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.

Comments

Where have I seen that before?

[Mr2001]

Matsushita declined to say whether it thinks any other software vendors may be infringing its patent.

Gee, do you think there might be any other software out there that uses a help icon? *cough* *coughwindowsmacoswordexcelaccesspowerpointwordper fect--* *sputter* *choke*

It's not the thing, it's the method

[Dancin_Santa]

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?

Re:It's not the thing, it's the method

[Brandybuck]

I hate to be the one to defend software patents, because I really despise them, but in this case, as in most others, it's the infringing company that's getting hurt, and not "the people".

p.s. Of course, the people are getting hurt indirectly, as they are thus deprived of a choice in the marketplace.

Re:It's not the thing, it's the method

[jd]

IIRC, it depends a lot on how obvious the method is (you're not supposed to be able to patent things that are trivial), whether the solution is in the public domain (you can't patent public knowledge) and when the patent was filed with respect to the alledged copy.

It also depends some on the reason why the patent infringement is coming up now. For example, since the company affected is a competitor to Microsoft, did Microsoft pay Matsushita to launch the lawsuit? IANAL, but there may be a case for appeal, if it turns out that the lawsuit was in bad faith, and/or is an attempt by Microsoft to gain further control of the Japanese office market by paying Matsushita to eliminate the only serious competitor.

In general, the courts tend to frown on being used subversively as the "enforcers" of a protection racket.

I'm not saying that this is what is happening. What I am saying is that there are enough suspicious circumstances to warrant a closer look at this, and that the Japanese courts might be persuadable that this isn't as innocent as it appears.

As for the "what you know" problem - since any work "could" be tainted by any prior experience, it would be impossible for any technical person to be re-hired within the lifetime of any patent they may have come into contact with. AT&T argued a similar line, against the BSDers, arguing that since they'd come into contact with AT&T proprietary knowledge, they were tainted and therefore so was any/all their subsequent work.

This is one reason I don't agree with the existing concept of IP. Nobody could ever have more than one job, and once they quit/leave/get sacked, they could NEVER be re-employed. IMHO, that is not protecting anybody and is clearly excessive.

Therefore, it should not be possible to "taint" work with IP, merely by being exposed to it. There has to be a far more material breach, and one which isn't protected against IP claims in some other way (such as being obvious, public domain, etc).

For those wondering...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Dear Godzilla

[stephenisu]

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]

Re:Patents must be published

[pmc]

We really need some sort of system so that people remember the spelling.

Some screenshots of the offending icon

[MeridianOnTheLake]

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

It's a shame

[RoLi]

3 news stories and none of them explains what the patent really is about.

Does anybody know?

Re:It's a shame

[patio11]

http://japan.cnet.com/news/biz/story/0,2000050156, 20080442,00.htm

I'll translate about as much as I can without getting into copyright trouble. The patent includes clicking on one icon displayed somewhere on your console, which attaches a special graphic to your mouse cursor. You then click on another icon or function on your console, and it brings up context-sensitive help. This is specifically distinguished from using context-sensitive help by pressing one special key or icon which is in a constant place, and also from each function embedding an explanation of what it does through other means which do not change the state of the mouse cursor.

The meat of the story is paragraphy #3, although the three screenshots on the front page are understandable even if you don't read Japanese. Due to quirkiness with derivative works law in Japan, tranlating their captions exactly could potentially lead to a lot of trouble. Suffice it to say that the first screenshot shows the offending icon, the second shows the mouse cursor changing as a result of clicking the icon, and the third shows the result of a second click on a generic interface function (an explanation pops up).

Re:Now if only someone had patented "Clippy"

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually hold the patent for Clippy but I'm too ashamed to sue anybody.