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Kodak Wins $1 Billion Java Lawsuit
nberardi writes "The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle is reporting that Eastman Kodak Company has just won a patent suit against Sun on the Java Language. According to the article Kodak owns a patent which describes a way for a piece of software to "ask for help" from another application. What they are claiming is that Sun violates this patent when Java byte code uses the Java engine to run the code. This may really upset the industry, because not only Sun uses this technology for Java but Microsoft uses this technology in .Net."
And people laugh at me when I say the stock market is nothing but a legalized casino.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Okay so a program asks for help from another program. I guess the internet now belongs to Kodak!
I do not welcome this.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
And this proves yet again that software patents are evil...
That cancels out Sun's winnings from M$, but i bet they will appeal and wont have to pay.
Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
Unbelievable. I'm not completely opposed to software patents but this sure is a great example against them.
Dating back from OS/360 and possibly before, user program "asks for help" from the OS so that they could run.
Oh wait, that's prior art =)
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
PJ has an excellent analysis of this case and what software pantents mean for the industry over at Groklaw this morning.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Okay, pull out your first issues of Dr. Dobbs Journal (Running Light without Overbyte) from the 1970s and chant:
Tiiiiiiinnnnnny Baaaaaaaasssssssssiiiiiicccccc
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Python, most modern basics (GFA, QBasic, ...), Perl,...
Shall I write the check to Kodak or Eastman-Kodak sir? Cuz I have a script to hack on the server tonite.
sheesh...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Python, Pascal, most any VM based language could fall prey to this...
Sort of sucks up the 900+ mill Sun just got from Microsoft.. DOH
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Hi there,
so does that mean that "all interpreter-based
languages are belong to us" from Kodak's point of view ??
R.
does this also apply to all the implementations of OLE?
Forget Sun, this is batshit nuts. Bytecode interpreters have been common since Smalltalk in the 70s and are used by a simply huge number of common progrmaming languages.
Does anyone have the patent in question? Can this be appealed?
Kodak is run by idiots. To beat fuji film they had to move production offshore. The problem with this is that Fuji Film makes it's film in the USA.
Kodak is run by people that only care about their money. Shareholders and employees come in damn near last.
As a side not, Kodak lost a patent suit against poloroid in the 80's that cost the company millions and forced the Kodak instant camera off the market.
It's an old Wang patent bought by Kodak not worth much and treated at pretty much worthless until some shyster at Kodak started to look at the "portfolio"
Help fight continental drift.
If Microsoft starts to get seriously hobbled, perhaps they will buy legislation to ease their plight???
"Kodak praised the verdict and said it was part of an aggressive push to convert innovations -- both homegrown and purchased -- into real money. The company over the past several years has been issuing licenses, filing lawsuits, forming spinoff companies and finding other uses for its technologies."
It seems that today, companies don't produce products, they produce lawsuits, and that's how they get their money. How long can this continue?
Furthermore, since 1.06B is about 1/3 of Sun's cash on hand (here), what will that mean for Sun? It's 7% of their total value, so this can't be good for them.
In the end, it's only the lawyers who win.
Find out about the Lexus Rx400h Hybrid!
The article text says the dollar amount hasn't been decided yet and Sun is probably going to appeal anyway.
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
Just Kodak. Eastman Kodak doesn't exist any more as the Eastman portion was spun off as Eastman Chemical several years ago.
First the Eolas lawsuit, now this. What is going to take for Bill Gates to wake up and say that suing OpenOffice developers isn't worth being able to lose $1.06B to a company that actually has the legal resources to wage a protracted war with Microsoft? If Sun loses this, the Microsoft had better be willing to settle in a very generous was or Kodak will go after them. $1.06B for Sun, since Microsoft has much, much more money it could just as easily be $5B from Microsoft.
This is all starting to become like nuclear weapons in and after the cold war. First it seemed like no big deal, hell it was even a requirement to be a big player to have nukes. Now all these little players are getting them, and Eolas and Kodak IMO are no different or better than the rogue states getting their own arsenals of nukes. Now the big boys are getting attacked so, what do they do? Disarm by pushing for the elimination of all software and business method patents, to keep these guys from having legal nukes to use against them, or do they just pray that not enough ankle biters will get enough patents to bankrupt them in independent and coordinated lawsuits?
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
This seems quite similar to how scripts work in Unix-land. If you're writing a script in the KornShell language, you put the "#!/bin/ksh" header on the first line of the script. When the script runs, it asks for help from /bin/ksh to execute. Surely that concept has been around longer than this absurd patent?
Not just Sun.
However, it is really fucking funny considering the extent to which Scott McNealy has been telling people in his talks that open source is going to be problematic in the future because patent concerns are going to blow up and it will be difficult to operate as a software project unless you have a large patent portfolio, as Sun or Microsoft do.
I wonder if McNealy, after seeing this judgement, still views patents as such a good thing for his business.
A Billion dollars? What were they asking for origianlly? one Trillion dollars?
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
Isn't this not just prior art, but also blindingly obvious?
Either of those would be enough to invalidate the patent...
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
See, that's why c will never die--not from tradition, nostalgia or speed. From now on, to avoid liability, the linux startup scripts will have to be written in precompiled c (thanks to the wonderful #! symbol). I welcome our new patent-holding overlords!
It was only decided that Sun had infringed on Kodak's patent. Kodak will return to court and they're initial claim of damages is $1 billion. So it's only a worst-case that Kodak would end up with that much, they'll most likely get less.
However, this still leaves that fact that, unless an appeal overturns this ruling, Sun will need to pay Kodak something for every java product out there. Wow is the patent office messed up... anybody think of some prior art out there?
-Fatty
guess i should've filed my patent: software that does stuff, literally or figuratively. i'd be a rich man...
hmm, didnt they just lose a bunch of revenue from poloroid cameras being discontinued? I can understand if they are defending their patents... I just hope they dont pull a sco and turn the focus of the company to it...
Who am I missing?
These kind of ridiculous lawsuits not only undermind the legitimacy of intellectual property, but will also give countries that ignore international IP laws gigantic competative advantages in the next century. (remember, IP laws protect open source) This is a real issue that must be addressed if the western world wants to remain a world leader. Instead congress is wasting its time on bills like the INDUCE Act.
The stock market is like gambling with forged money... ... in many ways a stock emission is almost like companies printing their own dollars.
I don't think anyone can really properly comment on this story without at least the opportunuity to read thru the patent.... So where is teh link to the patent, or is this another headline /. distortion?
How is this any different from a desktop file manager application? Typically, a double-click on any given document type will open that document using the appropriate program. For example, when I click on a .JPG file, the file manager will "ask" GQview to open the file.
How is that any different from some Java code that asks for the Java engine to run it?
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
I think before a company can go after another for patent violations, it must have a competing product. Since Kodak doesn't, it should be forced to take it's marbles and go home.
As Groklaw points out, patents only apply to software because of case law. That precedent should be overturned...perhaps this is the case that could make it happen. Software patents have been a bad idea from the get-go, and should have been squashed a long time ago.
As an aside, to those Microsoft people laughing at Sun's discomfiture in this case - Kodak went after the little fish first to get an easy win, it'll go after the big one next. Not only .Net, but VB also, is apparently within the scope of this thing. How many billions will that be worth? Stay tuned...
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I hear that after they take out Java and .Net, they are going for every X linux app, because they ask for help from the X server. After that is done, Anything that asks the kernel for help is toast as well. God save us when they get the BIOS.
*Wishes he had Kodak stock right now*
www.olin.edu
The concept of using high-level instructions encoded by as bytes isn't new. P-code was one of the early virtual machine systems.
Kodak's profits have been declining from it's traditionally strong consumer products (home photography) as users switch to digital photography, and so now they are looking for earnings through patent lawsuits. Kodak layed off 1700 staff a couple of years ago, and were planning another 20 per cent reduction at the start of the year. More or less the same situation as SCO.
