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Microsoft, Apple Sued Over Software Update Patent
mark_wilkins writes "Microsoft and Apple have been sued by Teleshuttle Technologies, LLC, alleging that their online software updating technology infringes a patent on providing online updates to software with a menuing system to permit the user to pick the updates. Apparently the work on which the patent is based supposedly goes back to 1990."
The link presented is what, a press release by the company doing the suing? That's a nice, unbiased viewpoint, there. I like how the "article" states "This move follows Microsoft's and Apple's delay in entering into licensing agreements with BTG on commercially reasonable terms." In other words, "we're suing them because they told us that we're full of crap and please get lost." I skimmed through the lengthy patent in question, and it's so insanely broad that I cannot imagine that it would survive a court battle with its claims intact. There's not one single mention of how any portion of the "technology" in question would actually do anything. It's just a description of how it would be used. It looks like someone patenting a type of car by claiming, "It has wheels, and it moves forward and backward and can be steered by a person or by some other type of steering control, give me a billion dollars right now, I'm a genius."
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
There are too many holes and gaps in the patent system. Everything is so vague you can patent a flying car... just on a plastic model alone with some BS blueprints.
Or emerge -vu world for us Gentoo freaks out there.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
What the hell are we supposed to do when this company seeks an injunction against Microsoft's Windows Update?
lots of people will be royally f*cked...
No doubt the "patent" also applies to various Linux distributions, but obviously they're not being sued because there's little money in them.
With all the hubub over software patents being a danger to open source software, you have to wonder whether or not they're a bigger danger to commercial companies. After all, if you're going to sue someone you're going to go after a company with money. Even better if they're public, as you might be able to extort them into settling behind the scenes since a lawsuit might hurt their share prices.
Mundane Concept = Mundane Concept
Mundane Concept Online = Patent
As much as I love to watch Microsoft feel financial pain, this is still yet another example of why software patents are a lousy idea. I shudder to think how much worse virus episodes would be if windowsupdate wasn't as convenient as it is.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You're crazy.
No one would have EVER thought of doing updates over a network if these guys hadn't shown the way.
Just like I'm very grateful to the nice gentleman who explained I could mow the lawn with a kind of back and forth motion...I was on the verge of turning off my lawnmower, bringing it on my back to the other side, and then starting it up again.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
While it seems that this Reisman guy may have been working on this technology since 1990, the patent wasn't filed until 2000.
So I think MS and Apple would just have to show they started using this tech before 1999 - i.e. it was public IP before the patent was filed.
Lesson: Patent early, patent often.
I hate software-related patents as much as the next guy, but the continual cry of "That's obvious" is getting tiring. If it was so obvious, why was there such a long period of time between the patent and when MS and Apple started using a similar system? Clearly, it took them years before they "saw the light."
This is ludicrous. BTG shouldn't be allowed to wait for ten years to enforce their patent, and then sue for past damages. If BTG were being damaged, BTG should have filed suit earlier. This is nothing but a shakedown.
The good thing about it is that if Microsoft gets pissed off about submarine patents, they have the money and political influence to do something about it, like lobby Congress to reform patents. Unless, of course, the perceived benefits of their patent arsenal outweigh the occasional nuisance lawsuit.
This is a disease which afflicts the patent system. People are not patenting brilliant, innovative, inobvious ideas, but just "staking out territory".
Also, this patent was filed in 2000. If this work dates from the 1980's, as is stated in the post, then an enabling disclosure or marketing of the technology may have occurred before 1999, and the patent will be questionable.
It may be that Applie and Microsoft think they can attack this patent, which is why they didn't cut a deal.
Difference: IMHO, Professional Inventors actually try to market their ideas- turn them into something useful- help people- build a profitable business. Think of Edison, Bell, etc. They invented and then put it out there so everyone benefited from their creativity. These guys make the patent, then hide out monitoring the market, until they find an "infringer", and then call out the lawyers. That's no benefit to anyone except themselves & the BSV attorneys.
There's no time to stop for gas, we're already late.
Oh you mean a webpage with programs to download?
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
"BTG creates value by investing in intellectual property and technology development, and ... " blah blah blah
Translation: We sue people.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
I skimmed a bit of the patent and it refers to the software being offered from a non-proprietary network. Does that mean that if Apple and MS prove that their networks are, in fact, "proprietary", then the patent doesn't even apply to them?
Programming Language creators should include a provision in their license that forces programmers to use the copyright system and not the patent system with programs written in their language.
You do realize that programs in every language are compiled as machine code (or virtual machine code)? Are you trying to suggest that programming languages should be patented and licensed, so nobody can use them without agreeing to the restrictive terms you suggest? That's quite possibly the worst idea I've ever heard. Have you ever developed anything you wished to profit on?
The patent wasnt awarded to them until April 2003 according to the story. So it's only been about a year.
:p Just FYI
Not that I'm defending them or anything
Joseph?
...and the doctrine of laches says that's not allowed. They could almost certainly have asserted their right years ago. Windows Update has been around for yonks.
Non-starter. Programming language creators don't have the power to dictate how their language is used after the fact, and if they try to make people sign a contract before giving them a compiler, no one will use their language.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Those of us who have enough experience with gentoo to learn not to trust portage will probably have to worry. Emerge -up offers a "menu" of what's to be updated...
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Agreed ... from RFC977,
Brian Kantor (U.C. San Diego), Phil Lapsley (U.C. Berkeley)
February 1986
"NNTP specifies a protocol for the distribution, inquiry, retrieval, and posting of news articles using a reliable stream-based transmission of news among the ARPA-Internet community."
Note: Usenet was not limited to TCP/IP. Before the internet was deployed we used modems, 800 numbers and uucp to transfer the article streams. The protocol allowed the receiving system to specify which newsgroups to fetch articles and updates from. Each server only fetched what it didn't have. And one shouldn't forget about the NNRP protocol used between server and clients which uses many of the same principles.
B.T.W. In unix land we used CRON to automatically schedule NNTP/UUCP updates.
Also from the RFC.."Such news provides for the rapid dissemination of items of interest such as software bug fixes,"
As for menu based stuff.. Virtually all of the old text clients RN, Tin, NN news readers had curses driven menus (text of course). Xn and large number of other news readers cover the GUI arena. Heck, I've been using the Agent since 1995.
The patent appears to have been filed in Apr 20, 2000.
Microsoft had their windows 98 update feature deployed long before that date.
I think that just about covers most of the Method and Apparatus claims.
As usual, the USPTO has once again demonstrated it's gross incompetence.