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Microsoft Calls For Patent Law Change
Elektroschock writes "According to an article of IDG/Infoworld Microsoft calls for a reform of the US patent system . Last month Microsoft Denmark started a backfiring PR campaign to influence the European debate in favour of software patents. Critics of Microsoft often claim that MS was behind the EU lobbying and wanted software patents to kill open source. While it is true that lobbying took place, persons deeply involved in the debate are more cautious to affirm real business interests of Microsoft. In a CeBIT debate today it was concluded that the MS monopoly would not exist with today's software patenting in place back in 1985. Some highly influential stakeholders with real business interests are often forgotten: patent professionals and the patent offices. What if there was no evil MS conspiracy behind all those patent plans? Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith is very concerned of submarine patents and patent trolls for Microsoft's business. He said patent reform should begin at home."
If Microsoft is so concerned with submarine patents, why did they put pressure on Denmark to export the patent mess overseas?
So what if Microsoft says they couldn't have come into existence in today's patent environment. Do you think Microsoft cares about that? Well, I do, actually... but not in the sense they seem to be trying to imply. I think they would be really unhappy about another Microsoft coming into existence. They already exist, a monoply like theirs in another field could only hurt them.
Hey, will you look at that. The Xerox Unistroke patent did a real number on Palm, and forced Palm to give up one of their competitive advantages over the Pocket PC... the efficient Graffiti shorthand system.
Yeh, I think the current patent environment is in Microsoft's favor, and I don't think they really believe US patent law can be reformed. This is all a PR smoke-screen to distract attention from Europe.
Ok... You did mention one case where a dumb patent was applied for.
The developer responsible for the application has actually expressed regret that he was involved in it. He mentions that patents like that are necessary to use to defend against patent suits from other parties. A sort of strategy of mutually assured destruction.
But... name one time that Microsoft has ever initiated a patent lawsuit against a competitor. I don't think they ever have.
So it seems to me that you can defend against other companies with a patent portfolio, which is what Microsoft tries to do with its silly patent applications. But to defend against a company that is nothing but a patent lawsuit factory (Eolas), you need actual patent reform.
It seems pretty consistent and non-evil to me.
They're suggesting:
Dropping the fee for small businesses applying for patents. I don't think that helps, patents are worthless protection, its the *lawsuits* protecting the patented idea that cost the money not the patent application. Without the lawsuits a patent offers no protection at all.
Patent office to focus on quality not quantity. The problem I have with this is how is the patent office supposed to determine if software is new and novel. i.e. I think they're patenting rubbish simply because they don't know all the prior art available. Its all closed source and cannot be determined.
Microsoft are complaining about the patent situation in the USA *after* the vote in Europe. Before the vote they held shows for the Commission showing how innovative they are and for all the mentions in this story their lobbyists were there.
So I doubt they're angels here.
for example ASF and Virtualdub. I'm pretty sure you can find more if you search for it.
http://petition.eurolinux.org/
maybe you don't remember the DOS filesystem case. They have at least four patents on it, and when each and every digital camera used DOS (to be compatible) they started to demand license fee from camera vendors. That is indeed a very good example on submarine patents - by Microsoft.
Copyrights and patents are really only related in that they are both considered "intellectual property", and are government granted monopolies. A company that depends upon selling software to survive cannot exist where there is no copyright law. I'm afraid it's really too great a leap to say that a software company that defends its copyrights is likely to, for that reason alone, vigorously defend its patents, particularly when it never has in the past.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Not just Eolas. Microsoft was also on the recieving end of a successful patent suit from Apple Computer not that long ago (ending in the "investment" which "saved Apple", or so the Apple&MS spin went).
Futhermore, MS believes their main competitor is IBM, who happens to be the king of patents, making $billions from enforcing them. And there's no reason to believe that IBM are nice guys here -- they're current enforcing their "GIF" patent against SCO, even though everyone just assumed it was invalid. IBM *could* go after the entire industry with this patent or many others.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Autoplay sues Microsoft, regarding a patent on automatically executing installation programs on CD-ROMs and other devices.
Timeline Inc. successfully sues Microsoft over breach of licence for three patents concerning SQL Server. Timeline actually threatened to sue third party developers and customers using Microsoft's product. Fortunately, they never followed through on those threats.
Microsoft settles with Intertrust, after losing a preliminary ruling to Intertrust. The lawsuit was based on Intertrust's DRM patent portfolio.
It does depend on what is meant by "better examination". I don't know how many examiners you know, but every single one I've ever met has at least one story where s/he knew an application should have been rejected but was overturned on appeal. Some of these stories are absurd - stuff like "claim for operatively connected", prior art shows "bus", and the board was apparently confused as to why the examiner felt that mass transit constituted "operatively connected". In that case, the examiner knew exactly what s/he was talking about, but was told to issue the patent anyway.
Another issue is that applications are supposed to be examined in specific areas, with specific teams of experts, but all too often they get misclassified and rather than transfered to the correct area, it appears that some examiners are cavalier about it and examine it anyway. (I also understand that there is resistance to transfer by some - it requires a willing sender and a willing receiver, and one or both might be reluctant to participate.) It's an eye opening experience to file 10 related applications and have 1 of them misclassified. From outside the office, you can't do much about it, and that 1 misclassified application will have a drastically different prosecution.
As with any large organization, personal egos of the people in power and personalities come into play as well. If anything, I'd say that the treatment an application receives is too inconsistent. A more consistent process would be "better examining" and I don't believe it would significantly influence the flow of revenue.