Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Wants More Credit for Inventions
theodp writes "Bill Gates said Thursday that Microsoft expects to file 3,000 patent applications this year, up from a little over 2,000 last year and 1,000 just a few years ago. 'We think--patent for patent--what we are doing is, if anything, more important than what others are doing,' said Gates, perhaps referring to 'Organizing and displaying photographs based on time,' which the USPTO published just hours before Gates spoke."
And the best part of the article:
1 00-1008_3-5205574.html?tag=nl
The link to this other article http://news.com.com/Apple+patented+by+Microsoft/2
"Apple patented by Microsoft
Apparently, intellectual property does grow on trees.
Microsoft, amid an IP spree that has won the company patent protection for everything from XML dialects to video game storage methods, mistakenly received a patent on Tuesday for a new variety of apple tree.
U.S. Plant Patent 14,757, granted to Robert Burchinal of East Wenatchee, Wash., and assigned to Microsoft, covers a new type of tree discovered in the early 1990s in the Wenatchee area, a major commercial apple-growing region. Dubbed the "Burchinal Red Delicious," the tree is notable for producing fruit that achieves a deep red color significantly earlier than other varieties. It is sold commercially as the "Adams Apple."
Yes I know the patent has been acknowledged as a mistake but it makes you wonder how many of these 3000 patents are going to be approved because someone got tired of paying attention to the fine print.
http://nyamenation.org/
Showing photos according to when they were taken? PRIOR ART!!! Photo developers have been doing this for ages, in software and on actual film! PhotoCD anyone???
Is it just me, or is the display of photos by time on a calendar exactly what Photoshop Album 1 did?
Hurrah for innovation!
when we relate/measure producitivity with patents...
Before you mod me funny, think, perhaps I was insightfully funny?
When will all of this be stopped? How can a company hold thousands of patents on software. Is anything that unique? What does it even matter, they are closed source. Nobody can steal code from them, but they can look at OSS and say "thats our idea."
Steal This Sig
with the most lawyers always wins.
rule # 1 kiddies - if you cant invent, buy more lawyers. and then claim you invented it.
If you've ever seen the movie High Fidelity the main character decides to organize his albums not by title or genre, but by autobiographical so that if he wanted to find an album he had to remember when he bought it. Well just for fun I decided to do the same thing with my porn collection using iPhoto. Now I can see how my tastes in porno have changed and grown more sophisticated over the last 7 years. And wow I was into some pretty kinky shit as a 12 year old.
The only reason Microsoft is filing all these patents is because they want to get ahold on every freaken idea that anybody could *ever* come up with. That way, when someone else decides that they want to create something (AKA, create a new OpenSource project), they may just not be able to do it anymore.
Also, Bill...hate to break it to you, buddy. But you're doing just what a ton of other people are doing every day. Get a grip on the ol' ego.
I never had a real problem with MS before -- but this just takes them down quite a few notches. (About 3000 notches to be exact.)
In their defense, they got hit by very absurd patent lawsuits. So now they want to grow fangs of their own. I don't blame them.
I blame the stupid patent system and I'm very amazed and disappointed that Congress and the American people seems to think it's all good (or are oblivious to the problem).
Microsoft really wouldn't be where it is today if software patents existed back when they started.
http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/knuth-to-pto.txt
They should have a little more respect for the name of Technology.
Sun, Yan-Feng; (Beijing, CN) ; Zhang, Lei; (Beijing, CN) ; Li, Mingjing; (Beijing, CN) ; Zhang, Hong-Jiang; (Beijing, CN)
They must have looked at the source code M$ sold the Chinese. Good thing M$ co-opted them or they would have had to put SCO on their case for stealing ideas. I'm going to barf.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
once their patent on the blue screen of death goes through ...
...
they will be getting payouts left and right for that
it is by far the most ubiquitous of PC conventions that has ever been seen.
As the old adage states, in its many forms, that the one thing ``they'' can't take away from you is knowledge. While true, Microsoft can still own it.
MOUNT TAPE U1439 ON B3, NO RING
it took four people to come up with that!
I know this has been ranted about on slashdot, but why are patently obvious procedures patentable?
I'd be curious if anyone can suggest a good rule for eliminating obvious patents. Perhaps a rule that states that a method which mimics electonically what is done by other means cannot itself justify issuing a patent.
In the referrring patent, Microsoft pretty much has patented the procedure for looking at things with dates on them and sorting them in order of the date. Now, I understand if Microsoft patents the method they used to extract date information encoded into a photograph, but this patent is way too broad.
You think the CIA can operate without software that manages photographs in a chronilogical order, how about the FBI.