Given that many image processing companies (Quantel) have become dependent on Java for the programmable aspect of their custom hardware and Kodak wants to focus on digital processing, this is going to become another Infineon/Hyundai/Micron Technology Rambus shoot-out.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I am a software developer and amateur photography enthusiast, and I have recently learned about Kodak's patent infringement suit against Sun Microsystems. It is a shame that companies with failing business models consistently try to earn money through litigation rather than production and innovation. I realize that the proliferation of digital photography has caused hardship for the Eastman Kodak Company, but the use of this vague and overbroad patent against the software industry is unconscionable. As a direct result of this litigation, I will never again purchase another Kodak product, and I will encourage my family and colleagues to do the same. Malicious litigation is not an acceptable substitute for honest business.
Remember - this same patent can be used against Perl, Python and other languages. It could even be used against .Net - but Microsoft can defend that on their own.
Who speaks for Free/Open software (like Perl, Python and any other bytecode language)?
YOU DO! So speak up
Use Fuji or some other film, use other branded cameras, and refuse to use any photo development shop that has Kodak machines in it.
Write to them and let them know their abuse of the patent system is going to cost them your business.
Yes, its its probably futile, but at least its a way to let them know that using the courts to commit a robbery is not a cost-free approach.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
This looks like it could be it:
T O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r =3&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=kodak&s2=bytecode&OS =kodak+AND+bytecode&RS=kodak+AND+bytecode
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
We're going do all be "leveled off" below the neck.
I can't begin to calculate the damage this will do to the industry. Everything will eventually be found originate with Boole and Babagge and we'll have to pay THEM for the right to look at or use anything to do with logic.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
You can find the patents here here and here
It's basically for various hacks related to looking up operations between different objects based on their types. They give examples like embedding objects in documents and making the communication work out. The patents are from the early 1990's and there is doubtlessly lots of prior art for it, but the language of the patent is so vague and confused that a good lawyer can probably argue anything based on it.
I saw the headline, and do you know what my first reaction was? It wasn't "grrr. Stupid software patents". That came later. My very FIRST reaction was to look for the foot. Because obviously Kodak pursuing software patent claims is absurd. No foot, so I read the article.
I'm not a patent lawyer, and I have better things to do with my time than try to decipher the deliberately-obfuscated language of a patent the article doesn't bother to mention. However, I do know a little bit about computers, and that patent better be a damn sight more specific than "ask for help".
Because I'll bet system calls predate whatever patent Kodak's waving around.
I'm still looking for that foot, only now I want one to kick Kodak in the head.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Actually, you may be wrong there. When you type "gcc -o foo foo.c", gcc "asks for help" from:
1) cpp - to preprocess any include files, macros, conditional compiles, etc;
2) the code generator - to generate assembler;
3) the assembler - to generate object files;
4)the linker - to generate the executable.
On top of that, when you execute the program, the kernel "asks for help" from the dynamic linker, for all those shared libraries your program needs.
Off-hand, I'd say we're fucked... What we really need is to find a way to prove some kind of anti-competitive conspiracy between, say, Microsoft and Kodak, or possibly SCO and Kodak, or even all three...
I believe that Visual Basic 3 (and probably earlier) ran basically the same way - they weren't true executables that depended on vbrun300.dll, they were stub programs that passed themselves to that DLL for interpretation and running.
Just how old is that patent, anyway?
fencepost
just a little off
First, after damages are decided, Sun will move with JNOV (asking the judge to set aside the verdict because there was insufficent evidence to support to verdict). There is probably a 10% probability of this happening in any given case, even more when there is alot of money at risk.
Second, Sun will appeal to the Federal Circuit, which usually overturnes 60% of district court decisions because district courts usually dont know anything about technology and know even less about patent law.
So, IMHO, its too early to start running around in circles over this decision, at least until the Federal Circuit affirms.
but think lisp did this in like 1958 see the wiki pedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_programming_lang uage#History
if indead interpeted programing languages are covered(which they should be as byte code, scource and binary has all been legal equated by some statue).
Damn the man!
How about every BASIC interpriter wriiten during the 1970's?
Kodak claims that pepole can use pencils to draw pictures. Kodak claims to have copywrighted all 'pictures and tools to make them' Kodak's new busniess plan diverts all money from development to leagal. One company offical says " We can make tons more money suing people than doing real work" Mr Eastman and Mr Kodak would have been proud
Patent reform will not happen until it becomes unprofitable for large companies to have them as they are today. I see Kodak like a rouge nation. They once were like the other sovereign, stable, and knowing that if they launched a patent war the other side would retaliate in kind, with the most likely solution to cross license each other's portfolio. This sort of thinking fails when the attacking company has nothing to lose. SCO is not really a good example of this. The stock was going downhill fast, so about a two years ago they came up with a brilliant pump and dump scheme. They don't actually care about winning the case. (IBM lobed the patent counter attack anyhow, to scorch the earth) Kodak does, however, and cannot easily be litigated into extinction.
I don't see patents going away, but I could see the bar being raised for what qualifies for 'patent' protection and eliminating some of those pesky submarine style techniques. But not until someone has nothing to gain from cross licensing. The IE plugin was close, but they lacked the law staff (not to say anything about right or wrong) to keep the patent valid....
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
If Sun starts tanking rather badly because of this and making a few more majorly bad technology calls, it could become desperate enough to start going after everone with it's rather large and extensive patent porfolio.
Feel free to use/adapt my letter (in the parent post). Here's where to send your letter:
Eastman Kodak Company
Attn: Corporate Information
343 State Street
Rochester, New York 14650
There are probably other reasons to boycott Kodak besides the fact that they pulled a SCRambus--such as their offshoring.
This is a clear sign of the failure of the jury system. You're asking single mothers, housewives, college-dropouts, grannies and the likes to decide on technical issues. It's obviously (patently?) absurd when you step back from tradition and look at it. Of course such crowd would've heard of Kodak; it's their target marketting audience, but what are the chances that they've heard of Sun Microsystem? The jury is undoubtedly skewed in their bias. Such a case should be decided upon by a jury of people from within the industry with clear technical understanding of the issues at hand and in mind.
And it pre-dates Wang (The GIANT Killer) by a few years in it's implementation. They were called Supervisor calls.
Maybe they will do the next best thing to avoid a lawsuit: Buy Kodak!!!
I got a buck says "oxymoron" doesn't mean what you think.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Post an example of what has been 'censored' and I will post it to GL and see if it is removed OR post something to GL and then post the URL to this thread so we can see if it is killed.
Smalltalk uses VM/bytecode for ages. Even first Pascal implementations were using so-called p-code..
The previous story is true, I guess coffee IS addictive!
The article doesn't say that they have a judgement for 1.06 billion, it says:
.NET, as the .NET infrastructure is built significantly different. .NET bytecode is not passed to a VM at all, the technology for execution is extended into the system, and the PE executable format has been extended. .NET bytecode runs on Windows. Mono, on the otherhand, does this more like Java. Who'da thunk that Mono's patent fears would come from Kodak instead of MS?
"Eastman Kodak Co. will return to U.S. District Court next week to seek $1 billion in damages from Sun Microsystems Inc. now that a federal jury has ruled in its favor in a dispute over the Java computer language"
That being said, Kodak is appearing to be quite the assholes.
Kodak in pre-trial documents indicated it would ask for $1.06 billion in lump-sum royalties - a figure that represents half of Sun's operating profit from the sales of computer servers and storage equipment between January 1998 and June 2001. The argument: Java provides the engine for such computer equipment. Sun executives have publicly estimated that Java is a "key factor in 90 percent of Sun's sales," Kodak said.
Well, they're fucked now. Sun's products sell because of ANYTHING but Java. I'd buy Sun products to run Oracle, but not Java. Heh-heh. Sorry Kodak!
Additionally, I doubt that the patent applies to Java at all, and from Microsoft's perspective, it Won't apply to
And finally, MS has a nice collection of bitch-smacking patents that it'd use against Kodak, in the event that push comes to shove over this anyway. I'm suprised Sun has been somewhat careless in this fashion. It should have a defensive patent collection to retaliate with.
Hmmm.... Patents are like Nuclear weapons. Everyone's got them, and the minute someone uses one, the whole world is fucked.
--
This profanity laden post was brought to you in anger as I sit trying to fix a Java to ActiveX COM integration problem in a Client's shitty app!
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
Software parents will likely continue like this while being technically literate is a negative for being a judge, and being literate in anything is likely to have you removed from a jury. It's high time that juries in specialist trials were recruited from (perhaps retired) people with skills from the appropriate areas - yes, and paid - so that the arguments could be properly understood.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
> patent which describes a way for a piece of software to "ask for help" from another application.
Isn't that the basis for Microsoft Office? You put an Excel chart in your Word doc and Word "asks for help" from Excel - and the OLE layer mediates the communication between the 2 programs?
So either Microsoft has prior art, or else Miscrosoft is under the gun for violating this patent.
For that matter, CORBA is screwed too because it does the same thing mediates between pieces of software that ask for help from another application.
The patent is so vaguely worded that its almost impossible to pin it down. The USPTO must be staffed with idiots to allow crap like this to pass.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
Just in case anyone is interested, the patents in question are 5,206,951, 5,421,012, and 5,226,161. The patents appear to be mostly related to object data technologies, so they don't seem to apply to things like BASIC or any Unix shells.
They DO seem to handle object oriented systems, like Java, .NET, etc.
Question now is, given the dates of the patents, how do they apply to Java, and is there prior art?
LondovirLondovir
I don't see how Smalltalk isn't direct prior art for this, at least as it would apply to Java. These are, I believe, a good example of bad software patents that are becoming more and more common. You can't really figure out what exactly they're claiming, you have no idea what might infringe on it, it's so vague that you can't figure out what prior art might invalidate it, and once you do figure it out, you say "you can patent that?". It's like patenting "Ok, take an automobile, turn right and go around the block THREE times, not just TWO times like everyone has done in the past, THEN turn right on red without waiting for pedestrians." And then claiming that airplanes landing between 2AM and 3AM at airports without lights infringes on it, since they never wait for pedestrians, and they have a red light on the wing.
What hangs on a wall, is green, and whistles?
I give up. What hangs on a wall, is green, and whistles?
A HERRING!
A herring? It doesn't hang on a wall!
Well, you can put in a nail and hang it.
Ok, but it isn't green!
You can paint it green.
Ok, but whistles?
Oh, I just put that in to make it hard!
Patent can be invalidated if there is prior art. Patent can be chucked if congress chuck all software patents and buy them back.
Pretty funny! I think it's hysterical when all these major corporations keep suing each other over software patents! Maybe ONE DAY they will wake up and realise software patents only help LAWYERS! It's like the entire concept of software patents was designed by the barristers guild and universal profit center, it's job security!
Wonder if there's a website that just tracks all the various lawsuits involving patents of intangibles? Would be interesting to see how much money is wasted over that scene, how many man hours of time wasted, how much gets sucked out of computing with it.
According to the article they haven't actually won the case yet right?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
From News.com, contains links to the three Wang patents that Kodak now owns.
C8H10N4O2 | Developer > Code
Monsanto has consistently been in my list of BigEvil for a while now. Historically, they are the company that brought us DDT, PCB's and Agent Orange. Currently, they're the ones seeding farmer's crops with pollen containing genes that they have patented, and then suing the farmers for patent violations. Also, getting the World Bank to pressure third world countries to abandon traditional crops in favor of licensing Monsanto GMO seed, a license which requires annual renewal of course.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
I always prefer to get my info from primary sources rather than some newspaper's rendition, so here are the actual patents involved:
/.)
Patent 5,206,951: Integration of data between typed objects by mutual, direct invocation between object managers corresponding to object types
Patent 5,421,012: Multitasking computer system for integrating the operation of different application programs which manipulate data objects of different types
Patent 5,226,161: Integration of data between typed data structures by mutual direct invocation between data managers corresponding to data types
Thanks to Artur Biesiadowski, who orignally posted these at Java Lobby.
I haven't had a chance to read them in detail yet; they're slow reading. '012 seems to be the broadest, and it's very, very long. They seem actually to patent object-oriented programming, but they reference the Smalltalk documentation so presumably they're patenting some enhancement. I've been unable to determine what that enhancement is over Smalltalk, so I can't say if Java infringes on it or not.
A note on reading patents: the title is worthless, so please don't write about "I did X in 1967" based solely on the title. The abstract is hardly better, though my quick scan of these indicates that the abstract does actually do a good job of summarizing. The only thing with legal force is the claims, but they're written in a specialized patent language that takes a bit of practice to interpret.
You can usually learn the most from reading the description section, with background and summary, which has less legal force than the claims but is written in something closer to plain English (or at least computer-ese, which you probably speak if you're reading
"The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, alleges that many of Sun's Java-based products infringe on three patents--numbers 5,206,951, 5,421,012 and 5,226,161--that were issued to Kodak in the mid-1990s and that deal with object technologies underlying Java, a Kodak spokesman said."
quoted from an anonymous user on the groklaw article linked above. i havnt checked it out...
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
in the suit!
Progress (1984 to current)
Progress 4GL "compiled" to byte code, required Progress 4GL engine to execute the code.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
As far as I can make out, the patents are about ORBs (object request brokers) in middleware.
And the patents were filed just a few months before CORBA 1.0 was released.
So I think the lawsuit is not about the use of bytecode interpreters/compilers. It is about the middleware mechanisms provided by Java.
It's a civil matter.
Correct me if I am wrong, but civil matters are decided by a judge not a jury. Only criminal cases are decided by a jury.
Look at www.kodak.com . They run their web using JSP. Funny....
Where the hell is Don't Sue People Panda when you need him?
Wheee, I forgot an entire paragraph.
To boycott Monsanto, avoid buying NutriSweet (particularly Equal), Roundup (the son of Agent Orange and granson of DDT), any Ortho lawncare products. Also, avoid any food made with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's); many of them are Monsanto GMO's, and the other GMO's aren't any better.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
I'm backing tautology
I hope this doesn't affect my rights online, somehow.
#!/bin/sh
echo "Prior art or not.. ?"
This might bring the stink of software patents to the forefront of the media. It might help the push for change.
Make it out to Eastman Kodak Company. (That was the formal name as of two months ago when I was working there.)
ShoutingMan.com
The more rediculous and frivolous the patent claims get, the more pressure is put on the people in charge to fix it.
It seems we are unable to pro-act and foresee the disaster, so we will have to wait until the we reach the complete breakdown and then re-act when "the forest is already on fire".
...that they can pull out and cross license/threaten Kodak in court with too?
I remember a few months ago Kodak taking Sony to court over digital photography, at which point Sony said something like "Sure, but we've got twice as many patents as you and you're infringing a whole bunch of them".
Kodak used to make some decent products (their old cine cameras were damn nice), now they're nothing more than a shell company selling re-badged third-world manufactured crap and trying to hustle real companies for money, oh how the mighty hath fallen.
I am NaN
Their contact form
I told them that I'd never buy another Kodak product again as long as I live... and I'm dead serious about it.
ONE BILLION DOLLARS!!!!!
Keeping customers loyal isn't required anymore, businesses woke up to how many uninformed people with money are out there long ago. MOOO....
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
Would that not be prior art?
What about SUN yellow pages, wouldn't that be prior art as well?
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Ok, so my first thought was like: oh, shit! Shit shit shit sheeeeet! What the fuck? Fuckity fuckity-fucking fuck!
.NET, Perl, PHP, Python, VB, and C/C++ debuggers, aren't many of them VMs? Lisp, ML, Scheme, Prolog, and more. So what is going to happen, all VMs will have to pay royalty to Kodak?
But then I thought: Ok, keep it together, for f..ck sake!
Ok and now I am like again: arrghh FUCK!
I don't know, I just want to see that little piece of shit Kodak in ruins, that's what I want to see.
And it has nothing to do with Sun or Java, it's everything. I am so fucking tired of this fucked up life and little scum sucking shit eating pieces of trash that live on this planet who run 'businesses' like kodak.
Since when is kodak a software company? They are not. They bought this patent from another company.
On the other hand the court that made this decision must consist of the dumbest assholes ever. Ever. Unfucking believable.
---
Ok, now that I vented. Such a rulling was foreseen by many, there is a reason why IBM has something like a million pattents in their war chest, including a patent for using a crapper.
Obviously now companies started using software patents in the worst way possible - attempting to destroy entire industries.
