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More Microsoft Patents
An anonymous reader writes "One of the editors of LinuxWorld Magazine has an entry in his blog detailing more patents that Microsoft recently acquired. No, this isn't a rehash of the sudo patent. The new patents include one that seems to patent the use of the keyboard to navigate a web page! See the article here."
For the first time ever, I'm going 100% Linux. I'm getting ready to order my next PC in the next few days. I've got all the apps I need covered except gaming. Electronic Arts and other big game companies, I'd pay $100 for a Linux version of Battlefield Vietname for example.
The irony of the whole thing is that Linux is doing the same thing to Microsoft that they did to Netscape. Netscape should have run around patenting the browser I suppose...
If enough consumers give Microsoft the axe like me, maybe they will get the message.
Hopefully this happened just in time to show the EU the sillyness of the patent system. I wonder how long the US can hold up a system with so many bogus patents...
I think the problem is not that they don't have a dedicated group of industry experts -- it's that they don't have *enough* people to handle the huge deluge of patents.
I think that another problem with this, too, is that patent disputes are often handled "incorrectly". Instead of disputing patent infringement through courts, I think that all patent-related disputes should be settled through a special (out-of-court) mediation system run by the patent office.
Perhaps I would suggest a system with 3 mediators per "settlement session" -- 2 who are highly-trained, skilled individuals with specific experience in the area of the patent dispute, and perhaps 1 who has some formal judicial experience.
Their jobs would basically consist, on a daily basis, of hearing patent-related complaints. Part of this effort could be funded through fees collected as a result of patent submission. (Hence, to fund this, I recommend that patent application fees be raised by some nominal amount.) That way, even "little guys" can go to this settlement session without having to have legal representation (and having to pay the large fees associated with them).
Of course, there are many other things that would have to be considered in order to implement such a system, but you get the point. I suspect that this "forced arbitrage" would render the patent system a bit "leaner" and less worrisome for the "little guy" who might be threatend by large, enormous patent-wielding multinationals.
Wait a moment... you assume that patents are reviewed for prior art before being granted.
That is not the case. All patents are automatically granted, it is upon the one who has prior art to start litigation against it.
The system was made like this to make more money.
No - it will end once they put legislation into place to also punish abuse of patent laws.
(e.g. introduce a blocking period for a company/holding if they introduce an abusive patent; e.g. a patent that clearly violates obviousness restrictions, or patents that have lots of prior art, like the TAB-links patent seems to have; if a company were denied even filing additional patents for a year of so after trying patent abuse, it would definitely put more pressure on the companies to only submit sensible patents; because otherwise they might forfeit the possibility to patent something that might really warrant a patent).
I remember back in the day, earlier browsers did not have the "tab to hyperlink" feature. IE was the first that did.
I'd argue that extending the block period to two years (more damaging to the false filers), as well as extending it to all daughter companies would be more effective. Personally I'd like to see a more vendictive clause put in: you file a false patent and three of your existing patents will be placed in the public domain. I don't see that happening, but I'll bet that'd stop this crap cold.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
You know the sad part is that some historian in 200 years may look through the patent office archives and conclude that microsoft invented the idea.
Anyone with a blog about all of IBM's stupid patents? Or do we only care about morally wrong patents when it's the "enemy" who holds them?
Never mind that the "enemy" is the biggest target for software patent claims...
Maybe this is a good thing. If some of these ridiculous patents try to be enforced by Microsoft, they'll meet with some stiff legal competition. GNU/Linux and OSS in general has a lot more more behind it than most people realize. Attacks of this nature will fail just like all other under-handed attacks have failed. The blessing comes as people realize how silly patents are becoming. Then we'll hopefully see some strong patent reform, or just a removal of the agency all together.
And, unless I've misread this, approved August 31st 2004.
Which makes one wonder: how on earth can a patent that was filed in 1997 be granted seven years later in 2004 and still be valid? Especially when the basic techonology had been around since at least the early 80's (Text-based menus any one?).
The ways of gods are mysteriously indistinguishable from chance.
There should be accountability for examiners that approve these obvious type patents. If they are found after a complaint by an independent board of knowledgeable experts to have not done their homework so to speak; they should be fired with no benefits.
I think there should be a three month public review system with bounties. Patent applicants should issue a non-trival bond. If someone is able to prove the patent to be invalid, they should be compensated by grant of the bond.
Basically, we create an insentive for public review, maybe even create a cottage industry, while at the same time creating a penalty for abusing the system or failing to do basic research.
-rd
of course I don't mean the buzzword "innovation" either.
Make it easy for big, slow corporations to own all of the ideas in the world, and that's exactly what will happen... innovation will shift to areas of the world that aren't covered by the patents, and unfortunately that's only going to be Russia, the Orient, and Africa soon. (hell, those people do need SOMETHING though)
However, as many others here have pointed out, regulation is a swinging pendulum and it will most likely swing back toward something more fair.
Either way, I tend to follow the advice that my dad, and a lot of my friends parents learned in engineering school in the 60's and 70's: don't worry about people suing you, just do it and see if the lawsuit happens. 99.99% of the time no one will notice you, and if they do, you'll probably have a better life than before you came up with the idea anyway.
Here's a thought...
Perhaps there could be a law where any company whose patents have more than X amount of prior art then receives an audit of all its patents. Any with Y percent of junk patents are barred from registering patents for Z years.
Of course, any junk patents that are discovered in the Audit are placed in the Public Domain.
The Penguin Producer
Maybe it's just me, but I fail to understand how patenting the "use of the keyboard to navigate a web page" could beneficial. How could they possibly enforce this? Quite asinine.
However, Micorosoft > SCO as of now. At least Microsoft will have a definitive patent to complain about down the road.
Way to go! Setting the stage for lawsuits way ahead of time!
[sarcasm]
Maybe they will patent the act of actually reading websites in the future. I guess it'll be a pay-by-page system, to help increase the billions in revenue. Or maybe they'll try to patent bits and bytes, for a full sweep of the industry.
[/sarcasm]
There is some hope -- the current generation of young people can't get jobs except at Walmart or McDonalds -- they're just not out there. People are starting to clue into this.
The problem is that the US (and Canada to some extent) is shipping all the blue collar jobs to 3rd world countries, good for CEO's etc. Bad for the lower middle class.
Next election I think this will be the biggest issue in both Canada and the US.
Its a good idea but I think that in reality it probably wouldn't work. The problem with arbitration is that there is NO guarantee of a solution. The parties involved must come to some agreement, and the arbitrators have no real power over them. While the arbitrators can try and help the parties to see sense, there is often a big difference between legal/moral/ethical sense and the economic sense that large companies have in mind. When things can't be resolved then the case just goes back to the court room. While it is clearly in the interest of the "little guys" to clear the whole thing up as cheaply and quickly as possible, this simply isn't the case for large companies. They have large legal teams and are quite happy to throw huge amounts of money at getting what they want.
Also, Having arbitrators with experience in the particular field is somewhat irrelevant. Eg. Whilst a small software company might send their head programmer to argue their case, Microsoft would send as many lawyers as could fit in the room to unflinchingly repeat their claims.
In my opinion the solution is: Tell the patent office to take all the time they need over each patent. Very soon a huge backlog would form and nobody would be able to patent anything for year and years. The more big companies patented stupid stuff the worse the situation would get. They would effectively hang themselves on their own greed. :-)
Sure your "constitutional" rights are not violated if you don't mind spending hours, instead of a few minutes if you use IE, to download those patent images.
Also, I don't think you have ever encountered the situation when USPTO cut off your connection because you wanted to download more than a handful of patent images. Are your rights violated here?
USPTO's IE-only policy is only the tip of the iceberg. Beginning August this year, if you want to take advantage of the electronic filing procedure, you have to use another Microsoft product--Microsoft Office, to convert your specification including the claims into an XML file.
Of course, you don't have to file your patent application electronically. But electronic filing grants an inventor certain advantages not available with the conventional paper filing, including publishing your application as amended.
So, what's the big deal about publishing your application as amended (the right you will not have if you don't want to use Microsoft Office)? This has a lot to do with the so-called "pre-grant" damages, which can be awarded based on how your claims are published. If you cannot amend your claims before your application is published, you may lose a lot of your rights as an inventor.
For high-tech inventions which have a short life span, pre-grant damages may be the only compensation you can get.
Are our constitutional rights violated? IMNSHO, not as a clear cut as the IE-only policy.
But, again, the key issue is, whether the USPTO has projected an image that it is competent to judge the patentability of software/internet inventions, and whether "revenue-generating" plays an important role in issuing patents. This is what concerns me the most.
If you look at claim 22 it sounds like they are talking about hypertext in general, but claim 23 narrows that scope to image maps.
Anyone remember who came out with image maps first? It's possible that Microsoft did.