Next they'll be patenting the organization of paper. And, since they used Clippy, they'll claim a patent on paper clips which aren't in use.
If the DOJ makes another move against them, MS countersues the government
'Organizing and displaying photographs based on time' surely has some prior art??!!
Countries like China and Russia, that are powerful enough to stand up to the US, will simply ignore those so called patents and innovate. to better their peoples' lives. We in the "third world" will follow. The Chinese are already in space, don't you think they have "trampled" on some US patents? The world will move on one way or another...with or without M$ and its patents.
Microsoft patents three finger salute. Whiny boy scouts claim prior art. Bill Gates derides scouts as religious cult, and threatens to sue the pimply freaks into oblivion.
Patents are a joke, and they need reform.
In the short term it's annoying but in the long term it's not that big a deal.
Are you insane? 15 years is a long, long time for computers. 15 years ago was 1989. That year, the 80486 was introduced. The web was two years off. Microsoft sales topped one billion dollars for the first time. The internet tops 100,000 hosts. IRC is introduced. Seymour Cray developed the Cray 3. MCI and Compuserve become the first corporations with email connections to the internet.
See what I'm getting at? A "limited" monopoly can be harmful, not just annoying. Even dangerous, when you are talking about the future of the most flexible tool known to man-- knowledge.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I always knew your company is inventing superior things every day. I just wonder what kept MS from implementing any of them? Sincerely yours -
I don't read replies by ACs.
Sure they wouldn't exist if software patents existed 30 years ago, but they now have domination of the market.. and they will stop at nothing to perpetuate their power and control... They could care less about the rest of the market's ability to grow...
This is just another part of the long term strategy..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I used to work closely with an engineer from FANUC, and he claimed (heresay now) they each employee had to apply for a new patent each year. And those that had one awarded were treated well.
Wake up.
For those that are too lazy to RTFA, this is probably the most important part of it :
The push for more patents comes as Microsoft is trying to boost the licensing of its intellectual property to other companies, an effort that began last year.
That pretty much sums it up right there. Exactly what do these guys want? Being one of the largest, most proliferated company on the planet isn't enough, apparently.
Don't think this is freaky yet? Check out this article and realize the strategic use of patents in influencing a market. They have all the money to do this too, which is the scariest part. Patents aren't about protection any more, it's about CONTROL.
'nuff said.
It is the principle of the matter. The fact that it takes 15 years to expire is not the issue, but rather that common sense ideas are now owned.
To make matters worse, all these common sense ideas will not be aviable for 15 years. Wow. That's insane. Who will care in 15 years? By that time it won't matter as things will have progressed so much.
Everything that seems to happen in the IT industry happens overnight, and after as little as three months, its already to late.
For Microsoft to do this as a business is just business sense. Why not do it? Does not hurt them to have it all. Sure it could hurt the company in the long run, but do you think the top executives really care about the long run? They care for maybe 10-15 years. Microsoft will not be gone in 15 years. I'm sure of that.
So, to get back to the point of the parent, why should we have to wait 15 years to use common sense ideas that have been used many many many times before? We should be able to use them now. I bet Asia will be using them, as well as South American. Europe will be screwed like us, but I'm still hoping for them to get it right.
Brendan
p.s. I'm an American, and the patent system is insane.
Although I don't endorse patent whording done by microsoft, the title for the patent is grosely misleading. It makes it sound like Microsoft just patented all motion pictures... but not quite.
The patent application states:
"For instance, the technique determines whether the time information is digitally encoded in the image file, or whether it is embedded within the image data itself. The technique next includes extracting the time information from the photograph image file using a technique appropriate to the identified manner in which the time information is stored, to produce extracted time information."
Simply put, the pictures are organized and displayed in a manner according to data embedded in the image file itself... which is halfway innovative.
Although pretty basic and easy to do on your own, it, I assume, can warrant a patent.
The only truly unique technology Microsoft ever invented is their secret algorithm that is able to generate errors in such a way that every user experiences at least one unique problem never seen by anyone else. Microsoft's software beats all others in this aspect. No other software can match the sheer randomness of the errors produced by Microsoft operating systems, which is why people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars more for it than they would have spent on otherwise superior Open-Source operating systems such as Linux.
The USPTO is populated by people who don't grasp the fundamental concept that IT systems and programming are about abstract concepts applied to specific requirements. Object oriented programming, GUI event frameworks, network interfaces, RMI, RPC, XML, it's all about abstraction.
The application of those abstract techniques and utilities to solving a particular business problem is not a patentable idea. It is a fundamental concept of the industry.
