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Fallout From Japanese Patent On Help Icon
MeridianOnTheLake writes "The Tokyo District Court has ordered the destruction of Ichitaro, a software product that is the only serious competitor in Japan to Microsoft Word, and has been on sale since 1985. The ruling is based on the claim of a competitor, Matsushita, that the use of a help icon to invoke a help function infinges on one of their patents. "We are a global enterprise and we are just following international practice to enforce our IP rights," Kitadeya (Matsushita) said." Here's more on the story, as covered by Bloomberg and The Japan Times.
Matsushita declined to say whether it thinks any other software vendors may be infringing its patent.
r fect--* *sputter* *choke*
Gee, do you think there might be any other software out there that uses a help icon? *cough* *coughwindowsmacoswordexcelaccesspowerpointwordpe
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If Ichitaro would have just used the standard Microsoft (that's the software platform they target) context-sensitive help, none of this would be an issue.
Instead, they hired on an ex-Matsushita employee and he went on to use the Matsushita patented method for the help system. So they sued, as is their right.
This is not a problem with the patent system. However what it does bring up is "How much knowledge can you take away from your previous employer, even if all that knowledge is just in your head?" As we gain ground in technology, such to the point that Johnny Bnemonic-style memory expansion is possible, how can patent holders and companies owning "trade secret" IP be protected from information pirates?
This is all the more reason to order the destruction of software patents.
Also from TFA: Does the Japanese patent system have no concept of "prior art"? The patent in question was granted in 1998, but the products in "violation" has been on the market since 1985 and 1987.
This is relatively old news in Japan, and the makers of Ichitaro (Just System) have appealed to a higher court. Until a final ruling is made, Ichitaro will be on sale as usual. The court refused to make a preliminary injunction against the Ichitaro software, which Matsushita had requested.
That said, the patent itself isn't regarding a Help Icon. It is the function where you first click on the help icon/button, and then on the particular function you need help with.
In court, Just System insisted that the Matsushita Patent was for a help ICON, which is usuall an item on the desktop, much like a file or folder, whereas the Just System Ichitaro used a button. The second point was that the "help" key on a keyboard already performed said function, and taking the keyboard to a GUI analogy did not require any insight, but was rather an obvious move as more and more keyboard functions were moved to the GUI.
The lower court found that the "icon" was used loosely and would be found to include the buttons-with-pictures as found in Ichitaro. As for the keyboard-to-gui concept, the court found that it would take more than obvious insight to make the leap, thus it was a valid invention.
Quite obviously, Matsushita was quite pleased that the court bought their story, while Just System was quite pissed off. By appealing to a higher court though, they did not need to immediately follow the ruling.
Whether you think this was fair game or not, keep in mind that this is pretty much what Microsoft did too with Win95 and IE. Keep the court case going long enough that the Win95/IE bundle was no longer relevant.
Clippy may be liable under EPA guidelines, as it certainly pollutes desktops.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
In the enclosed envelope is a map of all Japanese Patent Offices.
They told me to tell you that your mother is a dishonorable dirty woman.
attatchment [jpomap.png]
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
By gosh the summary's innacuracy is comparable to Microsoft marketing propaganda. The article does not state clearly "that the use of a help icon" was the cause of the dispute. It does say
The Gnome pics, now this? filler for nerds, stuff that doesn't happen?
HAD
You are forgetting that if you patent something, it is not a trade secret anymore. You don't need Bnemonic style memory: all you need to do is read the patent, which is your legal right. How would you otherwise know what you are not allowed to copy?
Software patents are just ridiculous.
"Matsushita Electric, in close cooperation with Microsoft, will develop a high-performance personal computer suited to the advanced image-processing demands of the 21st century," said Dr. Yoshitomi Nagaoka, vice president of Matsushita Electric's AVC Company..."
Who stands to profit if this software is knocked off the market?
The short description of the patent sounds very much like the help system that appeared in several incarnations on MacOS.
AFAIK the bubble help gave context sensitive information on GUI elements after activating it with a button.
Apparently MacOS 7 came out two years before the patent was filed. Here's a screenshot of MacOS 7 with the help icon and a copyright notice.
RIAA != ASCAP/BMI/SESAC.
RIAA are evil bastards who exploit musicians, degrade the art of music, and will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
ASCAP et. al, while flawed in execution, are based on a good idea: songwriters should get a cut when someone makes money off a song they wrote. If I sell a CD with a cover of "Tangled Up in Blue", or play it at a gig at my local tavern, these are the guys who make sure Dylan gets his nickel out of the profits. (Google for "songwriter royalties performance mechanical".) However - and this is key - if I'm playing for fun not profit, Bob doesn't get a penny.
For years I've been suggesting that royalties for copying recordings ought to work the same way - share for free, but if you're selling the artist gets a cut.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I hate to say it, but this really is a minimal event for the overall market-- no one I know has used Ichitaro for years. MSWord is fully entrenched here, and will be for the forseeable future.
In regards to Open Source alternatives such as OpenOffice, they are sorley lacking in Kanji conversion, dictionaries, and layout flexibility. I know that Turbo and Others put effort into this, but progress is slow...
davejenkins.com |
Microsoft probably has a patent cross-licensing agreement with Matsushita, or at least they may have already forged an agreement (maybe as part of another deal). It actually stands to reason that Microsoft initiated all of this.
Frankly I believe Open Office handles older versions of .doc formats better than the current MS Word does.
Note: I'm not just MS bashing, I use Word a lot myself, and this is a very frustrating bug to deal with. It gets old having to upgrade every time a new version comes out (gotta make sure I can read all the Word documents that come my way), and having to keep older versions around on a backup machine for when the current version opens an older version .doc and it's unreadable without a few hours of formatting.
We'll be seeing more and more of these, as the great Land Rush of IP patents continues. Equating intangibles with property is like creating a whole new world, ready to be staked out and fenced off like the American West in the 1800s. Eventually, creating something new and innovative without a battery of lawyers or a big corporation behind you will be as quaint a notion as walking out into the wilderness and setting up a farm.
What are Japanese patent laws? And what is the actual patent? No one knows either of these things. Japanese law may not have the "Non-obviousness" or "inventive step" clauses that America does. 2nd if it is an issue of an icon being used to access help a simple fine and software patch to remove the icon and change the access to help to something other then a button/icon.
The Microsoft/Matshusita link is tenuous, what computer hardware/software company has not worked with Microsoft at some point on a collaboritive project? Sony? IBM? DELL? Compaq/HP? Using the logic that was put forth earlier anyone Apple sues could be construed as being motivated from M$...
Lets see if anyone can get some real info on this. Instead of conjucture from a few short news blurbs that contradict each other.
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
Scroll down past the Japanese description and you can see some pics of the offending icon in this link: http://japan.cnet.com/news/biz/story/0,2000050156, 20080442,00.htm
Does anybody know?
I actually hold the patent for Clippy but I'm too ashamed to sue anybody.