Anyway, everyone is jumping up and down about this tab thing, when the patent is actually for highliting parts of an image map with circles, rectangles, or polygons as the user tabs through a list of hyperlinks.
about a Chinese emperor. He wanted to be known as a great patron of the arts and sciences. So he ordered all books and paintings burned. Then he got the artists and scientists to together to rewrite the books and repaint the paintings. That way all of this innovation would date from his reign.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
to fund this, I recommend that patent application fees be raised by some nominal amount.
I agree with your ideas, but the implementation would not work:
1. Moving patent complaints to "settlement sessions" would not remove the need for lawyers. Big companies would send their lawyers, and normal people would have little hope without their own lawyers. Patent applications are so complex that applying for one without an IP lawyer is a waste of money; defending a patent without a lawyer would be worse.
2. Raising the fees would exclude even more "normal people" from applying for patents. They already cost too much: the basic filing fee is $770, and most patents require additional fees. My IP lawyer requires $8000 before starting the process (and you do not want to file without a lawyer.) This means that the McD's worker who invents a better basket for frying fries has no hope of affording a patent.
Better would be to lower the fees, but add penalties based on your income. One percent of your yearly income (average the last 3 years) should work. If the minumum-wage worker files for $100, and could be penalized another $100, he may go for it. If MSFT files for $100, but could be penalized $74,000 (generously using the net income after taxes and all other deductions), they might stop filing these obviously bad patents.
Extra incentive: give a portion (10%?) of the penalty to whoever provides evidence that a patent is bad:
- MSFT proves Joe WageWorker's patent is bad: Joe is penalized $100; MSFT is given $10.
- Joe proves MSFT's patent is bad: MSFT is penalized $74,000; Joe gets $7,400, preferably tax-free for doing the government's work for it.
This could result in patents being filed by the lowest paid person involved in the process (like the janitor.) Any ideas about avoiding that problem?
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
--yours is the best idea yet. I was going to post it (something very similar) until I read your reply. There should be something like a three strikes and you are out. Try to patent three bogus patents, or get three over turned, you are barred from ever trying again.
The other is obvious, just BAN IP patents. Eliminate thew whole shooting match, and invalidate all past IP patents. Patents should be reserved for TANGIBLES. Copyright-OK, patent, nyetski! We had intangibles before, when the patent office was setup and people starting patenting, but it was for STUFF, tangibles. We had intangibles, we had written intangibles, we had music, art, literature, etc, but it wasn't patentable because people realised that was loony tunes. They were never granted a patent as far as I know. (If anyone knows of an old exception, I can be corrected). It's only relatively recently in US historical terms that intangible IP has been treated like a tangible. And what's worse, they can get a patent,get treated as a tangible in pursuit of profits, BUT, never be forced to offer the tiniest warranty for these dubious "patented products" that all tangible products must have. What a sweet scam!
I'm cynical as heck about it, I think there's been billions in bribes paid off to legislators and bureaucrats to get IP to be "patentable" and that it's ongoing inside the patent office. No proof, other than these ridiculous tons of prior art "patents" being issued. It's criminal behavior, so look who has the means and opportunity, and who can profit from the scam of patenting obvious stuff.
Old saying, walks like a duck, acts like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's most likely a duck.
I would pass a law that say, essentially, than ANY implementation of ANY patented technology can not be held as "infringing" that patnent if it is executed entirely on or using "commodity computer hardware" that is not itself the subject of that patent.
With this in place, general software is effectively unpatentable, but the software components of specialty hardware (e.g. CPU microcode) is.
This creates a basic economic pressure. If you invent a brand-new form of (say) networking, then as long as you are manufacturing the network cards that your cusomers *must* use, then you are good to go. If, however, you "really want to cash in" the act of licensing your network cards for general manufacture, or manufacture your cards for general use, then your patent automagically goes away when a commodity threshold is passed.
Another side effect is that "eumlators" are automagically legal. This means that your real devices must "outperform" the general emulation to be worth it. So a good "encyrption chip" for instance would be patentable, but the OOS/competetive implementation (which would presumably be slower unless your product sucks) would be legal and automatically non-infringing.
That also means that the agregious abuse of the patent system could go on for a while but the "regular computers" out there would be exempt from the battle. If MS made a "special" keyboard for traversing links, the commodity keyboard I am using + Lynx would not be infringing under any intrepretation.
Problem solved.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
We need a WikiUSPTO.