We now have the USPTO not merely patenting business concepts, but architectural concepts and theoretical interfaces like the association of time with an image. It's absolutely insane -- they are allowing Microsoft to patent a naturally observable attribute of a real-world object. Everyone knows a picture has a time associated with it -- even portraits that were painted over the course of weeks are still associated with a fuzzy time value. How the hell can you possibly patent the idea of associating time with a picture, no matter what the media, formats, or protocols involved?
Patent law itself states that you cannot patent a natural process, and the application of a general tool to a specific function is a natural process of computing.
From this fundamental misunderstanding, we end up dealing with a patent system that allows a company like Amazon to patent the use of abstract behavior templates in regards to a real-world object, the shopping cart.
That's just insane. You cannot patent something which any IT resource with a knack for abstraction can observe, and there are hundreds of thousands of such people. You cannot patent the idea that a car has a color, nor could you patent the idea of a picture of a car changing color each time you click on it. Yet some USPTO employee without a wit of sense or understanding of fundamental computing techniques and philosophies thinks that it's reasonable to think an abstract action like a mouse click associated with a catalog object is a patentable concept.
It's nuts. It's just insane. The USPTO needs to distinguish between use of abstract concepts that are a natural part of computing, and genuine art in implementing general-purpose abstractions.
No matter how disagreeable it might have been, the specifics of how a GIF image file is constructed and compressed is a patentable expression of an abstract image. So is any other image file format.
But the idea that it is an image file, that it has attribute values such as author or creation date embedded in it, or that it has an associated set of attributes like creation date, storage size, etc. are not patentable concepts. They are just natural attributes of an abstract image.
*sigh* We are truly doomed, not because of OSS or Microsoft or because the corps pay off the government so they can use the legal system and patent office as a business model. We are doomed because the people responsible for protecting the people from being fleeced by the con-artists don't have a freakin' clue how to recognize aggressive abuse of the legal and patent systems.
Even when it is recognized, we have governments who are paid off by the corps who benefit from the abuse of the very social systems that are supposed to protect us from such abuse. Or do you think it was an accident that Microsoft's penalty for blatant illegal action was reduced to monitoring and a wrist slap, while IBM and AT&T had been broken up for far lesser offenses? Change of government, change of legislators who've been paid off, and the penalties go away.
Thanks to a legal system that allows corps to drag things out long enough to buy themselves a change of law or government before a ruling or settlement are issued, and you have a system that is ripe for abuse, and the largest of predator corps are abusing it for every dollar they can hope to garner. Nor am I singling out Microsoft -- SCO, Enron, and dozens
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
'Organizing and displaying photographs based on time,'
ls -ltr
Bam.
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
Anyone can file a patent or seek protection of a technology. The question is - will people pay to license it? Look at IBM - research pays for this firm as they rake in massive licensing revenues every year. What does MS have that others will pay to license? Thats the rubber/road issue for any protected tech.
Microsoft patented France.
The lawyers always win. The person with the most lawyers comes in second place.
Microsoft aiming to build a portfolio of patents to licences is the product of Marshall Phelps, a very shrewd multiyear plan.
Software programmers, mathematicians and IT architects are either going to have to sell their souls out for a few coins of silver (patent incentive) or stand up now and state that software patents are detrimental to society and only benefit corporation coffers in the long haul.
Be very sure the only ones that truely benefit long term are the corporations.
Sure the initial team gets a $1K each however the 20 year monopoly that a patent ensures the corporate inventor is showered with more than enough management poo.
MS will patent stuff from workers who make $7/us an hour and make millions for 20 years -- that is the truth.
Here's the best way to benefit society with software patents -- Write your governement official to move software patents to a new class of intellectual property which guarentees a slice of the 20year revenue -- to the inventors not the company.
"We think--patent for patent--what we are doing is, if anything, more important than what others are doing."
Sounds to me somebody needs a hug?
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
I believe there's already prior art with digital encoding of information within a image. It's been done.
I don't mind waiting fifteen years to organize my photo collection.
A quote from IBM: "For each of the past 11 years (1993 - 2003), IBM has been granted more U.S. patents than any other company. During that period IBM has received 25,772 US patents. In 2003, IBM received 3,415 U.S. patents, breaking the record it set previously for the most US patents received in a single year."
Gotta admit thats kinda impressive...
Microsoft may want to earn more respect now that they have started to share their $60+ billion war chest with their stock holders. Fair enough. But they can't earn my respect my just saying that they did 2,000 patents last year, and may do 3,000 this year -- so what? Lets see some sustained performance or at least publish their sustained historical performance...
