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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."
Microsoft executives on Thursday stepped up their calls for reform of the U.S. patent process, saying the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) too often focuses on quantity instead of quality.
What they're saying here seems to make perfect sense, but I really have a hard time trusting anything that Microsoft says about software patenting considering their history.
I'm a big tall mofo.
http://mjr.iki.fi/texts/patentfund
So if the Evil Empire is not to blame for all of this lobbeying, then who? Perhaps some small businesses or other institutions who have invested in protecting their research and intellectual property are in favour of patenting in the software sphere. Maybe these small businesses are expressing their opinions just as vocally, but more effectively than all of the ranting on this site!
Straight from the horse's mouth:
"The system has to work for everybody," said David Kaefer, director of Microsoft's IP Licensing Program. "It's only a system that works for the largest companies."
I'm sure this quote will come in handy.
How about reform in which USPTO case workers (or whatever they may be called) are educated as to how to go about searching for prior art (particularly, but not limited to, in the tech space)? Also, whatever happened to patents only being licensed when the product is clearly demonstrated (that is, instead of patenting an *idea* for a product)?
Interesting then that patents4innovation.org (probably the larget pro-software lobby organization in Europe) lists Microsoft as one of its members (look under About Us).
Ironically, the site is built using FLOSS (PHP)...
I think all of these proposals would be beneficial except changing for changing to a first to file system. One advantage of a first to invent, is that the true first inventor will receive a patent. A first to file system would likely protect corporations with well established patent departments. I agree with MS that the first to invent system can lead to uncertainty and litigation, but I think this is an acceptable cost.
-= alphaFlight =-
Patent application fees serve some critical purposes:
1. They weed out non-serious applicants.
If anyone can apply for a patent for free, the PTO will be flooded in a wave of applications that have no real basis. They'll be time consuming and costly to dispose of. By requiring fees, only serious applicants will pursue the process of applying, and they will likely have made sure that they have a decent chance of getting their patent since they will not want to waste money in futile attempts.
Additionally, even where an applicant has a good invention that is patentable, a patent is a significant burden on the public and should not be granted lightly. Applicants should be thinking seriously about using their patent commercially rather than just sitting on it. If it is an investment to them, then they'll be thinking of it in a business mindset, and will likely try to use it or license it to others for use. If they can get it for free, there's less likelihood that the patent will be used productively. It's better for inventions to enter the public domain than to be patented in such situations.
2. They can fund the PTO
Patent examination -- when it's done right -- is fairly time consuming and somewhat expensive. This doesn't just include prior art searches, but making sure that the government can hire examiners that are familiar with their fields, and competent in the law so that applications can be checked for legal requirements as to structure, contents, etc. Plus of course there are numerous administrative costs to just keep the PTO running; applications will likely get copied, marked on, published, etc. and these things aren't free.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I think novell owns the patent to the login prompt what predicament would windows be in without a secure login system?? I guess Windows XP wont actually miss that security wise that is. i think EOLAS was a completely different topic (anticompetitive practices) Novell has threatened MS and any other companies that threaten thier interests including LINUX and many open source applications under their umbrella. with patent infiringement notices that they will retelliant with any and all means in the collective patent portfolio of SUN, IBM, Novell Redhat etc.
I think that MS is following the easy money path as usual. Do as we say, not as we do.
Here is my theory. Microsoft wants to increase the number of patent so they can pick and choose to combat FLOSS.
Would you take a million for your patent?
The patent office doesn't think it needs to reform. I'm from Arlington, I know two lawyers who work at the patent office and both of them specialize in software patents.
First, they believe they are doing our country a service by protecting the 'inventors' of the software. You can't tell them otherwise. Bringing up things like prior art just pisses them off. According to them, prior art is not their responsibility, its the responsibility of the person filing the patent to show any prior art. They don't have 'time' to be hunting around the for this so called 'prior art'. If they grant an invalid patent, let the courts sort it out. Its the courts job to validate and rule on prior art.
Second, they don't need to have software development experience to approve software patents because all they do is look through an internal database see if key things are already patented. If it is not, boom, granted.
So, I don't think we're going to see patent reform any time soon, especially when they don't want to be reformed.
From reading the articles, MS wants the system to be less threatening to THEM, but they want to maintain their threat to others.
This is accomplished by giving them more of a chance to challenge patents at low cost in a probation period, and by reducing the chance that a buried patent will resurface and lay claim to half their income on a new technology someday (submarine patents).
But MS still wants to maintain the ability to patent trivial, obvious, very basic software methods and crappy proprietary extensions to open standards so that they can thwart competitors who can't keep up.
The right way for patent reform is probably to simply do away with software patents. Microsoft is AGAINST this position.
Microsoft announces 120 'high quality' jobs coming to Ireland. There was a prominant annoucement featuring this on the 6 o'clock news headlines on RTE this Wednesday.
This was after Irish comissioner Charlie McCreevy's (internal market) endeavors in the EU Commission this week to procede with the software patents directive (after a meeting Bill Gates), and Irish minister Mary Harney's dubious endeavors in the Council of Ministers (Irish EU presidency) last May to get a yes vote on the directive.
So now Microsoft brings 'high quality' jobs to existing 1200 employee site in Dublin this week
Coincidence?
No.
And charities wouldn't be near as required as they are now if across the board people were given livable wages and benefits. You have to remember, there is no "right" to incorporation, it is a government granted privelege that at least in the original days had as part of the deal that the corporations efforts had to serve the public benefit as well as make profit (had the opportunity I mean) for the corporations owners.
Once that first part-be of public benefit- gets ignored, then they become burdensome to the population, even if they have a useful product or service.
Here's a large obvious example. Is walmart useful to a community when they can offer cheaper wares, with the tradeoff of whenever they become established someplace, better paying jobs with benefits disapper, and then the state or charity has to step in to take up the newly created slack? Like, how useful is a walmart to a person who's factory job evaporated offshore and they lost a decent middle class job with some benefits? So they can go work at the walmart instead, yep, what they can buy is cheaper, but now they make 1/2 what they were making before and have no real benefits. Is just having the cheaper stuff available all that valuable to that person then? Has the corporation actually fulfilled their incorporation obligation to be of mass public benefit, or has it merely gone to make the corporation profits?
Just using walmart as an example because they are so big and a lot of studies and anecdotals, etc, are out there now.
Microsoft has much more to lose than they have to win from patent litigation.
If a smalltime patent holder wins against Microsoft, the cost could easily be an eight to ten digit figure. On the flipside, what M$ might gain from a patent victory against the little guy might be insignificant compared to the PR hit they would take. Vanquishing a small company over questionable M$ patent rights might even harm their defense against charges of anti-competitive practices, potentially leading to enormous losses.
They absolutely must protect their right to sell what they've built, and of course they will do so. But they also are looking over their shoulder, and they may not like what they see.
I cannot think of an instance where Microsoft used one of its patents aggressively against a competitor
They don't need to use litigation. All Microsoft need to do is to scare the investors, with a few words:
"We are planning to enter this market in the near future...".
No VC will consider funding a company if Microsoft intend to enter that market.
Microsoft also uses EULA agreements with their compiler software to restrict the development of products that rival Microsoft Word.
Another line used by Microsoft is:
"Microsoft claims to own unspecified patents related to this field".
This frequently comes up when you read about programmable graphics hardware. A recently slashdot comment described how Electronic Arts was scared to develop games for the Linux for fear of litigation from Microsoft.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads