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Microsoft Assembles Patent Arsenal for Longhorn
stock writes "The heat is on. Inside eweek.com are some remarkable articles: 'You see, Microsoft is busy patenting everything it can lay its hands on with
all three. In fact, Microsoft is now building up its patent arsenal, applying
for a rather amazing 10 patents a day. The idea isn't to ensure that
Microsoft makes a fair profit from its patents; it's to make sure that no one
else can write fully compatible software.' An older article mentions some other patents."
Convicted monopolist? Microsoft was found to have a monopoly. That in and of itself is not a crime. Time for you to go do some reading. There are plenty of markets where a monopoly exists, and its not the government's job to "restore" them to a "nonmonopolistic" state.
"Moderate drinking can help prevent amputated limbs" -- Abigail Zuger, NYTimes, 12/31/02
When has Microsoft EVER used patents as a tool for gaining market control?
How about using patents to extract FAT licensing fees from removable solid state media manufacturers? Or is that too easy?
Since when has the patent office been rejecting software patents because they did not have time to properly review them? It seems like once a week that we have another story about some bogus patent that clearly has prior art. This is precisely why EFF has their patent busting operation.
There is already an easy way to do just that. Publish a so-called defensive publication, in one of journals USPTO (as well as researchers) read and use for their prior-art evaluation process. It's too bad not more companies and individuals know this, but it is a practice some (big) companies do use, as it is significantly cheaper than doing full patent application.
There should be defensive patents, patents issued saying "we figured out how to do this on our own, we don't want to stop other people form figuring out the same thing we just don't want to be prevented from using our inventions."
Actually, there are. They're called Statutory Invention Registration these days. For a very small fee you can just register that you invented something, without actually obtaining patent protection for it. But, the patent office will have that you invented it on file.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
which they did develop, not FAT in general.
There should be defensive patents, patents issued saying "we figured out how to do this on our own, we don't want to stop other people form figuring out the same thing we just don't want to be prevented from using our inventions."
These already exist. They're called publications. Once you've published something, nobody else can patent it (and you can't either, once a one-year time limit expires).
The only case where someone else could patent a method which you are already using is if you've kept the method a secret -- which is exactly what the patent system is designed to stop.
While there can be no doubt that the actual implementation of the patent system is severely flawed, the overall purpose and approach -- using the granting of monopolies to encourage people to publish their research instead of keeping it as "trade secrets" -- is certainly reasonable.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Microsoft doesn't like getting beaten up twice.
In 1995 Microsoft was widely touted as a "non-political" company. The company wasn't a big political contributor and felt that it's software stood on it's merits.
Enter the Sun/Netscape/? lawsuits. Microsoft is now a huge campaign contributor, and wields the political club well.
MSFT got badly burned by bogus patent lawsuits. Using history as a guide, it is not difficult to see MSFT using patents as a club in the future.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Utter bullshit. Whether or not they *maintain* their dominant position through "monopolistic" practices, they got on top through purely legal means.
They received 3415 patents in 2003. If MS manages to keep up the "10 patent per day" rate, then of course, IBM will have to turn over the crown. But IBM is an Open Source darling, right?
Is this sig nificant?
well judging from the royalties set ($.25 /device) they aren't making any money off it, although it does require compliance with their exact standard, seems more like they wanted to make sure anyone buying a USB memory card reader or with a built-in multi0reader would actually be able to use it without screwy drivers for each camera, which might conflict if you have two cameras
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Because the samba team havent taken their finger out of their ass to implement Win2K3 compatibility yet, genius. When they do, you'll have your access. I never said samba would be able to connect to Longhorn, I said Longhorn would be able to connect to Samba. Besides, if Windows NT 4 or Win98 can access your Win2K3 box, Samba should be able to as well, if it is properly configured which, since you couldn't even manage to properly configure a slashdot account, I expect it isnt.
If IBM had its way, your PC would be a glorified 3270 emulator connecting to some AS/400
You seem unaware that IBM went out of its way to make the original ISA architecture royalty free. The PC revolution happened because anyone could make a compatible hardware system. After enough other players made their fortunes they got together to make standards such as PCI and AGP without some individual company mandating it. But the ball started rolling with IBM's freely giving away the specs and rights to make compatible ISA.
These already exist. They're called publications. Once you've published something, nobody else can patent it (and you can't either, once a one-year time limit expires).
Dream on. It might work in some alternative universe, but in this one it only applies if you have the $$$ to contest the issue in court. Against a Microsoft, IBM, or IP litigation factory, you don't have a chance even if you are totally in the right.
Why does the open source community hate patents so much? I think that if the open source community came up with something new, they would hopefully patent it just like Microsoft are doing. If they didn't patent it, then they're fools because someone else will.
The thing that differentiates free and open source software from closed source is the lack of holding pieces of it hostage for money. It's what makes it open.
