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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."
In other news, Guantemala's gross domestic product tripled today...
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
So wait, does this mean patents are good now?
I'm so confused!
that MS is firing a few thousand patents a year at the USPTO - protecting themselves.
You gotta have some sympathy for MS about this.
Patent infringement is not a crime, so they were not, in fact, found "guilty".
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
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.
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
As much as I hate Microsoft, I hate people who think they can use patents to cash in on something after the fact. Rambus did this in its ambush of memory makers. Eolas did this to Microsoft. Intertrust is doing this now to MS.
These companies sit around and brainstorm ideas without ever coming up with anything tangible, then they receive patents on their broad ideas. With the patent in hand, they can then sue anyone and anything that looks to be infringing. It's really sad.
At least when IBM or Microsoft or Sun patent something, they have some tangible product they look to implement. The patent leeches just look for traps they can set for big payoffs later on.
i like this idea you are trying to sell us. but it reminds me of something we are already working on. you may leave now, no need to take your folder with you.
That isn't American dollars. He "only" got $1,166,448
Jackson found innocent, invites school bus full of children to his ranch to celebrate.
Yahoo decides to give up fight against Google and shifts all it's resources to making small toys for the quarter machines at grocery stores.
Gnome and KDE finally resolve differences and merge, new name to be KnomE
Secluded inventor in Guatamala buys entire country a round.
You will be baked, and there will be cake.
Well, the giant isn't exactly falling. I'm sure that to the winner of the lawsuit, it felt great to get paid loads of money for his patent.
To Microsoft and the billions upon billions of dollars under their control, however, it's like trying to drain a lake by siphoning it through a straw.
Why, aren't they usually happy when software patent rights are recognized?
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
doesnt bill have that much in his couch ?
Can anyone tell me more about their good/bad experiences regarding IP and Microsoft ?
Dear rd4tech
I've had a good experience, and I definitely look forward to future business with them.
Sincerely
Carlos Armando Amado
As I pointed out in another comment to another story, among software developers the standard wisdom is, "Get in bed with Microsoft, and expect to get screwed." They have repeatedly managed to extract whatever they want from collaborations or licenses and left the other party wondering how it is that they got nothing.
I'm afraid of making any sort of software, even for fun. If it somehow leaves my PC goes public, someone could notice I made it, dig up some old patent, and sue my ass to Hoboken, New Jersey. This leeching is far worse than file leeching, and it's always sad to see that something intended to advance science and the arts (see Sec. 8, Clause 8) is impeding it instead. If it can happen to "M$" with their many IP/etc. lawyers, it can happen, and cause far worse damage, to us. That's -1, Scary to me.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Carlos Armando Amado devised a way to connect Excel with Access using a specially crafted spreadsheet during his tenure as a graduate student at Stanford University. After applying for a patent in 1990, Mr. Amando approached Microsoft to license the software, but was denied.
Microsoft then used the same exact method.
Now, while i totally disagree with the idea of patents like this... It changes the story a bit doesnt it?
Heh, after all this is slashdot.
Poetic justice?! Hardly!
The only good that could come of this would be the remote chance that it could convince MS that software patents are a terrible idea and prod them into backing Red Hat and Oracle's push to reform patents in the US and Europe.
Sorry, the giant tripped over a giant turtle and spilled some cash.
As much as I hate the company and its products, and believe me I do, this is a case that should've either been thrown out or used to nullify the patent. Instead the judgement strengthened the concept of software patents and non-novel patents, which in turn strengthens Microsoft's position as a monopoly, for a sum of money that's just barely half a single day's take.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
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)
Microsoft invents Microsoft Access.
Guatamalan inventor patents method of transferring data between the two programs.
Does that make any sense to you? Guy didn't invent either program. He's not some disgruntled ex-Microsoft programmer out to get his just dues. He's not some super, uber-leet programmer who came out with "Carlos's Excel" or "Carlos's Access" years before Microsoft did and simply didn't succeed due to lack of marketing. This is some Joe Nobody who filed a broad, vague patent that the courts were stupid enough to uphold.
No, we use U.S. Dollars, even for civl awards here in Ahnuldh's Cal-eee-fonya.
Unfortunately if you look you'll notice that as the number of frivolous patent lawsuits against Microsoft has gradually increased over the last few years, Microsoft's response has been... to suddenly start filing a whole bunch of patents. Lots of patents. Even more than before. And making a big deal in the press about patents and how important they are. And making a big deal to Europe about why they need software patents. Whereas before software patents was something they didn't really give much public indication of caring about one way or the other.
Microsoft obviously isn't doing this for protection, since the only people who've been suing Microsoft have been tiny parasite IP companies-- the kind of people who a patent shield is useless against. Instead it almost kind of seems to me like Microsoft is brushing off the patent judgments like an elephant swatting flies with its tail, but meanwhile going "wait... you mean patents can be used for evil? Interesting...", as if even though the lawsuits may sting a little they don't mind so much because it's given them some ideas of their own.
I hope to whatever Gods may or may not exist that this is just my overactive paranoid imagination.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Like most things at Slashdot, there is a double standard at play here. In other words, the Slashdot fanboys are not as pue as they like to think of themselves as. If it's bad for MS, it's good "just because". Pay backs, you know? Like little children...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
No. What will happen is that big companies that have influence over government policy will lobby to have the bar raised so high that small patent holders ("whores", as you say) will not be able to prove a case in the first place.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
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.
Basically, it went like this:
Microsoft obtains software product A.
Microsoft obtains software product B.
Microsoft begins making them work together.
Guy beats Microsoft to market.
Microsoft continues making their products work together.
Guy sues Microsoft, wins millions for being first to patent obvious method made "novel" by the fact that it works on those confusin' new computers.
This would work against Linux.
This crap would work on anything.
Microsoft did *NOTHING* wrong here. They didn't steal his stuff or anything. They just made their own products work together. It probably wouldn't even have been an issue if Excel and Access had been marketed under the same freaking product name.
Ludicrous.
$9M to Microsoft is less hurt than you dropping a penny.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
apple goes to intel!
microsoft found guilty of patent infringement!
i've woken up in bizzaro world!
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
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.
Bzzzzzzt. They were not an integrated suite in 1990. They were separate products. What allowed them to be integrated into a suite? Maybe ideas like the one this guy patented and Microsoft infringed upon.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.