The question is can they deliver patents over the long haul... they already got the easy ones... Patent No. 6,748,582 (Microsoft's patents the "to-do list").
I am forgetful but not yet impr,eTOEd...
How is this modded interesting? They might be Chinese but they're MSFT employees, they're not Chinese government bureaucrats looking at the Windows source code. And what does this have to with SCO??
So, I'm forced to explain myself.
By using Chinese slave labor they can patent twice as much as they did before. If chronological picture presentation is an indication of the quality of the new patents, I'm afraid that M$ is not getting much for their money. Pity the USPTO does not see it that way and will now keep us all from writing programs that present photographs in chronological order by doing such obvious things as looking at the file date and image metadata. I mentioned SCO because they are also involved in a huge M$ IP theft scheme. The M$ motto is, what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine, sign the dotted line, bitch, you're mine! I submit.
Got it yet? You will if you ever try to do anything for yourself and share it with your friends. By God, that would make you an IP thief because everyone knows that M$ make everything.
Ugh, not even Big Brother was brazen enough to take credit for everything. He was able to claim the helicopter, but not the airplane.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
...perfecting the technique of causing mass frustration stretching all the way from the individual consumer to entire governments through the release of buggy software and the use of questioable business practices to guarantee that the very same buggy software is used in place of better alternatives.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Patents cost a bit of money, but nothing that is prohibitive enough to prevent an entity from submitting several thousand patent applications. Here is my idea:
Keep the initial cost the same, be it $100 or $1000 an application (I have no idea how much). If the idea is found to be original and non-obvious, then the patent is awarded, yada yada yada.
If the idea is found to have prior art, is obvious, or could be created by a natural process, then a fine should be levied. We'll say $5,000 a failed application, for the "waste of time" of the workers of the patent office. An additional $5,000 can be levied for every application that is illegible, or written in such a way that it could cover a broad range of things (ie, this process covers all entities, movements, and processes which don't not fall into the realm of physical and mental states.). Malicious pantents could be considered a capital crime, calling for the heads of the submitters (yes, extreme is nice sometimes).
This will end up benefitting the private enterprises and small people, since they're the types that will spend a couple thousand, and put time into research that the idea is original... non-obviousness should be obvious (unfortunately, everything is non-obvious to USPTO employees). This will be prohibitive to those huge conglomerations that try to mass-patent everything in existance with tens of thousands of patent applications. If 1,000 of them are rejected, then the fine is around $5 mil.
Lastly, if a patent is revoked, then the entity that filed the patent should be held accountable for the blockage of progress by society in general, and be legally and financially liable.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
[...]
It's like OCR technology.
it's not LIKE OCR technology, it IS OCR technology, applied to a specific case. in other words, this is COMPLETELY obvious, and only an idiot would think that this truly qualifies as a PATENTABLE INVENTION.
the patent system quite plainly has become a tool of fascism, by its most fundamental definition. it's the power of the state used to exert socioeconomic control of the population to the benefit of large business interests. just like the nazis. just like fascist italy. and do NOT invoke godwin on me on this one.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
I think you will find that most of us attacked the patent holder rather than microsoft in the case of stupid patents.
Microsoft isn't trying to point out the failings of the USPTO, it's trying to build itself an armoury of patents it can use against any and all who try to compete.
Simple.
You wanna change the world, you gotta do it yourself.
We have to challenge EVERY ONE OF THESE APPLICATIONS.
Not just the behemoth from Redmond, though. I mean all software patents.
The nice thing about the patent system is this whole public review period before some bureaucrat rubber-stamps and OKs it, and the ability to claim prior art afterwards.
It's a better to prevent a patent than to cancel one. Enough of us, who have the technical knowledge and some form of literary skill needed to educate the patent clerks, can prevent an request for a patent from hurling its way through.
[
I know that I don't speak out much anymore, but this was too friggin' important for me to stay silent (especially with my good-karma mouthpiece).
]
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
Microsoft had several advantages.
1. An early and very beneficial agreement with IBM to use its version of DOS and pay it per liscense which greatly helped in establishing the company.
2. A wise decision on its part to work on PCs and sell its OS rather than going the way of Apple and trying to sell a package deal.
3. Bundling its software and leveraging its OS position, created partially by IBM, into other areas of software. In short, an excellent business tactic, but not a technical feat.
True, MS is at least adequate, technically. But it has grown and prospered based on excellent business and sales acumen rather than technical aptitiude. To phrase it another way, there is no mythical product which is so good or so cheap that it sells itself, though this is often how 'techs' see things and think others do too.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.