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UK Firm Patents Software Downloads
spike1 writes "The Register has a story about BTG (British Technology Group) acquiring a patent on software downloads ... If this is one area of tech that's not covered by prior art, I don't know what is.
Although, the Reg doesn't include a link to the actual patents, out-law.com is also carrying the story and contains links to the patents, and looking at some of their patent synopses, it looks like it's a pretty broad brush."
Let's entertain the notion that BTG get their way (this wouldn't surprise me anymore), the companies paying royalties would only pass these fees onto their users. Making this another reason for users not to patch, there should be part of patent law for patents that effect national security like this...then again if you're going to change patent law I can think of a few other things I'd change too...
I think the [MS Word] paperclip is a great idea. - Miguel de Icaza
I've already begun work on SP1:
10 PRINT "|31LL G4T35 15 4 31373 |-|4X0|2 |)00|)"
20 GOTO 10
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
BTG seem to be the worst sort of patent parasites, if we go by the "success stories" on their website. Here's an excerpt bragging about locking down the rights to Interferon, a vital anti-cancer drug developed by the UK Medical Research Council:
Because Dr Isaacs and Dr Lindenmann published their findings before any patent applications were filed, it was not possible for BTG to secure patents except in countries whose patent laws offered a 'grace period', namely USA, Canada and Germany.
BTG applied for a US patent for Interferon in 1958, and after a long struggle with the US Patent Office, was granted its patent in 1972. BTG signed licence agreements with three of the largest pharmaceutical companies of the time: Schering Plough, Hoffmann-La Roche and Wellcome. This paved the way for the development of the manufacturing process which would eventually take Interferon to market. The first sales of Interferon occurred before the expiry date of the patents and BTG generated over 3.8 million from the technology in just those few countries. The patents were relevant to Interferon as sold even though it had been produced by recombinant DNA technology, which had not yet been invented when Interferon was discovered. This justified BTG's 14-year-long persistence in pursuing the grant of patents on the original discovery.
Most of which I downloaded at least some software. Prior art indeed! What closet have the patent examiners been locked in for the last 30 years that they never heard of software downloading?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
IIRC, didn't Symantec get a patent on this very idea a year ago, relating to it's LiveUpdate system, but promised not to enfore it? I mean, it was a stupid patent then, but apparently the bar is even lower now. Not only can you patent things you didn't invent and with plenty of prior art, you can patent stuff that's already been patented!
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
... that the Web would be useful for installing software?
But now that these guys have shown us the way, we can all start doing it. It oughta be a lot faster than those punch cards that I'd been using.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
it was BT, Britain's monopolist telephone company. A phone company that makes you pay by the second for local calls.
Telephony is something I consider a natural monopoly, that should be either state-run or under strict state governance.
Same for energy supply. Phones, gas and electricity in the UK are a disaster now that the artificial market has been created. Everyone tries to cover up the true cost by introducing bonuses for taking two services from one company, "friends and family" discounts, cheap international calls, and so on. It's impossible to compare costs.
Anyway, if you have telephony from a cable company, they generally give you free calls to other cable customers.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Do I have to take it out of cron now? If I put it in cron, but didn't write apt-get, am I exempt?
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Various TV programmes in the UK did similar things. Tomorrows world back in the early 80s tried a few methods of downloading from the telly.
:)
The old tape recorder next to the tv while we play you the loading sound was the first (I tried that with the ZX81 one they broadcast... didn't work, they also did vic 20 and later, spectrum, iirc). Later, they tried a direct connection to the computer via a light sensor stuck to the screen, and a flashing black and white square. (Think that one was only for the BBC micro though)
The BAUD rate must've been in the 10s but it's still a software download...
Other more game oriented computer programmes used to broadcast the loading sound to things on a weekly basis.
Of course... All of this is forgetting Prestel and the games downloadable from teletext if you had the correct peripheral for your computer (again, BBC Micro only iirc)
BT, Britain's monopolist telephone company. A phone company that makes you pay by the second for local calls.
Ok, I have family that works for BT so I'll bite on this one. BT used to be a part of the post office, it was then split off as a private company and I believe it had a monopoly for a number of years. I think in about the last 10 years or so competition has been introduced (NTL, various others - I don't pay much attention) and the industry regulated by oftel (I believe a name change has happen recently).In the early-ish days of this non-monopoly market BT were thinking about offering free local calls, however oftel objected as this would kill the competition (which is a fair point, to some degree). Since then BT's market share has reduced and are now not in a position to offer such an attractive package.
Before I get flamed into oblivion I would just like to add that I appriecate BT doesn't have the best of public images, however some of the competition make them smell of roses.
Investor: We decided to invest in Company 1 due to the unique Download patent they had.
Company 2: oh
1. upLoading 2. leftLoading 3.rightLoading 4. omniLoading
ofcourse with "download" as an old prior art.
From the article: The UK's Daily Telegraph, which broke the story, speculates that Microsoft - which delivers millions of security updates for its software over the Net - is one of the firms on BTG's hit list.
Since Microsoft is involved, I see 3 possible outcomes to this:
1) Microsoft challenges the patent and wins
2) Microsoft buys BTG and does not enforce the patent. Everyone lives happily ever after.
3) Microsoft buys BTG and milks the patents for all they are worth. Everyone looses.
If microsoft is forced to pay royalties, I have no doubt they will try to buy out BTG, and since BTG is not a software company, they will probaly not face many regulatory roadblocks. From the examples of patches and update downloads, possibly this only applies to automatic updates to things like windows or virus scanners. If MS does end up owning the patent, they will probly use it to put Symantic and co out of buisness, because they could then offer thier new antivirus product we've been hearing about at a lower price, and take a chunk of whatever symantic/mcafee still sells. Hopefully, this stupid patent will just be thrown out, and that whole mess can be avoided.
If you take a look at the second link and investigate the patents, you'll see it's really not as simple as 'downloading software'. Although it's plain to see that BTG are a bunch of immoral patent-grabbing bastards, it looks as though these particular patents might just be specific enough to circumvent your scorn. Maybe just.
These are *pre-existing* US patents which they have *licensed*. They, themselves, have *not* patented these, they have paid money to the people who *did* patent them.
The real controversy here is their application of these patents: their business plan is that they will sue the pants off the largest corporations they can find that they can plausibly attest is violating "their" patent. This has been their modus operandi for awhile.
Ironically, they were originally set up by the government of Great Britain in 1948 to commercialize "publicly funded research". It seems that they have gotten a little off track, and should probably be reined it a little.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.