What will Sun do now with Java? I don't know, they must appeal and hopefully take it to the highest court and get this decision overturned and hopefully they will achieve a reform of the software pattenting, as in prove it to be detrimental to the economy in principle and to any company in particular. Obviously a smaller company would just go under, this war has to be fought by gigantic companies like Sun, IBM or even Microsoft. How many patents can Microsoft fight off, especially if the attacker is NOT a software vendor. How do you fight a non software vendor? They don't care about software in principle, I suppose Kodak would WANT all software to be gone. After all, all they need is chemicals to run their shop.
On the other hand I don't see IBM or MS helping Sun in this battle, they are compatitors after all. But Java will suffer enormously and so may
This is a serious issue, I think this has to be the most serious issue that hit software industry ever, patents I mean.
Software should not be patentable. Copyrights are fine and dandy but patents are something else all together. Patents of ideas are much worse than copyrights of implementations. Software patents will without any doubt ruin software industry and the economies that allow software patents will pay a heavy price. I think it is time to support EFF more than ever. I think we need to see a wide range of law suits against Kodak one way or another and try and get the court to overthrow software patents.
And I think that Freeing Java is becoming more important than ever for the [Java] platform.
You can't handle the truth.
We use that word a little too freely. I deplore the deletion of posts, but let's call it what it is: an organizational entity spinning words it owns the rights to to best suit itself. In this case that might mean "stopping the disruption of the site", or it might mean "silencing critics". Personally, I only have a problem with the latter.
In legal terms, censorship can only be practiced by a public entity such as a government institution. It cannot be practiced by a private entity such as Groklaw; they are not required to defend the free speech rights of others.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
There should be something in place to prevent companies from just acquiring patents that they did not invest anything in, in the first place, and then using them to enforce litigation
There's probably a gray area about mergers and such. Are there any rules in place right now around this type of thing?
The case was tried in Rochester, NY. A JURY decided the case. Now here's the kicker: who's the largest employer in Rochester? According to the article:
.".
.
"Rochester's largest employer [Kodak] claimed during a three-week trial. .
Yes, the citizens of Rochester, NY know not to bite the hand that feeds them. Especially when said hand is withering from a dying business and poor strategic decisions.
How on earth did they allow this case to continue there? Why not move the Wal-Mart sex-descrimination suits to the corporate headquareters in Bentonville, Arkansas? I'm sure they'd get a fair jury trial there . .
-- "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" [Oscar Wilde]
Exactly... And to go one step farther, maybe I am missing something fundamentaly here, but these "byte-coded" languages can't "ask" for help unless they are already executing, and they are oboviously being executed via the platforms engine. This just doesn't make any since to me - I mean for an application to "ask" help from another app, it needs to have the ability process the responce, either the helping app will or wont help out. If the engine (the helper app in this case) isn't going to "help" out, it wont run?#!$?
This just doesn't make any since to me what so ever. SUN must have laughed at this case and not really put much effort into deffending itself and likewise lost.
This is insane: there are far more of us geeks than there are bad lawyers. What does it take to either:
1)Change the law to ban patents (in their entirety)
or
2)Counterattack the patent system in such a way that MAD (mutually assured destruction) is assured for anyone bringing patent litigation.
Does this mean that shell scripts are patented now?
If someone told me this, I would have thought that things like RPC and CORBA were teh ones at risk.
Would things like RPC be in danger? Would things like RPC provide prior art?
-- bartman
I think it's time we take old Bill's advise and kill all the lawyers.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
OK. Java. I saw a Usenet posting one time a long time ago, that expressed an opinion about Java that I really haven't heard in many other places. But it helps explain why Java, properly done, properly implemented, is an extremely powerful thing.
Looking at it from a single OS perspective, it goes like this. You have Linux, for instance. So along comes Java, and it places this huge, clunky, more or less proprietary, what used to be very inefficient and slow but has now gotten better code between you and Linux (or BSD, or Windows, or System V, or whatever). So now I can run a Java-based web browser - a Java-based FTP client that is how many times slower than the same application written in C or C++ for Linux. Linux has everything necessary to develop software for itself - why would someone come along and plop this gigantic layer of functionality between the end-user/programmer and the software development tools for Linux that duplicates functionality that already exists? Java is, in its nature, or at least, it can be, an evil thing.
Java takes steps towards making the underlying OS irrelevant. Say for instance, you have a Java Desktop System - and it works well, people are happy with it - and it runs on Linux. Well, you can transparently remove the Linux part and replace it with something else, say, like Solaris. I am not saying that Sun does that, or that Sun is evil-intentioned or anything - it's just the concept, the potential that Java has in the long term to making the OS irrelevant. When something like that is tied to one particular company they had better expect that any and all potential patent holders are going to start coming out of the woodwork. Java has incredible potential - at least in theory - perhaps even greater potential than Windows - at least in theory. Apparently that's good enough for the legal department to do something.
One would think that if software were written in a portable fashion in any portable programming language, that something like Java would be unnecessary. One would think that if internet and other standards and protocols were platform-neutral and were adhered to something like Java would be unnecessary. But in any case, Java is there, and it has some incredible potential. Java has the ability to ooze its way into any OS, any platform, any application - that can be a good thing, and it can be a bad thing - it depends on the person implementing that power and whether that power is being used for personal or corporate gain or for the greater good.
In any case, Java has incredible potential. It is not some small helpless corporation trying to get started, now being destroyed by opportunistic patent pool meanies. Java would have even greater potential if it could be broken loose from Sun and released into the public domain. Whether or not what Kodak has done will come any closer to having that occur is doubtful, but the fact remains that Java is powerful and has incredible potential and anything that is powerful and has incredible potential is going to cause patent holders to emerge out of the woodwork.
Java is a big deal. It's important. That's probably one of the reasons this is happening.
Wouldn't any sort of API call, or anything like it, also be a violation? How about OLE? Isn't there anybody out there with the ability to say "Come on now, that's bullshit", and the mess disappears?
a patent which describes a way for a piece of software to "ask for help" from another application
.. give me the value of .. sub f { $x = shift; return $x^2 + x + 1 }... f(x)=x^2+x+1
Ask for help
OMG! Kodak has a patent on mathematics!
Shit!
Once again, this is an example of a patent being used to gain money instead of compensate a company for having their idea used elsewhere incurring loses.
I can't see how Java impacts on Kodak's business, how can a programming language affect the sales of cameras?
my grep(1) helped my ls(1) ... i surrender! :P
exactly. it is the OS Mime type system that chooses the application to run the file through because that is all the byte code is, a file, not a program. this was a bad decision and will be overturned on appeal.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
"Jurors ruled that Sun's Java web software
infringes the patents, which were acquired
by Eastman Kodak Co. in 1997"
"Three patents once registered to Lowell
minicomputer-maker Wang Laboratories"
There are two things I can say about the above:
1. Sun should've bought Wang Lab, but didn't.
2. Kodak's luck isn't that bad, after all.
One question:
Anyone know how much Kodak paid for the
acquisition of Wang Lab, back in 1997 ?
Thanks !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
More interestingly, I'd suspect that any program using mime-type information (like a browser that accepts html, jpg, pdf files - perhaps with a plugin) violates it.
Finally, it looks to me like the "read the extension and invoke a helper..." behavior violates the patent as well. So why didn't they go after microsoft?
Can someone provide the details of this case? Was the technology in question RMI, XDR-[like stuff], XML, J2EE techniques, discovery/directory services like JNDI, XML-RPC, JavaIDL, or even the freakin Runtime class or the Reflection package? I'll need to re-review the Groklaw notes.
Then again, this looks like another situation where the law-folks misinterpreted the technology and the media waters it down to a simple sound bite adding to the confusion--and Kodak took them both (and Sun) to the cleaners by technicalities.
If you dislike Sun for just owning software patents, you should dislike just about every tech company that exists. Practically every company nowadays owns some bogus set of software patents, and companies like IBM (who regularly receives the most patent grants worldwide every year), own huge software patent portfolios. Fortunately, most of these companies (including Sun) don't go around abusing these bogus patents left and right in billion dollar lawsuits.
