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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?
wouldn't the Mac be considered prior art since it has been auto responding for quite a while
Patents are supposed to be "novel" and unique. I don't see anything special about auto playing or mounting media when it is inserted.
Is it plausible that towards the end of this lawsuit flinging, people will eventually realize that by Occom's (sp incorect, sorry) razor, code will trend towards the most logical and efficient, and that for two people working on the same thing, the code will maybe, possibally, be identical?
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
slashdot needs an asinine tag, like fark.
this is ridiculous.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
Most regular CD players? Tape decks? 8-tracks? I'm pretty sure my old 8-track would auto-start playing the tape when it was inserted...
is that it's growing among companies. Companies litigating the little guy out of business over patents is relatively straightforward.
Hopefully when enough 800, 1200 and 1600 pound gorillas start beating up on each other then there will be some reform. (Hopefully)
Automount and autofs trigger filesystem mounts on directory traversals, not on media insertion.
Maybe you were thinking about vold or some other similar project.
I've even got VCR head cleaner tapes that use this feature and the "auto-rewind at the end" and "auto-eject after rewind" features. You just put the head cleaner in and let the machine clean its own heads. When the tape pops back out, you're done.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
I don't think a bootable floppy would count.
:-)
The computer has to actively seek the drive and look for an appropriate filesystem to boot from.
In order for a boot disk to "violate" this patent, the computer would have to turn on and automatically boot from that floppy upon insertion, or something of that sort.
I'm not trying to say it's not yet another stupid patent, but just that I'm not sure your example would apply.
Their lawyers are going to make more money than they will.
And this differs from every other lawsuit in the world in what way?...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
There's nothing wrong, this is pretty much how the system works these days.
You can't just submit a patent and expect the examiners to prove a negative. "Go out and prove I didn't invent X". Unless its obvious, in which case they throw it out.
So, basically, they just go ahead and grant the patent (or application), and let the courts handle it. TVi says they have a patent, MSFT says the patents are invalid (because of prior art, obviousness, they invented it first, etc), and they dance in court about it.
Now the burden of proof is on TVi, to prove that they invented it and the patent is valid.
The system is open to abuses, sure, and that's a hole that needs to be closed. TVi is essentially playing the lottery. They'll probably lose, but if they win, they'll win big.
Frankly I'd rather they waste their own money fighting over it than taxpayer resources trying to research every single claim that shows up. Especially with all the high tech fields these days. You'd need multiple PhDs in every single scientific discipline to even read some of the biotech claims these days.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
There's enough prior art here to toss in out, IMO.
While it's a common practice for these patent vultures to prey on the small, cash poor "infringers", counting on a quick settlement, I don't understand why they'd tackle microsoft. MSFT has the legal guns to back this thing all the way to invalidation of the patent, if they want. I guess they might just figure it's cheaper to fork over a pay-off, but I wouldn't and I doubt Mssr. Gates will, either.
IANAL, IANAPE, but a patent lawyer told me that patent examiners are paid on a per-application-processed basis, and so they don't generally like to do more work than absolutely necessary. A patent that is initially rejected can be appealed, or modified and resubmitted by the applicant, both scenarios which create more work for the examiner but not more pay. Approved patents are never appealed, except that it *might* end up in court some day, but the examiner is not a part of that. You can see why the system encourages rubber-stamping of patent applications.
yea, but nevertheless MS has taken the AutoPlay feature too far IMO. If you insert a CD that autostarts the program or installer, that's okay.
Whenever I have to use an XP box at the university, any data CD, zip, or key-drive thats loaded into the computer which has a directory of picures brings up a "this media has pictures...how do you want to open it?" prompt. I always end up hitting cancel, but whatever happened to "let me put the media in and don't get in my way"
$cat
So you don't think the court case wastes tax payer dollars?
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
People keep saying that it is too much work for the patent office to check every patent for prior art, so why not just put it up on a website somewhere saying so-and-so is claiming such-and-such and then if anyone has already done that they say so, and the patent is thrown out. They have similar things for planing permission on new buildings and suchlike, and it works fine. Of course, it does rely on people checking this website regularly, but I expect big companies would be able to pay someone to check the relevent subjects once a week or so.
Does my toaster qualify as prior art? It's from the 70s, but it's smart enough to "start a process" (I.E. toasting) whenever I insert bread. My toaster is a fancy one (well, by 1970s standards), where I don't have to press down a lever to start it toasting.
I suppose the question is, does bread qualify as a storage media?
Fortunately my toaster toasts floppies and CDs equally well (although they are not nearly as tasty).
The worst part is that these patents keep being passed, over and over.. we need some technical people in the patent offices, not temps making $7 an hour.
No, we need to ban software patents. Software patents have done absolutely nothing for innovation. Everyone getting sued is not someone who saw the idea and said "Hey! Great idea! I think I'll integrate that with my product." They've all been developers who come up with the idea independently, and then years (and years) later the company who was successful in marketing the product gets sued. All it has done is increase the amount of patent barratry.
And software is already protected by an insane amount of IP laws anyway. Not only is it protected for 90 years by copyright (if owned by a corp.) but trade secret law, and still for some unfathomable reason, you can patent it as well.
Oh well. Sucks to be us, I guess.
This is getting insane. It's sad that the whole world seems to revolve around blame and accusations rather than actually DOING or MAKING something.
Someone should really tell Nintendo and Sony! Hell, Nintendo has been violating this patent for decades!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
More prior art:
My Betamax VCR (circa 1985?) would automatically begin playing the tape, after it's inserted.
Same goes with my car's casette deck. I pop in the tape, it plays without further intervention
Note the patent says "process," not "computer program." Not only is there a mountain of prior art, this definition is overly broad, and I'm confident it will be tossed out of court.
Clearly they are applying lower test than that in IT, presumably due to lack of staff with clues about this area.
Eg, the Amazon one-click patent was awarded for what anyone who knew the technology involved would have suggested as the first idea which came to mind: the IT equivalent of giving a patent for `using screws to attach things to the wall'.
In the case at hand they seem to have awarded a patent for someone realising that the way to know what to run when a disk is inserted is to put the thing to be executed, or a pointer to it, on the disk with a known name. I don't think anyone could seriously claim that comeing up with that required creativity.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
"For that will need to be done by tax paying citizens taking up torches and pitchforks and decending upon Washington in an orgy of blood lust. Then maybe we might see Congress decide to "review" the patent application process."
That won't happen. For the average citizen to revolt against Congress, some severe problem must exist that directly and adversely affects the citizen.
Patent problems only affect inventors, not consumers. The United States predominately consists of consumers who are not directly affected by patents one way or the other. Hence they don't care one bit about patent problems.
If you sat them down and explained to them, perhaps in terms even a child could understand, they would shrug their shoulders and wonder what the big deal is. The vast majority are completely uncaring about what they perceive to be not their problem. Don't count on them to even understand, much less care.
The state lottery! Where everybody wins!
(actual odds of winning 1 in 300 billion)
When the USPTO becomes even more dysfunctional, and starts granting patents that cover other specific inventions that they have (recently) granted patents on to other parties.
Instead of looking for prior art, which noone really cares about, you'd be able to point a finger at internal accountability problems or outright fraud within the office. Internal accountability and ethical problems are the only things that will ever engender change in such an organization, unless you advocate violence.