Having patents on an something atomatically makes open source software unable to implement it. Even if someone invents a way to get there and allows other people to use it, they are prevented from doing so by the patent.
Since copyright prevents someone from copying your invention in the software world, patenting software is only useful for preventing other people from coming up with another way to solve the same problem you did. This was not the original reason for patents.
You were supposed to be able to "build the better mouse trap" and patent it, not patent "building mouse traps".
Many open source licences (apache, samba) specifically say the software can't be used if any money is charged for licencing patents held on any technology inside. This prevents someone from creating a patent and sueing every company using the software for money to keep using apache/samba. They can ask that companies stop using the software, but they cannot ask for money to keep using it since if the company pais the money they are then in violation of the software's licence and must stop using it. It keeps unscrupulous companies from trying to gain effective ownership of other people's work.
The debate over patents is an old one. The benefits of having the freedom of to use knowledge and innovate vs the benefits of the profit incentive from being able to own patents. Open source software operates with the freedom of knowledge and innovation at it's core. Holding pieces of knowledge and pieces of software hostage for money can't work with open source.
I hope this answers your qutesion.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
The only problem I have with Apple is the tight relationship between hardware and software. Yes I know this allows the computer to be much more stable.
That, of course, is bull. There is only a one way relationship. Apple software is tightly related to the hardware, but the hardware is as general purpose as any PC, and can run whatever software you care to run on it.
There are many ways to prevent businesses.
Microsoft has prevented many people from doing business. First, they controlled the distribution channels for hardware back in the day when IBM gave Microsoft an exclusive OS deal on the PC. When the clones came out, there was only one OS available: MS-DOS.
When DR-DOS arrived on the scene, Microsoft was quick to block it with exclusionary deals with the distribution channels. Sure you could buy DR-DOS; but since every PC came with MS-DOS (and *only* MS-DOS), what was the point? When DR approached distributors, they were rebuffed and told that their contract with Microsoft would not allow them to distribute another OS.
This is true even later: when Be approached distributors, willing to *give away* BeOS, they were told they couldn't, as Microsoft's contracts would not allow the PC distributors from allowing another OS to appear as a boot option.
This is not even discussing the products that never saw the light of day because Microsoft purchased the company and dismantled the product simply to avoid competition. Back in Java heyday, back before the blush was off the rose, Microsoft bought up a very large portion of the java development startups. They claimed they were simply purchasing the developers (essentially), but considering Microsoft never had a Java development strategy (other than hijacking the language), this argument is disingenuous.
Microsoft has succeeded more by regulating the market than by participating *in* the market. This is the one strikingly clear fact of the entire Microsoft history.
Anyway, this is a long rant; but I'm tired of the "Microsoft is soft and cuddly" comments. Microsoft *has* prevented others from doing business rather than compete with them head-to-head. And personally I consider any control by a single entity as market regulation, with or without government backing.
The major difference is, a corporation is vulnerable to something like Linux. As long as Microsoft is forced to compete on worth, they won't stand a chance. But as soon as they gain government backing (such as a huge frivolous patent portfolio), Linux is suddently put back "in its place:" as a hobbyist OS.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Utter bullshit. Whether or not they *maintain* their dominant position through "monopolistic" practices, they got on top through purely legal means.
Doubtful, but we'll probably never know the truth. All I can say is that if the "Dos isn't done until Lotus won't run" stories are true, then that monopoly is totally ill-gotten. And the way they boxed out DR Dos by tying Windows to it, well they got caught, sued, and settled, so how again was that totally legally gained? And what about the *massive* astro-turffing campaign by MS against OS/2 4.0? That's anti-competitive, surely. And what they did to Grid. And Apple. And Stac. Central Point. The stories just go on and on. Most of those instances cost MS some money and some bad press, but guess what? They kept the monopoly, so to them, it was worth it.
I guess, though, that you've forgotten that the last anti-trust suit against Microsoft was brought in part due to MS' violation of two, count them two, previous Consent Decrees, each the result of Justice Department investigation. Originating back in the elder Bush adminisrtation.
That's what kills me. IBM was a wonderfull example of how such hard ball practices fail, in the early 90's they got nailed harder than anybody.
After 40+ years of abusive monopoly control, crushing competitors, even in the 1950's.
Example: Early 50's. IBM discovers that Rand has an entry level computer way cheaper than IBM's hugely expensive machines. So IBM make their low end machine available for half of what it costs to manufacture! But with barely enough memory to be useful. Soon the customer would need memory, and IBM would more than make a profit on the entire system once the memory upgrade was purchased.
The book is just chock full of dirty tricks.
You suggest that such tactics fail. Well, I suppose I agree that they must fail eventually. But am I doomed to spend my entire career under Microsoft's control? Oh, suppose, by your theory that they fail badly by the time I retire. Who cares anymore?
Thank goodness, it looks like the industry will have some freedom much sooner than happened in IBM's case.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.