Companies are never going to stop patenting software as long as it can be done, and there will always be rotten apples abusing the system, so we need to stop this problem at its roots. New case law needs to be arrived at, or new legislation needs to be passed, to kill software patents.
10 PRINT "Appeal"
20 GOTO 1
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Wouldn't that be prior art? I could not find a link to the patent so I am just guessing but this seems odd at best.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
We won the DeCss case based free speech, right?
Code == Speech, right?
So how can they now tell us Code == Patentable Technology != Speech?
Don't we already have US precedent against these these things? Has anybody tried to run that argument in court yet?
Art Schools Dietzilla
It sure sounds to me like any interpreted language would infringe, or be prior art. Lisp had an interpreter all the way back in 1958. A bit more recently, the Bourne Shell did this. I can't find a patent number anywhere, but I doubt this predates Lisp and the Bourne Shell. Time for us to get even more pissed off than we did when Eolas beat Microsoft in the trial court. This really needs to be dealt with in Congress. Go write your Representatives and Senators. I am.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
will microsoft and sun indemnify their customers? I mean that is a benifit of closed source software isn't it?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I do not normally support patents for programs. But if this means the death of Java and .NET it would make me happy.
"Off-hand, I'd say we're fucked... What we really need is to find a way to prove some kind of anti-competitive conspiracy between, say, Microsoft and Kodak"
More usefully, we could do with a system where all new inventions aren't automatically banned from use for the next 25 years at the option of the inventor
I am a PhD student in computer science at Carnegie Mellon. I write C++ code every day. I know at least 7 programming languages well enough to program in them professionally. For my research I design new computer hardware, compilers, database systems, and operating systems. I have helped write (non-software) patents. ...and I'll be damned if I can fully understand the text of most patents, including the ones cited in this article. How in the world is a software developer supposed to avoid infringing on patents if they can't _understand_ them? I don't know of any school which includes a course on "reading patent legaleese" in their computer science programs.
I have 12 years of post-high-school education in Computer Science. I have no idea how to write a non-trivial program that I am relatively sure does not infringe on any patent. I don't know anyone who does. Doesn't this seem absurd?
Given that this lawsuit is a threat to Sun, Microsoft and IBM, anybody want to take bets on how long Kodak will prevail?
I really feel bad for Sun now.. Which makes me quite confused!
/.? Do we like Sun this weak or not?
I though we were supposed to hate Sun this month, after they made shady deals with Microsoft and were planning to attack Linux by Proxy, through Redhat....
But then again, we always champion the looser or the little guy it seems.... wait... thats unless the user is a little guy and is called SCO, in which case it is okay to hate the underdog and love the big corporation (IBM).... So what will it be
Ok, poor attemps at being funny aside, this is not just an "overly broad patent being granted by the USPO" (tm) but a patent that, bogus or not, actually stood up in court... Now THATS scary!!
Actually you have too tight a definition:
censorship
1 a : the institution, system, or practice of censoring
b : the actions or practices of censors; especially : censorial control exercised repressively
2 : the office, power, or term of a Roman censor
3 : exclusion from consciousness by the psychic censor
censorship
: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable
It doesn't have to be a government. I can censor myself, my children, my peers (assuming only that I have the power or wit necessary). You caught the institution part but lost the "system or practice" part of the definition.
Doesn't this mean that every single compiled program is in breach of this patent? Doesn't every program/script/whatever need help from the OS to run?
I suppose we can't use DCOP now as well
43rd Law of Computing:
Anything that can go wr
fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core Dumped
I think the USPTO is not evil, just way understaffed. They can't go searching enough to find all the prior art they should and they can't pay enough to employ people who know enough about what is out there. How would you boycott them anyway?
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
I am trying to figure out why Kodak would have been interested in interpreted languages in the first place and certainly why they went after Sun over java. If left in the hands of our present courts and Kodak are left to their devises, this could turn into yet another birage of lawsuits SCO style. They could go after languages like Python or PHP. Hell...even the UNIX shell system could be under fire. All interpreted. This could have dire consquences for open source if Kodak continues on like SCO.
Humans are Turing machines, right? And run programs (me written by en, if you've read Snow Crash). Ergo, patent invalidated!
Thanks for that letter, I just openned up Open Office and put together a nice letter out of that. I'm off to the mail box. I'd hope everyone would do this.
If I understand here correctly, than Kodak basically tries to sue the hell out of everybody who has a VM with a language and a compiler on top if it with an overly broad patent. Sun must have screwed this up majorly. The first VM languages I know of which used similar structures as java are List and Smalltalk. Smalltalk in its VM incarnation goes way back into the 70s. I don`t think kodak has any case here. Java is a clone of a technology which is already more than 30 years old. I wonder what the Sun laywers were smoking when they defended Sun in the lawsuit?
I have a patent that asks Eastman Kodak to suck my balls. Does that help?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
While I agree with you completely about Kodak's cannibalistic abuse of the patent system, I think you're dead wrong about outsourcing. Kodak's whole problem is that it has failed to get with the times quickly enough. In order for American companies to compete with global companies, they must be just as nimble, and just as efficient -- and more so (if they hope to export, which is what America needs to remain competitive). For that to happen, they must take optimal advantage of global labor markets. In the long run, that's what will create high-value jobs in America (ditto for any other high-income country).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
ATTENTIONL: I've just patented how to expel waste products from a bio-organ. ANYBODY having a dump will be in violation, you must all go die now. these silly common sencse over related patent lark is an utter joke. Well sod em I'm going to make sure I violate a patent a day as my next new year resolution, sadly I probably already do that by reinventing some obscure wheel to have some. I mean if we dont have the church insisting the World is flat for numerous years and then killing people who tried to advance science we now have the lowyers with there anal rententive lets screw the World over approach. Its crap like this that makes me respect china and any other country that pirates software, moraly wrong from a greed perspective but moraly right on a humanatarian basis. Patent law needs a common sence clause were people can be prevented from patenting anything that 1000 monkeys couldn;t do, take that approach and you;d be left with real invention and inivation would prevail again instead of being tied up in buracratic bull.
PS there are no spelling mistakes in the above post, just new words I have patented in an attempt to avoid the patented ones =/
Hell, why not? Say, if Goggle offered Sun 2-4Billion dollars for their Java tech. Everything, the trademark, the copyright to the VMs etc., etc.
I wonder, I wonder.
You can't handle the truth.
So if this patent is on the distributed systems middleware aspects, there's certainly likely to be prior art.
I resent the use of the word technology to describe this cruel joke. Do NOT equate a patent with a technology. A technology is a finished version of an idea, a working, moving concept outside of the brain of its creator.
A patent is a hostage idea, never again of any use to anyone. It only serves to desrupt real technologies by legitimizing extortion by big companies.
kodak taketh away.
Maybe, just maybe, companies will start to realize that this IP situation is going to kill all the companies and hurt all countries except those who do not have the insane USA patent/copyrights. In fact, my guess is that closed source will only thrive in countries that do not have all the laws.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yet another company to boycott because of their immoral practices. Seems like they had to resort to such practices because they couldn't figure out how to earn a profit with their crappy products anyway :-/.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Somebody else may have already said this, but isn't "one program calling another program for help" the whole idea behind object oriented programming? And even before object oriented programming was defined, one program calling another program can be found in almost any operating system or complex application.
WTF.
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
...doesn't the '#!/bin/sh' line in /etc/rc show that prior art has existed for decades? Is Kodak's patent going to be watertight here?
IF the patent is enforceable (I don't know if that is the case) MS with their huge pile of cash should buy it from Kodak. THEN THEY WOULD OWN THE WORLD!!
;)
The BigBoys that owns MS could do WHATEVER THEY WANTED!! They could bitchslap the Transport Minister of Afghanistan if they so saw fit, without getting into trouble
And the thing is... the Kodak instant camera was superior to Polaroid's. It had better color, and the photos were flat and photo-like... unlike Polaroids which have that plastic envelope around it and it feels cheap.
I think this is a good time to release Java to the Open Source Community
When does IBM weigh into the fight?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Income through litigation doesn't do jack for software innovation. Unfortunately, this is the very tack that a lot of companies (SCO, Kodak, et al) seem to be using now. Thing is that though this may bring nice dividends in the short term, in the long run these litigating profiteers will sink in the mud. No one is going to buy into a software company whose product code depends on updates from lawyers. However, if litigated code is the future of software (see SCO's mission statement), one is left wondering when lawyers are going to be outsourced...
