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Microsoft Pays $440M to License InterTrust Patents
theodp writes "Microsoft is paying $440 million to InterTrust to settle a three-year-old patent infringement lawsuit over DRM technology for protecting music, movies and other digital content against piracy. Under the settlement agreement, customers can use Microsoft products and services without a license from InterTrust. Developers, however, may need a license from InterTrust for other uses, including the combination of Microsoft technology with third-party technology." C.J. adds a link to the New York Times' coverage of the settlement.
for $440 million im sure microsoft can develop a DRM system 100000x better then what they have right now
Based on their record thus far, zero times "100000" still doesn't add to much.
Trolling is a art,
You don't understand. This is $440 Million that Microsoft gave to InterTrust so that InterTrust would have a big warchest to go after everyone except Microsoft who tries to compete with Microsoft. It's a drop in the bucket to Microsoft (see the last few weekly Cringley articles), and it is an even better way to grab position than to give SCO money under the table to have them try to kill Linux.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Microsoft® has a new head of it's leagl department. Thats what up. Settling and trying to hold on to it's money. If they had lost ( just might have) they would have spent more. This make good business sense. I still hate their guts but it makes sense.
Look for them to make more settlements.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
This is soooo just like SCO trying to make money on linux. I hope they lose!
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I know they are a huge company...but I really don't see how they can afford to keep losing money like they do. A few billion to Sun here, millions to BeOS here, $440 million for some patents, losing millions on X-Box, millions in lawsuits and fines, funding SCO, etc. It seems that eventually they'd run low on cash to throw away on stupid crap...but I've never had billions of dollars so I guess I wouldn't know.
Dammit! It seems like everything bad that happens to Microsoft, Microsoft turns around and uses it in their favor...
I mean:
- States sue Microsoft for abusing monopoly powers; Microsoft pays lawsuit with Microsoft products that indoctrinate kids (future buyers) into Microsoft products.
- Microsoft sues Lindows for it's impossible common word trademark of windows in US courts. Microsoft loses. Microsoft sues Lindows in other world courts; Lindows is forced to change name. Microsoft loses, yet wins. Lindows runs out of lawsuit money.
- States sue Microsoft over alleged undocumented Windows routines that allow MS software to run better on Windows than other software. Source code is released later on that shows MS lied in court. Nothing happens to MS!
How is this new lawsuit good for anything but Microsoft? It's like Microsoft basically paid $440million to ensure that 3rd party software has a disadvantage - something Microsoft has already been sued for! This, once again, screws consumers by causing 3rd party manufacturers to pay more for licensing and allows MS to eat another market.
MS is really clever at screwing us all in the ass as efficiently as possible.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Now everyone knows why Microsoft was sitting on all that cash: they're gonna buy their way outta trouble. Why not? It's easier for them to buy their way out of trouble.
Andd after all that, they'll still have billions and billions lying around to cross-subsidize their money-losing ventures. Those money-losing ventures, of course, include almost everything Microsoft does except Windows and Office.
Microsoft's new slogan should be "Innovating financial solutions to legal problems."
Here is an earlier article discussing the Intertrust patents, and their apparent broadness. There are links to the actual patents themselves.
As other posters have noted, this settlement gives Intertrust a leg up on the competition (which they probably will sue now).
It would be an interesting exercise to see if there are any publications that discuss "trusted computing" prior to the Intertrust patents.
Also, Intel announced a mobile cpu that has a DRM coprocessor in the same package. Intel could head this direction with all their chips.
Given all the evils of DRM, I would rather see a chip from Intel with DRM succeed, rather than using Microsoft palladium, Phoenix DRM bios, or other software component. Having it in hardware makes it a level playing field for every developer, commercial or open source. I am not saying any of it is good, only what the lesser of evils would be.
Preferably their would be an open source competitive solution.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"