitor"
- Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Microsoft Corp.
Actually, Windows (and DOS) always assumes that a disk is inserted whenever the drive is mounted. It does check to be sure that it's the SAME disk, and it only does this on an access attempt. The only hardware that can autodetect mounting of a floppy disk is the Mac, and it's done it since 1984.
Here are the dates on the patents:
5,597,307: January 28, 1997 (filed May 11, 1995)
5,795,156: August 18, 1998 (filed November 1, 1995)
6,249,863: June 19, 2001 (filed May 3, 1999)
6,418,532: July 9, 2002 (filed March 22, 2001)
Also, here's the date on the Microsoft Autorun patent:
6,366,966: April 2, 2002 (filed December 13, 1994)
So, while three of the TVI patents are OLDER than the Autorun patent, the Autorun patent was filed six months earlier than the first TVI patent.
So does my first (1982?) VCR. If the record tab is removed, then the VCR goes to play. This is a standard feature with almost all VCRs today....
Additionally, TVI charges that Microsoft patent 6,366,966, entitled "method and system for automatically running a program" interferes with the TVI patents as it covers a TVI invention.
Funny, that patent was filed on December 13, 1994.
The earliest of the TVI patents was filed on May 11, 1995. Now maybe their "invention" was developed prior to MS's patent application.
I just find it funny that, on one hand, they'll be trying to use their products as prior art, while at the same time hoping nobody else's products are used against them...
Vs lbh pna ernq guvf, ybt bss abj. Tb bhgfvqr. Syl n xvgr.
The patents and dates are:
LaserDiscs were the first optical disc storage media, invented in the late 1960's by Philips. The compact disc was developed from this technology in 1980. The LD players were first available on the market in 1978, and first demonstrated in 1972. These players automatically played the video on the storage media, so this has been around for at least 30 years. It's also in CD players mentioned in earlier posts, which came just a little later. I often wonder if the employees of the US Patent Office came here, very recently, from another planet. That might explain why they have no clue about prior inventions.
You don't always have to edit the registry. Sometimes its a simple point and click job. Details are here.
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still think unix automounting FS's predates all of this. When a NFS system is initialized my system detects the mounted media and mounts it for me without any user interference or action. But I do remember the MAC chunking away on the floppy upon insertion as well. IBM Mainframe machines required the controller to let the machine know new media or devices had been attached as far back as 3081's, based on my admittedly flawed memory...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Heck, wouldn't starting to play the pre-recorded tape when I insert it into my old VHS VCR also fit the discription? I've had VCRs that do that for 20 years.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I remember using that very feature of the Win95 beta. Also, Mac OS 7.x supported autoplay - here's a model from 1992 that had a built-in CD-ROM drive and used this OS.
sulli
RTFJ.
When the big gorillas have patent fights, they just sign cross-licensing agreements, effectively forming a cartel. This is actually a case of the little guy suing the big guy, which seems to be more the norm for ridiculous patents like this one.
What strikes me on this one is that it was filed in 1995, and the filing specifically mentions CD-ROMs and Wintel PC's. How could this have escaped notice until now? It's not as if it was hiding in some dusty filing cabinet for years, it was filed by the same company that currently holds it, while Windows 95 was in beta!
I dunno, maybe the USPTO is right, maybe this stuff isn't so obvious. Even the people who filed the damned patent couldn't figure it out.
What counts is the date the invention was reduced to practice, not the date of application.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Slashdot posters aren't exactly on top of USPTO related news.
Congress is already reviewing the patent process via HR 1561 being voted on today?
United States Patent and Trademark Fee Modernization Act of 2003 is important as it allows for inventors to submit their own searches from an outside source, such as the european patent office or a private search firm.
On a side note, tax payers don't pay patent examiners. The USPTO is a fully fee funded agency.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
If microsoft wouldn't pay licensing fees for a patent which was clearly legitimate, why would they pay out for one as dubious as this one?
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
I dont think they're refering to the autoplay in Win9x that runs a specified exe file on insert of a CD-Rom. What I think they're refering to is the new autoplay in Windows XP that does different things depending on the type of media inserted... a disc full of photos and it starts a slideshow, a disc full of MP3s and it adds them to a playlist. If you read some of the patents that are linked here, you'll see that that is the basic premise they patented, the idea of autoplay depending of the type of files contained in the media. Just my two cents.
In... let me see... 1982? I dealt with a PDP-11/23 running RSX-11-M-PLUS which autostarted backups and things when you inserted media (e.g. 1600BPI magtape into a Cypher F880(?) tape drive). We also had monstrous great two megabyte removable hard disks the size of a sombrero, and the system would auto-start things when the correct one of those was inserted. It had been doing these things for many years before I arrived on the scene.
A local Fight'o'net BBS operator I know, back in the same era, had a process auto-start when you inserted a tape cartridge (snail-mailed from the 'states) full of downloadables in your '286.
So they're just being SCOlets, pump-n-dump barratrous assholes. It seems to be trendy these days.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
May 3 1999 - 6,249,863
March 22 2001 - 6,418,532
June 30 1995 - 5,711,672
The top three are "Host device equipped with means for starting a process in response to detecting insertion of a storage media," and the bottom is "Method for automatically starting execution and ending execution of a process in a host device based on insertion and removal of a storage media into the host device."
Considering that the preview version of Windows 95, which included autoplay features, shipped before June 30 1995, it's safe to say Microsoft has prior art in this case. (Not that Microsoft has the only prior art; Amiga and Apple have both been pointed out.) This case is like myself patenting the idea of a typewriter, then beginning litigation against Underwood and Royal.
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
It was called the Saddam virus (and now we finally 'got him' ;-)
c atalog/a miga/html/saddamor.htm
See:
http://agn-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/
It would slightly corrupt the disk, in order to trick the AmigaOS into starting the disk-validator, which itself was infected. Very clever trick, as it didn't require running a program or booting from a disk.