That patent seems to cover anything that implements a dynamic method send based on the classes of both objects, and supports any kind of "marshalling" operation to allow separately compiled components to interact.
Since Java's class system isn't dynamic, there's no reason to expect that it would apply. I didn't think the JVM even supported the operation described in Claim 1. On the other hand it sure looks like the method send operation in Smalltalk-80, and the patent uses the Smalltalk-80 book as a reference. About the only thing in this patent that Smalltalk-80 doesn't cover would be something like dynamic linking.
The article is really skimpy on details, where's the actual explanation of HOW Java violates this patent?
But when, as stated here that the US software patent system comes forth out of Case Law then Case Law should be able to overturn it.
To me this seems an excelent opportunity for SUN to have their lawyers do/initiate such a thing.
Where a photography company is left with only the negative side of business.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
...probably have enough patent ammo to sue Kodak to chunky kibbles and then straight on into next wednesday.
Allthough actually a fight on this turf could become interesting. While Kodak has lost some of it's gloss (no pun intended) it is an anient tech company by IT standards. If Kodak opens up it's patent chest and MS, Sun and IBM join in on a hackfest, I'll get myself some popcorn and a front row seat.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
This is, of course, a completely false charge that anyone can verify for themselves over at Groklaw any time they want. Typically, it was an AC who made the false charge.
Once again we see a company who has acquired technology, watched it be infringed but knew that a lawsuit early on would not net them any cash and wait until nearly every computer in the world along with many CE devices use this tech now is asking for a payment.
There need to be set limits on when a company can come out and say they're infringing on my patent. Even less time if said patents were acquired by merger or buyout. Otherwise the motto will be Litigate dont Innovate.
Sun's bank account balance as of 10/3/04: $32.53
Sun is a turnip from whence no blood will be forthcoming.
This is ridiculous. Let's just say I make a program and some method I use just so happens to be patented by someone else even though I completely thought of it on my own and in no way, shape, or form had planned on consciously using someone else's work for my own profit. There is NO reason I should get sued, even if I AM making profit from it.
There's a differece between a very unique concept, and there's another when it's commonplace. Corporations are now trying to patent a very common idea in an attempt to make a quick profit because someone else is using it.
Like Microsoft patenting a small computer system that is energized based on body electricity. Right... perhaps I should sue: I came up with that idea ages ago. Hell, I'm sure plenty of people have.
Amazon patented something really common in regards to tracking their users with cookies - as if someone hasn't ever thought of that before. Now if you just so happen to use the method they use, you put yourself in a position to get sued by them. Sorry, but that's wrong.
Kodak is totally out of line here. Should sun change up the techonlogy? Perhaps a bit, but $1 billion? Fuck that.
People (Judges) need to start using some common sense. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt them a bit to actually become aware of the techology they are ruling on before doing so, then they will see how assinine these lawsuits are..
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I am a complete n00b to the world outside of academia. I want to thank /. and all the contributors for enlightening me about such things. I will not buy Kodak products. I am also boycotting Creative, for their strong-arm tactics regarding Doom3's use of the 'Reverse Carmack'.
Before reading this site, I had no idea of software patents, and the concept of free (as in freedom) software.
Now regarding this article, I think it is pathetic what Kodak is doing. Stinks of SCO-like tactics. Stop worrying about a sheet of paper(patent) and start making a product that will 'wow' your customers. Why has business switched from satisfying customers to just 'making money'?
People turn to us geeks for tech advice, and it would be very easy for us to recommend 'NOT Kodak' and make some excuse that they are technically inferior. You have to keep your customers happy. You don't piss them off (which includes developers like myself) by suing someone(Sun) that has made a good technology(Java).
What's next, some distant relative of Ada Lovelace patenting the concept of algorithms?
Sure this applies in America, and more and more I wonder how whacked the laws are elsewhere....
Is this patent really a threat to internet development? Then let's take a lesson from what happened when M$ got hit by the Eolas patent. The W3C mobilized to evaporate that patent.
C++ seems to fall under the abstracts description. That should be fun.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
I bet there's someone there in their patents aquisition department, who every so often reaches up and curls his little finger up to the corner of his mouth. This time, finally, he has been able to utter the fabled words "One Billion Dollars", and everyone has started to laugh maniacally.
Python, most modern basics (GFA, QBasic, ...), Perl,...
And let's not forget Pascal and its "P-code".
Most FORTHs don't assemble to raw machine code. They actually generate an easy to execute code. Called direct-threaded, token-threaded(same as byte code), subroutine-threaded or indirect-threaded.
Sun should be aware of this because OpenFirmware is a direct-threaded FORTH.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
What the fuck are jurors doing deciding on a highly technical matter?!
How many people in America have anything like the knowledge of software required to have the foggiest clue about whether Java is infringing on these patents? Maybe ten thousand at most, of whom I'm willing to bet not ONE was on the jury!
Has the world gone mad?
These companies with doubious patents that they have either purchased or never used that may give them some short term money through litigation, while making it increasingly harder for new inovation are another nail in the coffin of the internet, and computing in general. Where are the javas etc. going to come from in the future. Develop software, give it away, and then have someone tell you that you owe them a billion dollars for a patent they BOUGHT and have never used for anything. Who would want a part of that kind of risk? Once the internet was a shiny new thing promising a golden era of information sharing on a massive scale available to almost everyone. Now it is becoming a festering boil of malware, extortion, spyware, viruses, and parasites like Kodak, SCO, etc. of every ilk, to whom short term gain of money is more important than the harm they may do to the necessary infrastucture, computer languages, and programs that are the underpinnings of it all.
That's right, this is Amercia. America is all about sticking it to the consumers so that large corporations can get rich.
There must be some nuance to this, because the prior art is really old, and very clearly applicable. Does anyone but me remeber the UCSD P-System? It compiled Pascal to an intermediate language (P-Code) which was then run by a platform-specific runtime that interpreted the code. This all happened around 1980. Another fine patent, and a bunch of rich lawyers.
We need to be represented, this has gone on too long. If there is a PAC for IT professionals, let me know and I'll join it. If not, perhaps some of us should get together and start considering how we could form one. This has gone on too long, and I've lost my patience for the ludicrous patents.
-Vendal Thornheart
Does this mean that libraries are protected under this patent? I have applications that "ask" zlib for compression "help", so could they sue me (and theoretically every software developer on the planet), right? It just seems a little silly to me...
Looking in the smallprint for food items, e.g. "traditional pretzels" there is so much stuff in there I just think "what? why is that there?".
Ah, yes, Tautology, the biggest winner in one-horse racing history...
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
If Bush is re-elected, he said he will "protect small businesses from frivilous lawsuits".
So we'll all be okay! Bush will pass software patent reform, he'll structure the laws so open source and closed source are on an equal playing field. Heck, a pro-growth guy like Bush will probably just go ahead and repeal the DMCA and shorten copyright to 20 years, it'll be awesome!
Also, pigs will fly out of my butt.
Well, hopefully.
On the other hand, if it isn't overturned, Kodak should go after Microsoft next. Word documents ask Word for help to be edited, printed, viewed, right?
Bytecode is just input data for the Java interpreter. At worst this patent doesn't apply. At best, this patent should be overturned.
blog
Boycott the cameras too.
Boycotting Cameras probably will not go anywhere because most dummies don't give a shit about what our industry faces.
But what of the Corporate Printer down the hallway. haha.
So a few systems admins have to give up their jobs! Well this causes strife and it will not be the first time progress was made because of people willing to be a martyr. haha.
On a more serious note, I think we can see just how serious this attack is.
While I do not wish calamity on anyone, if it turns out that a development platform like Java is shot down and crashes and burns from the Patent bullets that are being shot at it, then maybe this is what our industry needs.
Something like this would cause SERIOUS havok and clearly billions in development $$$ and many major Java projects would be part of the collateral damage.
Since Java is taught in many institutions around the world it might be visible enough for people to actually see how an ill thought out set of laws administered by a PTO that is out of control can have a devastating effect on the industry. So on this basis maybe the more damage the better!!!
