Microsoft Frowned at for Smiley Patent

theodp writes "ZDNet UK reports on criticism of Microsoft's attempt to patent the creation of custom emoticons. 'I would have expected to see something like this suggested by one of our more immature community members as a joke on Slashdot,' quipped Mark Taylor of the Open Source Consortium. 'We now appear to be living in a world where even the most laughable paranoid fantasies about commercially controlling simple social concepts are being outdone in the real world by well-funded armies of lawyers on behalf of some of the most powerful companies on the planet.'"

Comments

Re:They want for us to hate them, it must be

[someonewhois]

Uh, defensive patents are a common thing in all industries. People just enjoy jumping down Microsoft's throat because they have nothing better to do.

Having the patent doesn't mean they're going to go sue AOL, Yahoo, etc. if their messengers have custom emoticons. Clue in, guys.

Re:They want for us to hate them, it must be

[1010011010]

Microsoft (Ballmer specifically -- you know the CEO guy) has been threatening Linux with "over 200 patent violations".

Why mention that at all, except if on the offensive?

Re:They want for us to hate them, it must be

[meburke]

BAD thinking! There is no reason to establish rights over something unless you intend to exercise those rights. Even just the threat of enforcing those rights, legitimate or not, is an obstacle to competition or individual initiative, and in this case, it coerces people into MS-sanctioned behavior.

In some countries, like Japan for instance, the loser in a lawsuit has to compensate the winner for their expenses and may be assessed a fine. Some judges here in the US require a bond be placed to protect parties from frivolous lawsuits. IMO, the next needed steps in patent reform are, first, fines for filing frivolous patents, and second, clearer criteria for what is and is not patentable. These criteria need to be so clearly written that even government employees can determine if a patent application has merit.

A third reform step is to eliminate the limits on the time a patent can be challenged and overturned. For instance, if no one challenges a patent within two years, the patent holder can benefit from the de facto protection of the patent without recourse, until such time as that protection was determined to be erroneously granted and the patent overturned. My thinking is that a person erroneously granted patent rights should not be granted full patent protection just because someone didn't notice it within the challenge period. I wonder how many thousands of people are unproductively tied up spending anxious hours perusing published patent apps to protect themselves from trivial patent abuse.

Which brings me to the fourth reform: Patent apps need to be screenable by computer. (I wonder who is going to get the patent on that!)