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Microsoft Found Guilty of Patent Infringement
Spy der Mann writes "Microsoft has been found guilty of patent infringement and ordered to pay a Guatamalan inventor Carlos Armando Amado almost $9m in damages.
The US District Court of Central California court ruled that Microsoft had infringed on his intellectual property and ordered it to pay him $8.96m.
The patent in question is a method to transfer data between Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access using a single spreadsheet."
Patent infringement is not a crime, so they were not, in fact, found "guilty".
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
That isn't American dollars. He "only" got $1,166,448
Guatemala's GDP is $60 billion or so, and that doesn't include all the P from drug trafficing, so your joke is a little too far from reality to be funny
seeing as no one can push them around at their own game
If I ran the numbers right, based on their third quarter earnings this will set Microsoft's profits back 7.5 days. That's profit, not revenue.
That worked out to $329/second, or about $40 grand by time Slashdot will let you post another comment.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
No, we use U.S. Dollars, even for civl awards here in Ahnuldh's Cal-eee-fonya.
At least when IBM or Microsoft or Sun patent something, they have some tangible product they look to implement.
Um. IBM was infamous for filing patents like crazy and then using these to shake down competitors. The worst as called the "fat lines" patent; I think it essentially covered drawing a line twice with a pixel offset. There was a story in Forbes (posted on Slashdot) a few years back about how IBM decided to extort money from Sun for violating the patent. Sun's engineers gave them a lengthy explanation and told them "see, we're not infringing." IBM's lawyers just shrugged and said "We're just going to find something else you're infringing, so you might as well pay us now."
Gates once remarked (back in 1990 or so) that if the patent situation had always been this bad the computing industry would have been stillborn. He also said that Microsoft needed to get patents purely as a defensive measure. As far as I'm aware, despite Microsoft's generally sleazy business practices they've generally been one of the least vicious and exploitative patent holders.
So.. he patented a way for Microsoft Excel to work with Microsoft Access.. both products that Microsoft makes. Then he sued Microsoft??? I know.. i patent a way for Apple Intel to work with Apple PowerPC, no one would ever think of that.
You didn't get it:
1. The guy came up with a technique to interact with Access and Excel while doing graduate studies and gets a patent.
2. He approached Microsoft Corp. in the 90s and offered them his patent. Microsoft rejects the idea and say they're not interested.
3. About the same time, Microsoft adds the same technique to his products, makes a great deal of it and gets millions in revenue.
4. Then, and only then, the guy went to court, proved that he was the first to come up with the technique , proved that he approached Microsoft, proved that he showed it to them before they ever thought about it and then gets a fair amount of money.
I don't support software patents, but if Microsoft is promoting that nasty game, they have to obey the nasty game's rules.
"that MS is firing a few thousand patents a year at the USPTO - protecting themselves."
EEEEH! Wrong! All that they have to do is demonstrate prior art if they're charged with patent infringement. If they can show such then they should be able to win just about any lawsuit alleging wrongdoing. The entire point of a patent is to claim exclusive original rights or exclusive use.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
You're arguing rhetoric here...
No, I am not, which was my point.
KFG
The courts (in this instance!) didn't find that Microsoft were violating anti-trust laws, they found that Microsoft violated copyright laws.
And for the nth time, where n approaches infinity, patent law != copyright law.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
5,293,615, 8 March 1994
His last name is spelled differently, but this appears to be the one. I was an Amiga user in 1990, but this sounds like basic database/spreadsheet usage to me.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Microsoft invents Microsoft Access.
Guatamalan inventor patents method of transferring data between the two programs.
I don't know if you remember 1992, but back then, you couldn't get Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word to talk. Believe, I tried. I was going to college back then and for one of my engineering classes, I tried to embed an Excel spreadsheet into Word. The spreadsheet has come complex calculations in it and I didn't want to type in the values by hand. Eventually I had to save Excel as text and then open that up in Word. So this getting two MS programs to interact was non-obvious.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
3) Let someone else use your invention and keep quiet
RTFA, after he invented and applied for a patent, he approached MS with it. They declined to buy it. He was awarded the patent. He claims that MS used his patent. When he found out, he sued.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I guess I'm understanding why even Microsoft is asking for software patent reform: http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/ 11/1216222&tid=109&tid=155&tid=123&tid=219
Not that anybody on slashdot cares about things like this, but the correct spelling is Guatemalan
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -- G.B. Shaw
Hardly.
The highest rule is that we all have to live by the same rules.
There is nothing wrong with:
(1) Saying a certain rule is bad and should be changed
*and*
(2) Appreciating the JUSTICE of someone being forced to face the consequences of supporting a bad rule
I say Microsoft should not get hit with software patents - ON THE SOLE CONDITION THAT NO ONE GET HIT WITH SOFTWARE PATENTS.
Microsoft supports software patents and they have absolutely no right to complain or play the victim when the very rule they support comes and bites them in the ass.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I call bullshit. The only thing you can do with a stash of IP is to countersue. So far MS has not countersued anybody.
evil is as evil does