This means that word document file .doc is asking for help from Word.EXE?
Any program files are asking for help from their program...
Oh, BTW, and program is asking for help from the Operating System....
This is ridiculous!!!
"The patents describe a method by which a program can "ask for help" from another application to carry out certain computer-oriented functions. That's generally similar to the way Java operates, according to Kodak and other experts."
[Emphasis added by me].
Generally similar? I'd love to see the videotape/transcript of the court session when Kodak explained the reason for the case: "Well, it...errr...sort of...you know....kinda looks.....errr..sorta, erm, the same...if you look at it in, err, a certain light."
"Ironically, the verdict came a day after Sun introduced a new version of Java."
Ironically that above sentence proves the oft-said point that Americans (and some Canadians) just don't know what irony is...
--
Share Moments, Share Life
(Just as long as it doesn't hamper out financial plans)
Just modern BASICs? Hell, Commodore 64s encoded BASIC instructions as byte codes for the interpreter, and I'm sure it goes farther than that. (Mind you I imagine the lawsuit targets that have made significant money off of BASIC programs are relatively sparse ;)
The wording as described seems to be insanely broad and ambiguous:
'The patents describe a method by which a program can "ask for help" from another application to carry out certain computer-oriented functions.'
It's impossible to be precise without knowing the exact method they mean, or the definition of 'certain computer-oriented functions', but it seems reasonable to me that if Java is guity of this behaviour, then Windows or components that use Windows would also apply? In fact probably any OS, or service layer. I mean "Ask for help?" WTF? I wonder why they are going after Sun first. Something specific in the wording of the patent, or maybe they feel this would set the precedent they need to pursue other targets?
Oh, totally unrelated pet peeve about TFA. It says:
"Ironically, the verdict came a day after Sun introduced a new version of Java. The company and some analysts hailed it as one of the most significant upgrades since Java's introduction a decade ago."
That's not irony, just a coincidence. Nothing is contrary to intent.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
For a patent to apply to a case like this, must all the claims match? Or could any one claim in fact be ground for a lawsuit?
Secondly, these patents refer to older, discounted patents (such as 07/088,622). I've tried entering those numbers for a patent search and came up blank - I'm guessing I'm doing it wrong somehow, but I don't know how to do any better. Do you know what I'm doing wrong? The reason I'm asking is to see how much the patents changed as a result of continuation.
Seriously?
I recently bought some DVD's for backup, foolishly I purchased Kodaks. They turned out to be VDSPSAB DVD-R (Interaxia AG). This is the worst no name crap disk on the planet. Kodak is happy to have their name on them though.
Kodak has long since sold it's soul and I won't touch a Kodak product with a 10 foot pole.
It won't be hard, since they make nothing but crap these days anyway.
Goodbye kodak.
Do I have to turn myself in because I wrote some ARexx once upon a time? ;)
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
Smalltalk is listed under Other References in the patent claim. Apparently they are claiming to have some enhancement of what smalltalk does that was patentable and is used by Java.
No, I wasn't able to figure out what that enhancement was.
Then you haven't read the patent. At all. If you are going to read one thing, read the claims. The abstract can be completely irrelevant to the claimed invention, and the claims are what defines the scope of what a party can sue another for infringing on.
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
I'm sure the jury was totally impartial. "If we lose this case, tell your uncle/cousin/wife not to bother coming to work on Monday."
Whenever I make a function call, it's actually one "piece of software asking for help" from another piece of software.
I wonder how much money Kodak can make from having essentially patented the function-call mechanism.
First, isn't Kodak those people who make expensive film?
Second, Kodak has just all business from me. Forever.
I do not understand how Sun's lawyers looked over the argument that API calls to the system match the patent. There's no way this patent was dragged out so long by Kodak as to predate these calls AND still exist today (since I could imagine they could keep 'innovating' the patent for 10 years before they finally thought they'd be able to use it for 'good' purposes, which would effectively give the patent a 22 year life).
While I'm still a Canon fan Kodak makes some really decent digicams these days. They have nice screens and their DX series has most of the features their market wants. Above $500 would I look at a Kodak? Don't think so. But in the $150(Pentex for the low end btw? not in America) to the $350 price range there are some decent digicams there. My father's old 3MP kodak is prety slow but darn if it doesn't take nice shots.
t al_camer as_2.html
As for your "Not in any meaningful way" lets just say that 18.3% of the market IS meaningful. In fact they are now the number 2 digicam seller. Canon is the 3rd place and Nikon in 7th if I read the article correctly. Sony is #1 with something like 21%. Don't be shocked if Kodak takes over first place.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/040807/kodak_digi
Being that I don't own a Kodak I don't see how I can be considered a fanboy. But I do feel the need to say sorry, your fantasies of Kodak dying won't be coming to pass anytime soon. Do some research next time, your post could not have been more wrong.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Congratulations. You had just violated the patent. Kodak lawyers will be calling you soon.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
...violates this patent when Java byte code uses the Java engine to run the code
I don't see how the byte code does anything at all in that relationship, it's just a file. I'd like to see the patent and their argument showing that the way the JVM interprets byte code is in violation. Given this description, do html pages use a web browser to parse and display their contents? Software patents are teh suck.
TallGreen CMS hosting
If you decide to just oppose "actions inconsistent with freedom and fairness" rather than specific companies, then your paradox is easily resolved....
I like sun for creating Java and promoting cross-platform development, dislike them for not open sourcing the same, dislike them for their shady deals, like them for their focus on solid engineering etc.
Thanks to their license purchase from SCO, they've recently slipped into a negative net position in my view. But I'll happily support thir cause with respect to this atrocious Kodak case!
Surely Smalltalk is an older (somewhere in the 1970s) example of a VM based language? Given this, shouldn't prior art invalidate this patent in this context?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Well, if it comes down to Microsoft in the patent dispute, then I'm sure you will know who will win it overall. Even if the odds are stacked against them, they will find a way to win... but most of the time it has to deal with their prime resource -- money.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
The idea of patents has to be legally revised or done away with. I can see protecting the IP of persons with specific code someone has developed, or even an algorithm, but a software concept? Come on.
I believe it is the right of every hacker, developer, and engineer to tinker or reverse engineer code and devices computer, mechanic, or otherwise. Thats how competition is created and inovation is born. I mean what if no one but Ford could create cars or Sony could create walkmen. We would all be driving in Model Ts listening to 15 minutes of music on tapes the size of a betamax cassettes in car radios (Mono I might Add) that take up the entire trunk.
Washington is going to have to get hip to this soon. All code (open or otherwise) could be subject to the enforcement of vague patents files years ago by some company hoping to hit the lotto or have someone develop for them for free. I didn't get all the patent fuss in Europe before but I see it now. This could drive the software business out of the US in my opinion. But hell, I also though Auto-Man was a great TV series.
And that's what I think.
Of course no on on the jury would know anything about it. That would be disqualifying. You're not supposed to bring to a jury any previous knowledge, only use what you learn while on the jury. So naturally, there's no way they could make an informed decision. There's just no way they could learn enough about common practice in software to understand which expert witnesses are blowing smoke.
>> Why can't the defence find say 10 well-known
>> cases of prior art, present them, and win?
Someone at Sun who is inside the matters, please respond to parent! This is a very good question, I think we would all like to know the answer.
We're already locked in by the patent system. Why do you think Photoshop is the top image editor? Innovation? Oh yeah right. Adobe owns every patent that makes an imaging program worth buying or creating.
I don't know if you can get rid of the patent system without - oh say - bombing the patent office into oblivion. Patents create and support absolute monopolies, and those monopolies have the brunt control of the law. If you did away the current patent or copyright systems, innovation would flourish and these companies wouldn't have the complete control they have now.
So, I don't see it happening, though it'd be great if, by some incomprehensible chance, the system were done away with.
I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!
...that this will do absolutely nothing to alter Sun's opinion of Software Patents, irrespective of how utterly ludicrous this situation is. Sun quite happily admit to being an "Intellectual Property Company". Certainly they actually *create* IP, unlike SCO, but ultimately, they strongly believe in Copyright, Intellectual Property, and Patents. In fact, Johnathan Schwarz made a post on his Blog a couple of days ago, specifically stating his view on Intellectual Property:
...and how he recently refused to support a "CEO of one of the more popular Open Source companies" in campaigning against Software Patents:
With an attitude like that, this case will not do us any favours. We're not going to get a new Anti-Software Patent ally out of this, when Sun realise the futility of patenting. They'll do their utmost to have the court's decision overturned, and possibly invalidate the patent, but at the end of the day, they'll sort out that patent and just move on to the next one.
I don't know what the fuss is all about. Capitalism works this way! A company wants to make money: Fine! They use every legal way they can do it. So laws have to restrict them. You guys should fuss and vent about software patents, not about Kodak. The ironic thing here is that Sun is the one with the most patents on their hands. And they get bitten first. What do You think they will do as soon as their business model starts failing. The only reason they haven't suing is because the other big players also have patents and would sue back. This is how they eliminated the small software companies that were a threat.
which is the patent under dispute? "one application asking another for help" is meaningless-ly vague. What does the patent cover? How does Java infringe? When did Kodak inform Sun that they were infringing? You can't claim signigicant damages for non-intentional, unknown patent infringement.
Posters recognized by their sig,
main(O){10<putchar((O--,102-((O&4)*16| (31&60>>5*(O&3)))))&&main(2+ O);}
LN2 is cool!
asside from MIME-types in browsers "asking for help" from other types of programs. (could be even more than just that, obviously) I HATE patent law. Be MORE SPECIFIC!
The real bad effect of the peremptory challenge is not simply that a person of your qualifications is excluded from a jury, but the next time you see a jury summons, you will grump, "this is a complete waste of time, I will never be permitted to serve on a jury." My modest proposal is a "three strikes law." If you are challenged a third time, you should get a lifetime pass from having to answer a jury summons. And the judge should have a sheet of potential jurors and know how many lifetime challenges each juror has. The judge could then challenge a lawyer who would want to remove "that juror" (the lawyers should not see the "foul trouble and he sits on the sidelines" list otherwise they will cherry pick). The current system is demoralizing, it creates the feeling that while we are supposed to do jury duty as citizens, there are different classes of citizenship, and that lawyers are all putzes.
Kodak was one of the top leaders in patents for year before they started haveing to consolidate their business because of digial media. I beleive Kodak was in the top 10 with the likes of Bell Labs and IBM. So it doesn't surprise me that they might hold a patent for this, somebody had too.
Be responsible in the internte age, this comes up under a google news search:
/. is passive in Java stories and on the whole undermines my faith in /. ability to bring the news that does matter in an unbiased way - this isn't a gripe at the content of /., but if you are going to be listed as a news source, you shoudl act like one, or follow the google links to make sure you are not mis-represented on thier site
Kodak Wins $1 Billion Java Lawsuit
This is wrong, even reporters of the reporting of news should adhere to some seblance of truth and get the title correct.
They have not won a $1Billion lawsuit, they have a ruling for thier arguments, and will try and settle for this ammount.
The way in which
Either change the title to something more correct, or remove yourself from google, and enjoy your ability to be less responsible. Just my 0.00.0002
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
"a patent which describes a way for a piece of software to "ask for help" from another application"
What?! Can you really have a patent on such a vide matter? I guess it's only a question of time before we need to pay some megacorp for the air we breath.
FYI, Prodigy as a few patents regarding its Reception System (the "RS", what you used to run on your system to connect to Prodigy) and the bytecode that is sent to it that might be considered Prior Art for Java.
Programs/Applets were written in TBOL (Trintex Basic Operating Language, used earlier) and PAL (Prodigy Application Language, kinda like a typeless-C ), which were compiled into one or more objects (which contained bytecode or data).
These objects were then optionally compressed and sent, down-the-wire, to be interpreted by the RS on the user's (remote) machine. Whole pages and all processing were done by these little code objects.
The RS (the interpreter) executed the bytecode and implemented platform-specific input, output, storage, sound, etc., routines for the bytecode and also was basically an early form of distributed processing -- data was sent to the RS for processing by the applets on the user's machine instead of the server.
Does the RS sound a little like the JVM to anyone...?
-=- James.
The idea of compiling to byte-code and executing via byte-code interpreter is not new! Correct me if I'm wrong, but CLISP (among other very old implementations) is an excellent example of this concept in practice. And (again, correct me if I'm wrong) Viaweb (Now Yahoo Online Stores) was launched using CLISP in 1995 (not that it matters but to show that CLISP was alive and kicking at least two years before the 1997 patent) This doesn't just break Java if allowed to continue.. It breaks Java, CLR, Python, ProvideX, many LISP interpreters, etc...
from Vinnie, down on the corner where the pimps hang out.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Prior art: how about the Apple Lisa from 1983.
h tml
Given Wang was into office automation in its hey day, Lisa looks like the kind of thing they'd have been trying to copy on the PC.
See: http://fp3.antelecom.net/gcifu/applemuseum/lisa2.
Amazing how good it looks, even by today's standards...
Bus Error (core dumped)
It's interesting... I've never seen this before. This particular post was sitting at 5 points, and not 24 hours later, it's down to 1 point - it started at 2. That's because I have excellent karma (whatever that means).
Anyway, I said at the outset that I had never heard a similar point of view expressed save for one place on Usenet, and I guess that it shows.
In any case, I don't really care all that much - I don't post very often. I just wanted to share this point of view that I had heard, and you know...it does kind of make sense to me, at least. I used to think that Java was something that was absolutely required on a Linux system and that you couldn't be cool without it, but now it's been at least a couple of years since I had Java of any kind on my machine and I don't miss it one bit.
But there is one question that still bothers me... where is Java going to be 25 years from now? What does the future hold for Java? That's something that I have been thinking about the past few days.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
until MS buys Kodak to put the screws to Sun?
. there used to be a sig here.....
As a long time resident of Rochester and Kodak watcher I offer the following tidbit: The company has always been a tool of the Mormon Church. The board is seeded with and run by Mormons. The company has bailed out fellow Mormons in the past (eg. the purchase/bailout of Sterling Drug in the 80's).
I have no axe to grind with the church. But there is no doubt an agenda beyond what we see so far.
NEWSFLASH!!! Linus Torvalds took pictures of himself and pieces of the Linux code back in the early 90's!! Because that code was photographed and printed on Kodak paper, Kodak not only owns the copyrights to Linux, but they also own Linus' soul!!! Don't use Kodak-anything! Otherwise, dey pwn joo! All your java are belong to us!
If you are reading this, then you are one of those people whom I just can't take seriously.
and real real stupid about software (someone start the prior art list) they are a dead and irrelevant company (he last time I bought anything from them was in the 1990s and I'm a photographer!).
...
Too bad the USPTO is dumber than Kodak
> Dating back from OS/360 and possibly before, ...
When I was young I used the WATFIV interpreter to run FORTRAN IV on an IBM system. Instructions in FORTRAN were passed to an interpreter to be interpreted and excuted (instead of first compiling the whole program).
Actually we had back then another system for one program calling another one to do a job, but we called these "subroutines".
But the idea of one set of instruction getting another set of instructions as input, and then carrying out those instructions dates back at least to ~1936: Alan Turing then published a paper describing what he called a "computer". Nowadays it is refered to by the name "Turing Machine", but the original article refered to a set of instructions, not a physical machine. In modern terminology, what was described by Turing, that we now call a "Universal Turing Machine" was a set of instructions that receives any another set of instructions as input, and carries out those instructions (a universal Turing machine receives (A: description of Turing machine, B: string) as input and runs A on the input B). Then there followed others models doing the same thing, and eventually there came a model that was efficient enough to be implemented using electronics. "one application running anothjer one" is the basic principle of computing. Computing as we know it is impossible without it, and if Kodak owns this idea, then we might as well go live in caves.
I find it hard to believe that Sun programmers couldn't find 50's/60's technology that can be considered as prior art to what they did. But then, perhaps Sun's lawyers didn't cunsult them!
Or am I being plain nuts here?
Hey, that's funny. Much more so than a lot of the posts I've seen modded as funny for the last few weeks.
It should probably be modded Insightful as well.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body