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Sun Files For Patent on Software Licensing Method

Posted by michael on from the deep-sigh dept.

cft_128 writes "CNet writes that Sun Microsystems President Jonathan Schwartz has filed for three new patents, one of them on the companies per-employee software pricing plan. The pricing patent application was summarized: 'Method for licensing software to an entity, including determining a per-employee cost for the software, determining a number of employees of the entity, and determining a total licensing cost using the number of employees and the per-employee cost, wherein the total licensing cost comprises a software license for all employees of the entity and all customers of the entity.' The plan was introduced last year on Sun's Java Enterprise System, charging $100 per employee. Schwartz did say that any money the patents generate will be donated to charities."

12 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Better than "CPU" licencing by acomj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A large data base company gave use prices based on Mhz of CPUs on the machine running the database (with a multiplier for Risc Cpus.) I thought that was inovative!

    But seriously, if you install more copies you pay more. This is called selling and shouldn't be patented.

  2. Re:why not ? by coofercat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It looks like the US is falling to the lowest common denominator. If one big player does it, the others have to follow or lose out.

    If Sun are giving any patent royalties to charity, then I suspect they're saying "we don't want this, but we've got to do it". I'd sort of imagine they wouldn't need to bother collecting any money for the patent though, would they?

    It looks to me like most folks here have a problem with the fact that such a patent can exist, and can get past the utter stupidity of the USPTO, as opposed to anything to do with Sun doing things as lowly as MS et al. CNet are hamming it up for the benefit of chest-beating /.ers.

    Do something about that daft patent system. And please don't let it happen here in Europe. It's only a way to create jobs in the PTO and Law sectors, everyone else loses.

  3. Re:Sigh :~ by Tony-A · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "wherein the total licensing cost comprises a software license for all employees of the entity and all customers of the entity." Emphasis added.

    Maybe not so obvious.

    Per employee pricing for all employees is obvious.
    Dunno what they're up to with extending it to all customers, somehow I expect it will turn out to be a very wise move.

  4. Is this possible? by evil_one666 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is it really possible to patent a legal contract? This is insane!!

  5. Re:Sigh :~ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Maybe possibly remote tech-support software. A firm hires 10 people to do remote/contract tech support, buys ten of Sun's remote/contract tech support software (possibly in development, maybe already here, I dunno,) for those ten employees, and installs the client-side software on the customers' machines (at no additional cost).

    Probably wrong, but it's one idea.

  6. WikiPriorArt by Famatra · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Prior art anyone?"

    We need a WikiPriorArt like Wikipedia. So when you ask that you know where to go to check up. And if you do have prior art, you'd go there also and input the prior art.

    Also it could be used to publish ideas so they act as prior art against future patent ideas.

  7. Re:Sigh :~ by Halo1 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Or do you really think that it's the lawyers telling the commpanies what to patent?
    I definitely do think that in a lot of cases, lawyers simply try to make their department as important as possible to the company. Getting a lot of (software) patents and consequent licensing revenue and negotiation power is one way to do this. For example in Europe, a lot of corporate lobbying for software patents is coordinated by Tim Frain, the head of Nokia's patent department. Another active player is Fritz Teufel, patent department head of IBM in Germany and Europe.

    Then again, there are also some heads of IPR departments who readily concede their patenting bonanza has nothing to do with investment protection or innovation, such as Robert Barr of Cisco during the FTC 2002 hearings.

    --
    Donate free food here
  8. Charities my ass! by BushCheneyCriminals · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is the claim that they will donate patent profits to charities supposed to somehow justify this anticompetitive abuse of the patent system?

    What Charity? They'll probably take a page from Microsoft's book and donate Sun hardware and software to schools or libraries. In other words, the money will still generate revenue for Sun!

  9. Re:Sigh :~ by Halo1 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Most of what people call "obvious" patents are also allowed under (US and other) patent law. As a law scholar once told me (in a discussion on the European directive on software patnets):
    "The law clearly says that inventions must be "non-obvious to a person skilled in the art". If you take those words literally, than that is a VERY LOW threshold: this "person skilled in the art" doesn't mean anything, of course you don't go from a layman's point of view, and obvious does mean obvious! I have even once heard the reasoning: if an invention is new (another requirement for patentability), then CONSEQUENTLY it is "not obvious", otherwise it would have been invented already! The law is only a split hair away from literally stating that trivial patents are allowed. Another illustration of the fact that the directive does not change anything to a recognised weak point of the patent system."
    Given that this obviousness stuff is literally written into the law and, more importantly, is basically a foundation of the patent system, I think it's more useful to show people the extension of patentable subject matter is much more important. It's also much more harmful.

    You can complain all you want about obviousness, but do we really want patents on non-obvious business methods? What's in it for the economy as a whole?

    --
    Donate free food here
  10. Re:Sigh :~ by Total_Wimp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Although you make very strong points on this, and I agree that it's a bad practice, I have to ask whether or not it matters in this particular case.

    Bare with me here. These guys have pattended a licensing method that does not conflict in any way with the licensing methodes used to promote free exchanges of information. The only people this affects is other proprietary information horders.

    It's kind of like if Microsoft's gaming division sued their office products division for a bullshit patent. It's bad, but who cares?

    TW

  11. Re:Sigh :~ by Halo1 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Bare with me here. These guys have pattended a licensing method that does not conflict in any way with the licensing methodes used to promote free exchanges of information. The only people this affects is other proprietary information horders.
    Speaking for FFII (I'm board member of FFII), we have absolutely nothing against proprietary information producers or holders. In fact, we believe that some form of exclusion rights are beneficial to stimulate the production of more information and information processing means. We do think patents are completely unfit for this purpose however, and that copyright or possibly a third paradigm between patents and copyright is more suited. I personally subscribe to this view as well.

    Anyway, I think this kind of waste of money is never good. First you have Sun spending money on trying to get thispatent, and if they get it, someone else may try to destroy it again. This is all money that is simply wasted. It does not help the economy to go around, except for the lawyer-economy. It's money that's diverted from tech to some non-producing entities, which is not good.

    I think we're better off if Sun invests more money in cool projects like DTrace than in silly patent applications like this, regardless of whether you like Sun or not. The former may at least result in usable functionality for their customers (and may even be open sourced so it becomes available to many more people). The latter only results in money for the USPTO and lawyers.

    --
    Donate free food here
  12. "The food is bad, and the portions are small" by GunFodder · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I love watching Open Source advocates rip into a licensing patent. It's like complaining that the food is bad and the portions are small. If the food is bad then what do you care how big the portions are? If proprietary software is wrong, then who cares what method is used to determine the cost?

    At this point it isn't even a proven business model. Microsoft sold >30 billion dollars worth of per-CPU, per-machine, and per-install licenses last year. Sun probably didn't sell more than a 1% of that total. I think the patent is silly, but it won't even be an issue unless it is proven successful.