Visto Founder Blogs about Microsoft Lawsuit

neelm writes "Reported a few days ago, Visto is suing Microsoft over patent infringements. David Cowen, a founder of Visto (and Verisign) has made a recent blog post about the patent involved. He clears up what exactly the patents involved are, but what may be a more interesting read is the patent itself - issued in March of 2004. It might be nice to see Microsoft defending itself from patent litigation I admit, but I'm not sure I want to give validity to this patent."

Comments

Patent?

[Bananatree3]

" System and method for globally and securely accessing unified information in a computer network"

At first I thought maybe they were going to sue them for stealing one of the variations on the name "Vista".

Re:Patent?

[IgLou]

Man I read that patent and I couldn't help but wonder who you couldn't sue with that? Talk about vague! That's it, I'm patenting the algorithm to add 1 + 1 electronically. Cha-ching!

Re:Patent?

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Actually someone tried to patent addding 1 and 1 elektronically!

They luckily did not get a patent. But this was many years ago when patent examiners had time to actually read a patent!

Re:Patent?

[IgLou]

Hmm, I'll have to try something different then... Any takers?
I'll partner with whoever comes up the most lucrative idea. How hard can it be to abuse this? Seems like everyone else is doing it and looks like so much fun!

I've got it! I'll patent the a method to take data and display it to a luser. Brilliant! I'm back in cha-ching land!

Re:Patent?

[jacksonj04]

Hang on, I call prior art. Isn't Exchange/Outlook securely accessing global unified information in a network? How about Lotus?

Re:Patent?

[tomhudson]

As some of the people who posted in the guys' blog point out, their patent isn't innovative - it describes, among other things, CVS, which existed long before they even came up with their "idea".

Just fire the USPTO. It would be so much cheaper, easier, and better.

Re:Patent?

[Anonymous Coward]

If only I could patent mis-spelling and poor grammar. That way, none of you bastards could use it without getting sued.

Re:Patent?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Adding numbers modulo particular cube roots.

Re:Patent?

[Red Alastor]

There would be ways to make a patent office efficient. First, find a way to fund them which doesn't mean they get more money if they grant more patents.

Next, change how the system works. Now, when a company ask for a patent, the Patent Office ask competitors of the company for prior art or at least reasons why the patent is obvious. If it fails, ask the public. Then review yourself. By making other do your work, you save a lot of time.

And finally, the core idea of the new system. Every time you troll the patent office, you get a time penality. Let's say 3 months. So there is 3 months in which you can't submit anything to them. Every time you do it again the time you have to wait until you can submit your next patent doubles. Every twice the time you are penalized with, you'd slide down a ladder. So if you had a 6 month penality you didn't troll for one year, you are back to 3 months and half a year after to nothing.

This system would not penalize the small guy with smart ideas but not a truckload of money.

Re:Patent?

[mikek3332002]

Why are they suing MS for?
System and method for globally and securely accessing unified information in a computer network"
How many network security hole has MS had?

Re:Patent?

[SpaceLifeForm]

What's the difference?

MS == DARKSIDE == NSA

Prediction: PP is attacked by the astromods.

Besides, the patent is obviously invalid
due to the prior art at NSA.

" System and method for globally and securely accessing unified information in a computer network"

So, really, what is the difference?

Re:Patent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck me! did I just saw 'Exchange/Outlook' and 'securely' in a same sentence?

In all honesty.

[grazzy]

Let's the big boys fight it out, the rest of us can just watch as they spend their money in courts. When the dust has settled I'm sure Europe, Canada and the rest of the free world will give asylum to the ones of you that decide to depart from the united states of previous freedom.

Re:In all honesty.

[lbrandy]

When the dust has settled I'm sure Europe, Canada and the rest of the free world will give asylum to the ones of you that decide to depart from the united states of previous freedom. I'm trying to figure out which side you are on and which side is responsible for the "previous freedom" comment... Could it be Microsoft, the defendant of a patent lawsuit.. somehow attacking our freedoms... or is it maybe Visto... the benefactor of some percieved flaw in the patent system whom is stamping out the precious liberty...

... or, the dreaded third option, who seeks to destory us all... the wretched karma-whore! Is this what happens when karma-whores can't figure out which is more likely to net them Karma? Anti-Microsoft or Anti-Patent.... Oh, I know.... Patriot Act!

Re:In all honesty.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, the US is hard at work spreading this brain damage to other countries under the guise of harmonising laws to make trade easier, and the bludgeoning folks that do not comply under the terms of free trade agreements. Sovereignty, we've heard of it!

Re:In all honesty.

[c_forq]

Europe, Canada and the rest of the free world

As I recall Canada hasn't been an option for escape for at least a decade (they return Americans now). Britain has lost more freedom then us, France has too much unrest, and I'm not about to move to Eastern Europe. So the free world is made up of what exactly? Most of South America is out, so it seems we have maybe Russia, a smattering throughout Western Europe, and small assorted islands.

Re:In all honesty.

[tomhudson]

As I recall Canada hasn't been an option for escape for at least a decade (they return Americans now)

Whoah! Yes, we will return American criminals provided:

1. What they allegedly did was a criminal offense in Canada (and just the mere allegation is not enough if the person has a decent lawyer)
2. The death penalty is off the table in capital cases.

Any American who wants to stay up here gets treated the same as any other country - they just have to follow Canadian Immigration rules:

1. Get into the country any way they can;
2. Say they don't have any documentation and are seeking refugee status (you can have your passport clearly visible in your shirt pocket and the immigration agent cannot call you a liar and demand to see it);
3. You are now a refugee;
4. Marry a Canadian (of either sex);
5. You now jump the queue waiting to become a Canadian citizen;
6. Get your citizenship papers;
7. Get your divorce, and bring up your past/future American spouse;

People do it all the time.

Re:In all honesty.

[xtieburn]

'Britain has lost more freedom then us'

How so?

Re:In all honesty.

[grazzy]

I was refering to the broken system you refer to here as the patent office. Things like these should not be able to be patentable. As I see it, either the people working for patent offices are a little slow (perhaps older people not really up2date with current tidings?), or they are bribed.

How can you patent a system (from what I can see at a first glance) that stores data remotely accessable? It's a fundamental feature of all computer network and has been in existance since the first connection between two computers was made.

There is no fairness, logic or good about that system, it's just broken. My comment refers to that fact, they're fighting over a system that is in my view already so flagrantly failed that I dont care who wins. If Microsoft wins, fine, I'll ignore the outcome. If Visto wins, so be it.

Re:In all honesty.

[ScrewMaster]

Well ... Britain has more TV cameras than we do.

For now, anyways.

Re:In all honesty.

[jZnat]

Tony Blair.

Him and Bush go hand in hand together. Touching, no?

Re:In all honesty.

[xtieburn]

Last I checked cameras dont activly stop me doing anything or remove any of my rights.

They stop people hitting other people in the head whilst drunk on a Saturday night, but, im fairly sure that the right to not get hit in the head is more important. Well unless the guy your hitting is a real jerk... .

Re:In all honesty.

[ShinGouki]

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/ 22/0142244&tid=126&tid=219

titled: "Britain to log all vehicle movement"

posted 8 entire hours ago on this very site

and you're making cracks about america's percieved lack of freedom

you, sir, are a moron.

Re:In all honesty.

[ScrewMaster]

I would disagree. The "right" of a citizen to go about his or her business without the State watching every move has shown itself, historically speaking, to be far more important than avoiding a few cracked heads. You probably don't realize this: maybe it's more obvious to me as an American, where we have protected freedoms missing in other legal systems (as well as a history of law enforcement overreaching itself and abusing people anyway ... see FBI under Hoover.) By accepting this public surveillance system, you are implicitly trusting people that don't deserve it. No offense intended, but the reality is that nobody does. You are firmly on the path of incrementalism, my friend, and this will not get better.

What's being done to Britain is not much different that what was done in East Germany, except that the technology is much more advanced and requires far fewer people to run it (at its height, almost half of East Germany was involved in watching the other half.) I would not be comfortable in either situation myself, although, to be fair (one must always be fair when comparing another nation's lack of civil liberties to one's own) America is heading that way at an accelerated pace. The great city of Chicago Illinois recently announced that it would be installing a massive fiber ring with the sole purpose is to support thousands of TV cameras. Glad I don't live in Cook County: wouldn't want my taxes going for that nonsense. I guess Mayor Daley is taking a few pages out of Tony Blair's book. Thousands of smaller communities have installed so-called "red light cams" at intersections in order to "catch speeders". The reality of that situation is that local governments want more revenue from tickets, and want to give us time to get comfortable with the idea of automated public surveillance. It won't be long before cameras start popping up everywhere.

Granted, there haven't been any more terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11. Great Britain's people, for all the money spent on their much-vaunted camera network cannot say that. And while it is true that the terrorists (who, after all, provided the rationale and rationalizations for England's camera network and our own Patriot Act, among other things) haven't won, neither have we. As a matter of fact, both nations have lost something important.

Re:In all honesty.

[xtieburn]

'By accepting this public surveillance system, you are implicitly trusting people that don't deserve it.'

Not really. See for that to happen they would have to actually have the ability to abuse the information that they have in the CCTV. They cant though, not unless im breaking a law which is what its designed to do. Theres a difference to large scale monitoring of people in there homes and camera systems that sit on the street. They have no personal information of mine that they couldnt have using any legal form of survailance. Its just automated and wide spread.

'who, after all, provided the rationale and rationalizations for England's camera network'

Actually rising rates of violent crime did it, and with good reason. Everywhere CCTV has been implemented has seen lower rates of crime.

'As a matter of fact, both nations have lost something important.'

I do actually agree with that but CCTV isnt that big a part of it. The CCTV network has obeyed all of the privacy and freedom laws we have its literally just an enhancement to the way things are working. So instead of needing police walking every street the cameras can catch things and with far better accuracy a lot of the time.*

The things that are being lost to terrorism are different. They arent enhancing what is there they are changing it. As I mentioned before its the difference between using CCTV to monitor public areas and having them peering in to every window of your home. Using Terrorism the government wants to justify the latter.

Point I was making though is that England and America arent really any more or less free than each other. Freedoms are being eroded just as badly on either side of the ocean.

*Note that rather than terrorism this is the true political motivation, training and employing more police officers is costly cameras are not. You could argue its a bad thing but the cameras have been fairly succesful and while ill still argue for more police on the street im not going to argue against a network of cameras that makes there jobs easier.

Once again..

[Bromskloss]

..it sounds like something we all do every day.

How did that get a "patent"?

[Fallen Kell]

I mean, really... It sounds a lot like CVS and even patch updates as well as partial backups, snapshot backups (from Network Appliance systems), and MANY other systems that have been in use for years.

Re:How did that get a "patent"?

[Anonymous Coward]

USPTO policy: You file it, we grant it. Easy, ain't it?

Re:How did that get a "patent"?

[game kid]

Have the CVS/et al. makers complained about this? Sometimes, even good government goes blind (not that ours is even close to good intent anymore), and the improperly governed must swab its ears and scream "foul".

Re:How did that get a "patent"?

[gid13]

Because nobody can clearly define the restriction of obviousness, and even if they could, patent clerks screw up (possibly even more than most people since I hear being a patent clerk is a crappy job).

At this point, I'm pretty much starting to think patent systems always suck. Sure the occasional patent may reward the inventor, but it seems these days they tend more to reward rich investors, patent lawyers, and frivolous filers.

Re:How did that get a "patent"?

[MyDixieWrecked]

it's also an overly technical explanation of how isync works in OSX.

the main problem with software patents is that there are as many ways of wording a way of doing something for a patent as there are ways of actually doing it in a computer system.

99% of software patents are bullshit. even a lot of hardware patents are bullshit, but the signal-to-noise ratio is, at least, respectable.

Re:How did that get a "patent"?

[Elwood P Dowd]

I'm down with rewarding rich investors & patend lawyers if they're providing something that would not be accomplished otherwise.

The problem is that they're rewarding people for stuff that would get done even without the reward. And the reward comes off our backs.

Re:How did that get a "patent"?

[Elwood P Dowd]

Being "a lot like CVS" & etc doesn't invalidate a patent. Your patent can read, "Just like CVS, except for pasta recipes", and it will have a fair shot at passing. Taking an existing solution, tweaking it in an infinitesimally small manner, and patenting it is totally supported by our system.

That's only part of the problem.

Re:How did that get a "patent"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mucked around in these stories and it appears that they're talking about US patent 6,708,221. That patent has a priority claim for some of the invention back to December 1996. That's just an observation - claiming is different from proving, and I'm not going to spend my evening figuring out the differences between the priority documents and their patents. (Maybe the guy with the blog does? Sorry but I have a policy of not reading blogs linked to from Slashdot's front page.) I don't know off the top of my head how prevalent CVS technology was in 1996 or whether it operated exactly as described by claim 1, but just tossing that out there - 1996 is 9 years of computer technology history removed from the here and now.

There are additional issues known to patent attorneys and agents that will not appear in a printed version of the patent. There is a concept called estoppel. I won't bore you with a lengthy explanation, but here's how it may be relevant:

There are a long list of patents and shorter list of non-patent references printed on that patent. It's normal for some of those to be applied as "prior art that may deny patentability" while other references are there for context or because the inventor submitted it. Now, if any of those applied references are for your run-of-the-mill "CVS" but the attorney argued, "Oh no, that's completely different, you'd be insane to think that CVS is the same as this invention," they essentially waive any possibility of suing someone based on that patent for using a CVS.

Again, this is just an observation. I don't know if any CVS art was applied.

Additionally, the patent issued out of US patent class 709 and that was the only class listed as being searched. CVS technology would not normally fall into US patent class 709. An examiner from one class is not expected to be an expert in every other class - if you submit a CVS application that looks like it's a networking application, and it issues from a networking examiner, you have a valid patent. However, the strength of that patent is an entirely different question. Even if the networking examiner never applied a CVS reference and issued the patent, suing someone with a CVS product (who is probably more of an expert about CVS technology than a networking examiner) might be the fastest way to turn your patent into a decorative wall covering.

After all, an issued patent is basically a statement that "This examiner spent 10-15 hours looking for prior art and didn't uncover anything reasonably identical (or constructed from reasonably identical parts)." If it's a networking examiner making that statement about what is essentially a CVS programming code tool, uh, yeah... Best of luck with that infringement suit.

So there you go. The above are a few explanations of how it became a patent. I skipped the knee-jerk, conspiracy-theory, anarchist ones that are so prevalent on Slashdot. No need to be redundant.

I'm posting anonymously because some might say I'm a little too familiar with this topic. Read what you will from that.

Re:How did that get a "patent"?

[Christian Engstrom]

[P]atent clerks screw up (possibly even more than most people since I hear being a patent clerk is a crappy job).

The main problem is not that the patent clerks are stupid or incompetent or anything like that. In fact, most of them probably aren't.

Instead it is the economic incentives built into the system that ensure that the patent office will continue to grant more and more obvious patents.

Nowadays most patent offices around the world are already "self funded", so the fees go back to the patent office. This means that the patent office has an incetive to grant as many patents as it possibly can.

A look at the USPTO fee list [uspto.gov]USPTO Fee Schedule explains the underlying math.

The basic application fee for a patent is $300, but you also have to pay a "search fee" of $500 and an "examination fee" of $200, making it a total of $1000 for making an application. But in order to collect that money, the patent office has to do quite a lot of work: set up a file, do an initial formal examination, perform a novelty search, and quite often engage in correspondence with the applicant to sort out various issues. It seems reasonable to assume that initial applications "as such" do not cover their own costs for the patent office.

But once a patent has been granted, nice things start to happen to the patent office's profitability calculations.

At the moment the patent is granted, the proprietor has to pay $1400 in "issuance fee". Then, in order to keep his patent valid, he has to pay maintenance fees at regular intervals. $900 is due at 3.5 years after it was granted, $2,300 due at 7.5 years, and $3,800 due at 11.5 years.

For a patent that is renewed throughout its full term, the post-allowance and maintenance fees add up to $8,400, compared to the $1000 for the initial application.

And the renewal fees are the good part of the patent office business, since the PTO doesn't actually have to do anything for the money, except make a note in the file that the fee has been paid. So for those patent offices around the world that are funded in whole or in part by the fees they collect, there is a direct incentive to let the standards slip to the lowest level they can possibly get away with.

The result can be seen at a patent office near you.

Patents are good at slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as they are used against Microsoft.

Re:Patents are good at slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's a good example of why slashdot has no credibility.

Re:Patents are good at slashdot

[someone1234]

They might be good at slashdot, but they are even better in a courtroom with M$ :)

CVS

[bchapp]

The patent sounds like any concurrent versioning system. How can that be "invented" in 2004?

Re:CVS

[MightyMartian]

It would appear that the US patent system has now simply collapsed into inanity. It is starved resources, abused by large corporations, and now they in turn are finding themselves the victims of the same behavior. Real patent reform is needed, and my feeling is now that clearly abusive patents should lead to massive fines and/or suspensions for long periods from making any more patents (and that means against future companies that have anybody on the board of a company that has previously been caught in this kind of scam).

Re:CVS

[IgLou]

A previous thread brings up the same thing. This "patent" covers so many different technologies it's stupid. Say it with me "Software Patents bad..."
Seriously though, I'm all for protecting your product but there is a point when what you think of is so basic that any of us could have thought of it and trying to hold a patent to it just stiffles progress. (Aside: Note to self patent the bubble sort.) Now why isn't someone explaining that to the patent office?

Re:CVS

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not CVS; it is "Terminal Services". This would tag MS and Citrix; however, MS has just a little bit more money.

Enjoy,
The Anon_Coward.

David versus Goliath?

[dada21]

Is it better to support the little guy versus the big guy in any patent brawl?

Not for me. Patents are scummy ways of avoiding competition. In my non-existant "utopia" I would never accept them -- don't invent if you can't compete with what you invent. Someone else will come out with the same idea soon enough.

For many geeks, their careers probably rest on companies that have many patents. Yet how much quicker would technology progress if we were able to perfect the imperfect and not have to wait a decade or two for a patent to expire? How many geeks here on slashdot that have been part of a team that discovered a patented process would continue to research and develop new products because they love the process, not just the endgame?

I continue to work on new ideas and new processes for my business, some of them that I openly share with my competition. Sure, business procedures may not be patented, but why not? Why can I patent a keyboard style on a cell phone but I can't patent how I lay out my retail store or how I handle customer complaints?

I don't support either party in this lawsuit, and in the end, only the lawyers win. Guess who pays?

Re:David versus Goliath?

[lbrandy]

Not for me. Patents are scummy ways of avoiding competition. In my non-existant "utopia" I would never accept them -- don't invent if you can't compete with what you invent. Someone else will come out with the same idea soon enough.

Hahah. Your "non-existant" utopia sounds like alot of fun. Sign me up for that poorly thought through "utopia" of yours. The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

Re:David versus Goliath?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment doesn't make any sense. Grats.

Re:David versus Goliath?

[lbrandy]

What doesn't make sense, oh wise and knowing AC? Allow me to distill out the useful parts for you:

He said:
don't invent if you can't compete with what you invent. Someone else will come out with the same idea soon enough.

I said:
Sign me up for that poorly thought through "utopia" of yours. The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

If you need me to translate it down further, try this: I know that sounds great in the 9 seconds it took you to actually think that up, but it's a really stupid way to build a "perfect society" if you bother to put some more thought into it... Ie, discouraging invention is a pretty piss-poor first step on the road to utopia. You may not like our patent system... but the concepts of patents are incredibly useful and valuable to society as a whole.

Re:David versus Goliath?

[I!heartU]

They can be patented: These rules changed in July 1998, when a federal court upheld a patent for a method of calculating the net asset value of mutual funds. State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signal Financial Group, Inc. 149 F.3d 1368 (Fed. Cir. 1998) cert denied 119 S. Ct. 851 (1999). The court ruled that patent laws were intended to protect any method, whether or not it required the aid of a computer, so long as it produced a "useful, concrete and tangible result."

Re:David versus Goliath?

[vertinox]

Not for me. Patents are scummy ways of avoiding competition. In my non-existant "utopia" I would never accept them -- don't invent if you can't compete with what you invent. Someone else will come out with the same idea soon enough.

On the downside, Americans will have patented all possible ideas in the next few years and engage in useless lawsuits that will cripple the economy and allow China, India, Japan, and the EU to surpass us in the invention field.

On the upside everything will be public domain 17 years after that and there won't be anything left to patent.

Re:David versus Goliath?

[dada21]

If you need me to translate it down further, try this: I know that sounds great in the 9 seconds it took you to actually think that up, but it's a really stupid way to build a "perfect society" if you bother to put some more thought into it... Ie, discouraging invention is a pretty piss-poor first step on the road to utopia. You may not like our patent system... but the concepts of patents are incredibly useful and valuable to society as a whole.

I'm a businessman. I've had over 10 businesses in 18 years, all but 1 were successful. Not a single business relied on patents, and in some situations I likely could have profited from protecting some processes. I don't see a benefit for society in any monopoly -- especially monopolies granted from government. Society benefits from voluntary cooperation and voluntary trade, not coercion and force.

There are volumes of text on the bad parts of patents -- all of them point to how patents don't make people innovate, they make people lazy. Invent, patent, stop inventing. The areas with the fewest patents tend to be the areas with the most stable products at the best prices.

Re:David versus Goliath?

[lbrandy]

You realize that a giant "proof by anecdote" is still nothing but a giant fallacy, right, no matter how you dress it up? You can run 10000s of business without patents, because 99.9% of businesses do not require patents. Very few fields do... so I fail to see what that anecdote adds to the conversation. Saying there are lots of books and lots of people who agree with you doesn't change that. I can probably go point for point if I bothered, and we can line up all the people that agree with us and have a nice democratic vote on what the "truth" is (hint: sophistry).

I know, for an absolute fact, that specific types of research is done and is profitable solely because of patents that exist in the field and because they are protected. If there weren't patents, there'd be no profit, and consequently very little research. Does my personal counterexample to your giant anecdote prove me right... no... it doesn't. Without the "monopoly" granted by the patent, there'd be no profit, and the amount of research and progress in the field would be orders of magnitude less. It would turn into the Arts, only able to survive on some pity handout of funding from the government (NEA).

The concept of "Invent, patent, stop inventing" is quaint and a cute platitude.. it would come as one hell of a surprise to the people I work with, though. You have a sexy vision of what the patent world must be like.... trying to get "a patent" so you can retire is like trying to win the lottery.. and only someone on the outside viewing inside via the microscope of a smattering of news article would buy that nonsense.

Re:David versus Goliath?

[pqdave]

There are a lot of items where figuring out how costs $fooMillion, but actually producing costs a few cents each. There should be some return on the initial $fooMillion investment, or nobody will spend it. There needs to be a balance between stifling innovation because you can't profit from original research, and stifling innovation because every trivial variation of everything has been patented.

Re:David versus Goliath?

[Milican]

Patents were a way for the little guy that came up with an idea to protect themselves from the big guy with the resources. In practice I don't think it always plays out that way.

JOhn

Re:David versus Goliath?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I don't see a benefit for society in any monopoly -- especially monopolies granted from government. Society benefits from voluntary cooperation and voluntary trade, not coercion and force.

How do you prevent a gigantic company from forming which employees brigades of engineers, marketing folks, lawyers, salespeople, and owns dozens of factories and exists solely to take other peoples' ideas and implement them for a lower cost with better support, faster production, and better distribution?

That would seem to be the logical outcome of a patent-free society. If I invent a great new idea in electronics today, I have no doubt that [pick one: GE, IBM, Intel] could do a much better job of implementation than I could because I lack resources.

I'm sure most Slashdotters have a couple great ideas they're sitting on that haven't come to market since the idea first occurred to them and they simply lack resources for execution. In the existing structure if they weren't lazy or wasting their time on Slashdot they could patent those ideas and sell them to a patent-holding company who would handle the licensing. This is sub-ideal, but given the aforementioned scenario as alternative I'm not sure it's the greater evil.

Blog Excerpt

[Stan Vassilev]

"Today I woke up and started preparing for work as usual. Brushed my teeth, shaved, took a shower. But you could sense the tension in air. Today I'm filing patent violation suit against Microsoft.
During the years, we've had the chance to sue the hell out of a lot of companies for all sorts of patented ideas we came up while picking our noses, but this is my first big project.
Needless to say, I'm pretty nervous and excited to work with the legal department of such a big and popular company. I've met with them couple of times, and they appear to be a bunch of great guys, so I hope we'll do a great job together."

Re:Blog Excerpt

[FyRE666]

During the years, we've had the chance to sue the hell out of a lot of companies for all sorts of patented ideas we came up while picking our noses, but this is my first big project.

This says it all about patents really. This guy admits these "highly valuable" ideas, worth millions were dreamed up by a few guys sat around picking their noses. Of course, nobody else could possible come up with such brilliant ideas on their own, when it takes so much time, development effort and expertise to put these patent portfolios together... Morons...

Re:Blog Excerpt

[Eccles]

It's worse than that.

By implication, he's admitted that the big companies would come up with these ideas independently. Thus they are not novel, and are obvious to a practitioner of the art. The idea of patents is you come up with something so clever, so original, that it advances the state of the art, and you publish it to give the world the benefit of your cleverness in exchange for patent rights. Does anyone here believe Microsoft read this patent?

Re:Blog Excerpt

[corbettw]

Today I woke up and started preparing for work as usual. Brushed my teeth, shaved, took a shower.

And we're supposed to believe this guy is a computer engineer?? Piffle, any real geek would be too busy drawing up new patent applications to bother with something as trivial as hygene.

They took our problem and made it their own!

[Rahga]

From the blog post:
"These PC's were running on the same large TCP/IP network as my PC client at Bessemer as well our Exchange server, and yet there was no way for me to access my corporate email and calendar."

"These patents were written by programmers who were engaged in building a viable, commercial platform, and genuinely wished to protect the invention."

Here's the deal... He wants to fix a problem, bridge a gap. On obvious gap. The patent system is supposed to protect inventions, not prevent people from creating their own solutions to a problem. I see nothing in that stupid patent that isn't nebulous and pathetic.

"But this time Microsoft is steamrolling its way into wireless messaging through the clear theft of my, Daniel's, Chris', and others' intellectual property. That's why Visto is suing."

Pray, tell, what exactly did Microsoft steal? Did they steal your problem space? Because patents don't cover problems. They cover solutions.

Re:They took our problem and made it their own!

[twitter]

I see nothing in that stupid patent that isn't nebulous and pathetic.

Most software patents are like that. It's what you get when you try to call an abstraction and invention. I'd be much happier if Bill Gates spent his billions eliminating software patents, rather than supporting them and abusing them when it suits him.

Pray, tell, what exactly did Microsoft steal? Did they steal your problem space? Because patents don't cover problems. They cover solutions.

What an amazingly empty statement. I imagine the market leader in device agnostic virtual desktop synchronization has a few solutions. That's why people buy their product and why M$ wants into the space. Lord knows, you won't get anything like that from M$. Those clowns have problems syncing a pocket PC at the end of a USB cable.

It's funny how you quote the first AC poster in the blog thread. Did you spam them too or did you simply cut and paste the comment? Next time say or steal something that makes sense.

Re:They took our problem and made it their own!

[Anonymous Coward]

What is your problem? The poster was making perfect sense to me, and quoting someone isn't "stealing". Get a grip and cheer up some. Life is much more valuable than bitching over somebody you clearly didn't understand.

Hint: You both agree patents are bad for innovation and the market.

Re:They took our problem and made it their own!

[Anonymous Coward]

Clarification: I just found the post, maybe it's the same guy. So what?

This is how I understood it:
Problem space is the space of problems you are experiencing. They might not have any solutions yet.
Solution space is the space of solutions to these specific problems. This is the same as implementation of the patent in question.

Problem space is always greater or equal to solution space.
Basically, you are thrashing this guy for misinterpreting him. Sometimes you need to allow people some leeway you know.

He might as well said patents should cover implementations, which is what they're supposed to cover in the first place, not a broad range of problems. Actually, software patents are ill-fit, because software is basically algorithms, which is the abstract description, or problem space! This is excactly why software patents are evil (read: dumb, there's no such thing as evil, just degrees of dumbness).

Copyright already covers implementation, so software patents are really fools gold (or the greedy rich bastard's gold), and has nothing to do with innovation.

Since you're thrashing him, you get some well-deserved thrashing back ;-)

Have a nice day!

Broad == Vague

[komodotoes]

From TFA:

But in the coming months we filed broad patent applications that were subsequently granted.

I think that pretty much describes one of the big problems with the current patent system (and it's not just the American patent system, so don't go getting righteous because you live outside the U.S.) - the patents that are granted are very broad. The original purpose of patents was to give rights to people who had specific ideas that resulted in specific products (tangible or intangible), not sweeping vagaries that left room for interpretation.



NeverEndingBillboard.com

Re:Broad == Vague

[MightyMartian]

Patents were originally designed to protect an inventor's investment. They were not intended to be the source of investment in and of themselves. The patent system is now essentially a means and end unto itself, and looking at it, it's almost inevitable that businesses have formed whose sole reason for existence is to patent as many loose and overgeneralized ideas as possible and then wait for someone to walk into the trap. The notion is basically that large corporations will simply settle rather than go through a trial. The government seems to think it has no problem with the patent system, when it is the government which must give the system teeth to severely punish those who try to screw around.

No content in this 'article'

[tpgp]

Don't bother reading this blog posting - for your amusement I will present the entertaining parts:

our only assets were 17 computers and a very well used futon.

*shivers* Glad I didn't work there....

Oh - and this photo is mildly amusing too...

Re:No content in this 'article'

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean he's leeching bandwidth off bbspot too? Cool guy.

Re:No content in this 'article'

[tpgp]

You mean he's leeching bandwidth off bbspot too? Cool guy.

Hell - I didn't notice that as I posted - thanks AC.

It appears this 'patent holder' is linking to the BBSPOT image from the classic Microsoft Purchases Evil From Satan article.

Without attribution too. Nice to see that he respects others intellectual property

BBSpot - if you're reading this, please change the image something nasty. I don't care what - but I would like to see a (well used) futon in there...

Re:No content in this 'article'

[Rick and Roll]

That doesn't make you a geek. That makes you a VC pig.

Re:No content in this 'article'

[briggsb]

Sorry I wasn't able to change the image in time. Looks like he's gotten rid of it.

Sounds familiar?

[Anonymous Coward]

A client stores a first set of workspace data, and is coupled via a computer network to a global server. The client may be configured to synchronize portions of the first set of workspace data with the global server, which stores independently modifiable copies of the portions. The global server may also store workspace data which is not downloaded from the client, and thus stores a second set of workspace data. The global server may be configured to identify and authenticate a user seeking global server access from a remote terminal, and is configured to provide access to the first set or to the second set. Further, services may be stored anywhere in the computer network. The global server may be configured to provide the user with access to the services. The system may further include a synchronization-start module at the client site (which may be protected by a firewall) that initiates interconnection and synchronization with the global server when predetermined criteria have been satisfied.

This sounds like almost any network which has the ability to cache passwords (a "set of data," as described by the patent) so that users don't necessarily need network connectivity to log in, while the real network password may be different if they have been disconnected for a while (a second "set of data" on the server).

Re:Sounds familiar?

[VMSBIGOT]

It also is in Windows 2000, called either CSC (client side caching) or offline folders and folder redirection. Since IE version 3 (maybe eariler) you could work "offline" allowing it to cache locally a remote website. Active Desktop also used it.

Groove? Yahoo? Where does it stop?

[DanielMarkham]

(disclaimer: I am a IP patent holder)

I've been using Groove for over a year now, and it is really cool. It does all that stuff that is in the Visto patent. So does Yahoo, and a bunch of other services. I can see that in 1995, perhaps this was a new idea, but ten years later it is all over the place. Synchronizing files and services by use of a global server? I would bet that even in '95 you could find analogies somewhere -- incremental backups or some such. Wasn't database replication being worked back in 95 as well?

It's unclear from the information provided whether this was a truly new invention that Microsoft is trying to poach (along with half the world of computer development) or it was a day late and a dollar short. Once again, waiting ten years after the patent application is filed makes such analysis almost impossible. Technology is moving very quickly. The patent system needs to be fixed where we are not arguing ten-year old ideas -- by this time it's all old hat.

My Blog

Re:Groove? Yahoo? Where does it stop?

[game kid]

(disclaimer: I am a IP patent holder)

F/OSS Traitor! *takes out pitchfork, noose and rubber ducky* GET HIM!!!

Seriously, your "The patent system needs to be fixed where we are not arguing ten-year old ideas -- by this time it's all old hat" belief seems contrary to your holdings. Give it/them away after ten holding years and then we'll know how your really feel.

Re:Groove? Yahoo? Where does it stop?

[SaDan]

Synchronizing files and services by use of a global server? I would bet that even in '95 you could find analogies somewhere -- incremental backups or some such. Wasn't database replication being worked back in 95 as well?

How about email servers with users connecting from more than one machine via IMAP?

Re:Groove? Yahoo? Where does it stop?

[DanielMarkham]

NOT THE RUBBER DUCKY. ANYTHING BUT THE RUBBER DUCKY

Seriously. 97% of all patents never produce any income for the holders. So I can say with certainty that there is a 97% chance I will comply. I will comply! Keep the ducky away from me!

Re:Groove? Yahoo? Where does it stop?

[Savantissimo]

Your post could give people the mistaken impression that this patent is 10 years old, but actually it wasn't filed until September 20, 2000. In fact it doesn't even reference any patents before 1995 and astonishingly only a handful of non-patent references. I think that this will be reexamined and the patent-holders will be found to have failed in their duty of candor and thus to have perpetrated a fraud against the PTO. The claims are all clearly either anticipated in the art or obvious applications of existing art to forseeable future problems.

Re:Groove? Yahoo? Where does it stop?

[game kid]

All right, all right.

*throws away pitchfork and noose*

*puts ducky back in pocket*

*continues to finger ducky cowboy-draw style while walking into sunset and passing tumbleweeds*

Re:Groove? Yahoo? Where does it stop?

[DanielMarkham]

You are correct. In the blog he mentions 1995, which I thought was the date of inception. As you probably know, inception date could be as early as September 1998.

Re:Groove? Yahoo? Where does it stop?

[Kermit870]

Another 2cent thought, rather than grouping all patents together under one standard, how difficult would it be to set different guidelines on different types of patents? Given that most software can be safely considered a "non-novelty" or even out-of-date if not updated within a few short years, why not reduce the patents to a few years also? This would provide protection (to startups and big corps. alike) without giving them grounds for monopoly. A 5 year patent would *more* than cover existing technologies and wouldn't hinder future innovation. Protect the inventors but make the abstract claims publicly available within a few years. Definitely better than the vague, meaningless, nigh-limitless system.

Time to drag out this old chestnut

[This Old Chestnut]

Reading arguments on Slashdot is like watching the Special Olympics - it's retards all the way down.

Re:Time to drag out this old chestnut

[lbrandy]

Reading arguments on Slashdot is like watching the Special Olympics - it's retards all the way down.

Reading slashdot comments and being upset that there are arguments is like watching the special olympics and expecting not to find retards. It's the entire point.

Re:Time to drag out this old chestnut

[burnin1965]

Reading arguments on Slashdot is like watching the Special Olympics - it's retards all the way down.


Reading slashdot comments and being upset that there are arguments is like watching the special olympics and expecting not to find retards. It's the entire point.

Replying to comments on slashdot concerning how retarded the arguements are is something only a retard would ... oh wait

rsync?

[burnin1965]

So this guy patented rsync?

Andrew Tridgell has copyrights on rsync as old as 1996, possibly even older.

This patent never should have passed the Novel or Obviousness tests. I find it amazing reading some of these patents that have been issued and finding that the patent itself explains why it should not be patentable. From the uspto.gov website:

"The subject matter sought to be patented must be sufficiently different from what has been used or described before that it may be said to be nonobvious to a person having ordinary skill in the area of technology related to the invention."

Now I'll get a long list of replies with "if it was obvious how come nobody did it before". All I can tell you is that just because somebody hasn't done it doesn't mean its not obvious.

Let me explain it this way, if you have a problem that needs to be solved by developing a software application and you can sit down with a developer and he says "yeah, I can do that" then its obvious. If the developer says "thats impossible" and somebody then spends significant time and resources trying to find a solution and does, they very well may have something that is patentable.

That said I would also point out that in 99.999% of all cases software algorithms and solutions are not patentable, they should be covered by copyright. And copyright covers the actual code a binaries, not reverse engineering. If somebody does the same thing with their own code it is not a copyright violation.

burnin

Re:rsync?

[headkase]

Even worse, to me it seems like he's patenting association between items of data. That data could be as simple as username:password or something like a dictionary in Python: dictionary['key']=value. And since thats prior art in languages, it only leaves performing the operation over the Internet. Which I don't think is novel enough to patent nowadays.

While I decry software patents....

[CodeShark]

The facts are:
 

• in my own experience and that of a family member who is also a programmer, we know that Microsoft steals and implements other people's tech all the time, usually putting otherwise viable companies out of business in the mean time because they can selectively manipulate the OS to their advantage, and
• software patents exist, and if Visto has a valid patent and doesn't want M$ to steamroller them, they have to defend themselves now.

And if M$ gets the crap kicked out of them and loses a bunch of money because the patent is valid, so much the better. If the patent's not valid, then M$ attorney's have to be paid, AKA Microsoft foots the bill that invalidates the patent for the rest of us. Which is not a bad thing either.

Question is, if the patent is valid, will Visto play nice with the rest of the world and thereby gain favor and $$ in the short and long run, or pull a Unisys (.gif fiasco) style play and shoot themselves in the foot?

Legal Semantics

[Radical Rad]

Abstract

A client stores a first set of workspace data, and is coupled via a computer network to a global server. The client may be configured to synchronize portions of the first set of workspace data with the global server, which stores independently modifiable copies of the portions. The global server may also store workspace data which is not downloaded from the client, and thus stores a second set of workspace data. The global server may be configured to identify and authenticate a user seeking global server access from a remote terminal, and is configured to provide access to the first set or to the second set. Further, services may be stored anywhere in the computer network. The global server may be configured to provide the user with access to the services. The system may further include a synchronization-start module at the client site (which may be protected by a firewall) that initiates interconnection and synchronization with the global server when predetermined criteria have been satisfied.

Which definition of may is being used here?

1. To be allowed or permitted to: May I take a swim? Yes, you may.
2. Used to indicate a certain measure of likelihood or possibility: It may rain this afternoon.
3. Used to express a desire or fervent wish: Long may he live!
4. Used to express contingency, purpose, or result in clauses introduced by that or so that: expressing ideas so that the average person may understand.
5. To be obliged; must. Used in statutes, deeds, and other legal documents. See Usage Note at can1.

Some parts of the abstract appear to use (5), to be obliged, must. But other parts are ambiguous and sound as though they are possible but not necessary (2). 'Which may be protected by a firewall' certainly sounds optional.

If this patent is not thrown out as too broad or because it doesn't appear to have any innovation in it, then will patent attourneys argue in later cases that it is more general than what the patent examiner actually intended? They may. They may indeed.

Re:Legal Semantics

[Anonymous Coward]

The abstract doesn't count. It's just there to be full of bullshit so that your patent is hard to find on a patent search and you can sue unsuspecting people who spent thousands of dollars making sure they didn't infringe on any patents but still failed to find yours. A past USPTO article on slashdot referenced two completely different patents that had had the abstract copied and pasted word for word, and they were still accepted.

Now, whether they used "may" in the claims, that's what's important.

Re:Legal Semantics

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, 'may' does NOT obligate anything. The word for that is 'shall'. The word 'can' designates whether or not something is possible. The use of the word 'may' when 'shall' is meant is just sloppy writing/speaking.

Earlier examples....

[jd]

I know for a fact that Archie (the original FTP search engine) predates 1995, but it is arguable as to whether it could be said to be driven by a global server. The NIS/YP password/account system is also most definitely older and was designed to be run with a database replicated off a global server, but that might be considered too trivial an example.

Your best bet might be some of the early X.??? protocols, as many of these are pre-Internet - Europe ran off the International Packet Switch Stream in the stone age of computing, which was X.25-based and used its own databases for handling name resolution and other directories.

Re:Earlier examples....

[fritsd]

How about Gopher?? AFAIK there was one global top-level node, in Minnesota I believe?

Re:Earlier examples....

[fritsd]

(apologies for following up on myself) Now that I read a bit more, it sounds more like CVS (as another poster already mentioned). I just checked the CVS Changelog and it goes back to 1993.

Pseudocode, Lawyer-Style

[joe_n_bloe]

"Thereafter, the applet 359 in step 1325 acts as the I/O interface with the communications interface 340 of the global server 115. If the global server 115 in step 1330 determines that it is unauthorized to perform a remote terminal 105 user's request, then the global server 115 in step 1345 determines whether the method 1050b ends, e.g., whether the user has quit. If so, then method 1050b ends. Otherwise, method 1050b returns to step 1325 to obtain another request. If the global server 115 in step 1330 determines that it is authorized to perform the remote terminal 105 user's request, then the global server 115 in step 1340 acts as the proxy for the remote terminal 105 to the service 615. As proxy, the global server 115 forwards the service request to the selected service 615 and forwards responses to the requesting applet 359 currently executing on the remote terminal 105. Method 1050b then jumps to step 1345."

Re:Pseudocode, Lawyer-Style

[rodentia]

Righteous.

The pseudo-specificity of such language is intended not to explicitly describe anything constructive, but to induce a state of mental torpor in the examiner.

Just another foolish patent -- but funny.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am adamantly against the current practice of patenting everything (even your DNA can apparently be patented by someone else), but since Microsoft has patented everything except milk gravy (I don't think they have patented milk gravy), its funny that they have to defend against something that they do all the time.

Maybe this will cheer MS up

[kalel666]

It looks like the fifth patent NTP was suing RIM over has been overturned by the USPTO: http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20051221 150546394

The article seems upbeat about patent reform coming, but I doubt it. I think the prevalence of Blackberrys in D.C. probably had more to do with this being overturned.

I guess I'll bust it out here

[CrazyJim1]

What extols affairs, bemoans and swears
Polls Rover your neighbors dog?
What's great for some flack a personal attack?
It's Blog, Blog. Blog!

It's Blog, Blog, its big, it's heavy, it could.
It's Blog, Blog, it's better than bad, it's good!
Everyone wants a Blog! You're gonna love it, Blog!
Come and get your Blog! Everyone needs a Blog!

US versus Them?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You may not like our patent system... but the concepts of patents are incredibly useful and valuable to society as a whole."

Most "baby/bathwater" arguments against IP (copyright, patents, trademark, secrets) are made by those with no stake in the system. Those people unremarkably are also illiterate when it comes to all things, human.* IP ultimately is about people, not technology.

*Geeks have the reputation for poor social skills. Obviously not the traits of those knowledgable about humanity.

Patent reads like a description of IBM's WebSphere

[Shandon]

Patent reads like a description of IBM's WebSphere, which was on the market in June 1998, long before the September 20, 2000 filing date of the Visto patent. Another USPTO wheeze!

Shandon

It depends on what the meaning of "global" is.

[hackwrench]

If they mean "worldwide", then "globalness" is not a property of a server, but of the relationship between a server and a world...Whoah, Every single MMOG is in violation of this patent in two senses of the world global!

Maybe this will be the one

[Sir_Real]

Finally? The straw that breaks the camels back. When big companies become lawful targets (not ethical, just lawful) and are suddenly financially exposed, there will be reform.

If Microsoft loses, all bets are off. A loss here legitimizes patent barratry as a business model.

But, if Microsoft wins, their patent portfolio loses value.

I can't wait. Nuthin like a good petard hoisting to get the blood pumpin.

Re:Maybe this will be the one

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft loses, all bets are off. A loss here legitimizes patent barratry as a business model. But, if Microsoft wins, their patent portfolio loses value. I can't wait. Nuthin like a good petard hoisting to get the blood pumpin.

barratry? petard? hoisting? Good God, man, speak English!

Re:Maybe this will be the one

[StikyPad]

Or the third option -- the patent could just be invalidated and the suit will set no precedent whatsoever. My money's on that.

Re:Maybe this will be the one

[justins]

Nuthin like a good petard hoisting to get the blood pumpin.

Don't touch me there!!!!!

Followup...

[hackwrench]

Man, oh Man, It now appears every time I sneakernetted I violated this patent...where do I pay up? Still scouring for other ways I'm in violation of this patent...

Hmm... seems that the part where I saved files from the internet onto a PC-FAT12 formatted diskette from the library's Macintoshes violates the device-independent capabilities of their patents.

I'm hosed... Yeah, right!

I love this guy...

[thesnarky1]

But now that the market is finally maturing, Microsoft is doing what is does so well--bringing products to market based on other companies' technology. Hey, I normally have no problem with that--I prefer Word over Wordstar, Excel over Visicalc, and Access over dbaseIV. But this time Microsoft is steamrolling its way into wireless messaging through the clear theft of my, Daniel's, Chris', and others' intellectual property. That's why Visto is suing.

This is great, first he thinks it's fine for Microsoft to steamroll others, because he prefers their solution. Then he gets mad when they do him?! If you support them "stealing" from other people, you better be ready to have your stuff stolen. I cannot understand his logic at all here. As for the patent, IANAL, but from what I gather, this isn't exactly an open and shut case. In fact, his sytem sounds quite broad, and one person even pointed out CVS was na exmaple of it (from 1986)! I think (hope) this'll fade into the background of all the other horrible patent fights we've seen. And will trouble it no more.

No, I didn't RTFA, but..

[MaXiMiUS]

Software patents are sin. Yes, EVEN if it harms Microsoft. That doesn't make it any better.

Software Patent Validity...

[3seas]

Software patents are as valid as the idea of the earth being flat.

And it is provable.

Problem is that neither side of the software development community (proprietary and open source) have either the incentive or clarity of mind to to support the proof.

However, just as the roman numeral system finally gave way (after 300 years since the initial introduction of the hindu arabic decimal system) to the much simpler and more powerful decimal system and included zero place holder..... So will software patent break down.

fraud simply cannot hold itself together for long...

The weight of the wrongs of software patents will build until it topples over.

These large corporate donations of software patents to the open source community are two fold in reason. One to slow the topple, the other to try and substain PR "for software patents"...

software ware patents won't fall easily, but they will fall.

The difference is whether or not you and I get a chance to experience the benefits of honesty about software and its common place (as the decimal system of math is today) usage..... and what all people will then come up with..

NOTE: the computer as we know it today, could not have been built using the mathmatical limitations of the roman numeral system. The same leap in advancement can happen when software is inherently free because you make it up as you need it, like using a calculator to calculate something as you need it.

hmmn

[Bizzeh]

by that definition, any one of us could be sued for connecting to any site on the internet...

Priority dates

[Compulawyer]

The patent may have issued in 2004 but the priority date (the earliest filing date that the patent can take advantage of) is 1997. Also, just from the list of references cited, it appears that this patent was examined more thoroughly than many software patents I have seen.

Re:Priority dates

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Also, just from the list of references cited, it appears that this patent was examined more thoroughly than many software patents I have seen.

Ten minutes is still too short a time in which to approve a patent.

Q.E.D.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Problem is that neither side of the software development community (proprietary and open source) have either the incentive or clarity of mind to to support the proof.

You forgot to mention the proof in your post. It goes as follows:

1. Under current patent system rules, mathematical algorithms cannot be patented.
2. Computer software IS a mathematcial algorithm.
3. Therefore computer software cannot be patented.

It's really quite unambiguous. If someone comes at you claiming they have a patent on a piece of software you own, simply use the defence that your software is a mathematical algorithm, and thus is not subject to patentability.

Of course this defense would be flawless if i weren't for the fact that:
"Here at the USPTO, we grant patents without predjudice towards trifling things such as unoriginality, gross obviousness and indeed, patentability itself! We've been a proud supporter of the legal industry for over 200 years!"

Blog *Digest/joke* "Informative"?

[cmholm]

Today I woke up and...I hope we'll do a great job together."

Unless I rolled off the wrong side of the link this morning, the "Blog Except" is a joke. A well crafted joke, paraphrasing the nut of David Cowen's blog, but still an obvious joke. Ah well, I guess a well done cartoon can inform as well as a multi-column news piece.

d*** stupid patents

[icepick72]

I don't despise any company enough to wish this type of patent to be found against them. The patent is basically about synchronizing/moving data in a certain way. Does this mean I can patent the exact pattern of roads that I take to work everyday? If somebody else doesn't want to pay, then they can instead turn left a little futher on.

Hope M$ wins this one

[David's Boy Toy]

There has to be so much prior art out there its not even funny. CVS, rsync, etc. all use the idea of the transmission of diffs. Even if the patent isn't 100% invalidated, the prior art should drastically limit its scope.

A Question

[echurchill]

I realize that I am asking a loaded question but: Has Microsoft ever actually sued anyone over patents? Not in response to being sued (between governments and sharks, there have been a few of those), but as a first strike. I have heard of cross patent "agreements" but never an actual lawsuit. I went searching around and couldn't find any; alas searching for something like this is harder than I thought.

Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft but they don't own me, they are just renting my mind and fingers ;-)

Buzzword city!

[AndroidCat]

As I thought about the problem, pondering the range of computing devices that would ultimately participate in reading and writing email/PIM data, I concluded that we'd eventually need virtual desktops to synthesize and synchronize the workspaces instantiated in each device.

But what about the quantum phase variance? Don't you need to reverse the polarity of the neutrino flow? What a load of self-important dribblings with a completely unnecessary use of buzzwords just to make his obvious statements seem profound! (Hint: It wouldn't seem profound even if he played the theme to Backdraft along with it.)

Has anybody ever tried to sue the patent office?

[simonfunk]

It seems to me the patent office is routinely and grossly negligent in performing its duties, and this is costing businesses millions of dollars and the country as a whole billions. And I'm just talking about legal fees and unduly diverted revenue, not even touching on how the economy is being stifled (which is much harder to measure).

Isn't that grounds for a law suit?

Couldn't any company who has been sued for violating some patent that is eventually overturned as absurd seek to recover associated legal expenses (and lost revenues caused by any associated delays) from the patent office itself?

From what I have read in the past, the patent office seems to be motivated internally by revenue. While I'm all for not wasting taxpayer money, I would rather have my taxes pay for a well-run, highly scrupulous patent system that grants only sparingly than pay nothing for one that costs me far far more in indirect consequences.

ADD David versus Attentive Goliath?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The concept of "Invent, patent, stop inventing" is quaint and a cute platitude.. it would come as one hell of a surprise to the people I work with, though. You have a sexy vision of what the patent world must be like.... trying to get "a patent" so you can retire is like trying to win the lottery.. and only someone on the outside viewing inside via the microscope of a smattering of news article would buy that nonsense."

AH...MEN! Unfortunately most slashdotters (contrary to what being a geek means) don't do research, and view the world through the "/." lens (and it shows). If this forum was truely populated by "worldly" geeks? Then we would be having a civil discussion about the flaws in the execution (not to be confused with fundamental flaws in the idea of patents) of the patent system. Instead we have "I hate the US" posts, plus some "grass is always greener" for good measure. Throw in "let's hate big corporations/government". It never stops. You can write all the correct answers, and it's either moderated out of existance. Or it goes in one ear, and out the other (guess that goes with the ADD?).

The only blessing in disguise is that no one from the outside takes this forum seriously. Heaven help the planet when slashdot gets quoted as an authoritative source.

By the time no patents exist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me ask a question here. When, in the future, the patent system collapses under its own stupidity, and there are no more patents as we now know them (as some of the above replies suggest), imagine the following scenario:

You are a fresh, talented start-up with a brilliant idea. You can't patent your idea, so you just go ahead and start your business. Other companies bigger than you, or ones specialized to do this, may reuse your idea the following month, and because they are financially capable, they'll still steamroll you, much like today's large patent-holder companies.

So instead of focusing on patents, show me a way to protect yourself from financial behemoths. Or, better even, show me how to prevent human greed! Without that, patents or not, everybody else is steamrolled.

Re:By the time no patents exist...

[Cygnusx12]

I dont think the patent system will collapse, I dont think anyone is really even calling for such drastic measures.

What people want is reform.

The issue then, is what happens to all those ridiculous patents already granted? Do they refile? Just who is required to refile? What would be the litmus test for "obviousness". Do they get their money back? (dont laugh!)

As I understand it, the patent office is a bit of a government cash cow, I wouldn't expect the government to change anything that's going to stop that, because Joe SixPack and his cousin just don't know/care. There have been some intresting ideas about "bounties" here on Slashdot that I think you could sell the government on.

Umm...

[TheSpoom]

Cause, y'know, the immigration officer is so likely to believe that you're a refugee from the US. Even with the amount of civil liberties Americans are losing, they're not even close enough for it to be considered that they would be actively prosecuted upon their return (at least, not without them having broken laws equivalent to Canadian laws, which would then stop them from being able to enter in the first place).

If you want to see how hard it is to immigrate to Canada, check the forums at Road To Canada. It can often take a year or more to obtain Permanent Residency (our equivalent of your Green Card, and people are flat out refused all the time), then another three years before one can sit the Citizenship exam.

My girlfriend lives in the US, and I have carefully examined the different possibilities of Canadian immigration. I'm likely going to sponsor her as a member of the Family Class. Trust me when I say that if it were that easy to move up here, we already would have considered it.

Re:Umm...

[Phisbut]

Cause, y'know, the immigration officer is so likely to believe that you're a refugee from the US. Even with the amount of civil liberties Americans are losing, they're not even close enough for it to be considered that they would be actively prosecuted upon their return (at least, not without them having broken laws equivalent to Canadian laws, which would then stop them from being able to enter in the first place).

Actually, since the war in Iraq, there has been a number of american soldiers who came here to Canada as refugees. Being opposed to the US invasion of Iraq, they deserted, and would now face martial court (with a possible death penalty sentence) if they were to go back to the US. Granted, most americans wouldn't be admitted as refugees, but since you still have death penalty over there, some people can claim their life is in danger should they go back.

Re:Umm...

[tomhudson]

It is that easy. Its done all the time.

One of my friends was living here illegally (he came in on a visitor's visa and never left). His brother ratted him out to immigration. The inspector who came couldn't believe that the guys' brother would pull a stunt like that, and told him that his best bet was to get married. He knew a woman who accepted $4,000 in return for a quickie wedding, with the understanding that, after he received his citizenship papers, they'd get divorced.

He's now a Canadian citizen, married to someone else.

Similarly, I know a woman who was engaged to a guy in the states, and was living down there illegally for a year before they got married. She came back to Canada for a week, and US immigration refused to let her back into the States. Net result - the guy flew up here, married her, and they returned to the US.

While my "rules" were tongue-in-cheek, they are also true.

I know a couple from the 3rd world who divorced, went to the US, "married" family friends, got citizenship, then divorced, all 4 "married" others they wanted to bring in, got citizenship for them as well, then they all divorced and married their former spouses, then sponsored other family members. Last I heard, they had managed to bring in 51 family members over the course of a decade.

For people who are desperate, this isn't "that extreme" a solution.

Re:Umm...

[HAMgeek]

"Even with the amount of civil liberties Americans are losing"

[begin tirade]Interesting... I'm an American and can't think of even one single civil liberty that I've lost. Unless you consider the freedom to make bomb-threats at the airport or other similarly stupid behavior to be part of your civil liberties. I can travel anywhere I want within the borders of the U.S. without having to show anyone my "papers", with the possible exception of showing my drivers license/proof of insurance to the police officer who catches me speeding, or committing some other moving violation. I can carry my pistol concealed almost anywhere I want. I can say or write anything I want, as long as it's not a deliberate falsehood intended to cause harm to someone else, in which case I'm subject to getting sued by the victim, or supporting violent overthrow of the govt, which has been a illegal since like, forever so I never had that "liberty" and one can't lose what one never had to begin with. And as for the bogus crap that's been in the news lately about the NSA spying on American Citizens... even if it were true, I see nothing wrong with it. If we've got folks inside our borders plotting against our national interests, the govt needs to know about it. If I were a frequent flyer, I'd have no problem with strip searching every single person who gets on a plane. I don't think it's a violation of civil liberty to actually catch criminals, kill terrorists, or toss illegal immigrants back over the border and shoot them if they try to come back without going through the proper channels.

Anyway, I guess my point is, the U.S. isn't perfect. But judging by the number of people from every other country who literally fight and claw over each other to try to get in here, it must be the best thing going on the planet.[end tirade]

Re:Umm...

[TheSpoom]

That is interesting, and I'd go as far as to say that Immigration was right to let them in in these circumstances. I hadn't heard about this before. Great post.

Re:Umm...

[TheSpoom]

To clarify: You would have no problem with getting strip searched yourself?

(BTW, thankfully, this doesn't happen that much, and I have never been subject to it. I fly every month or so.)

Re:Umm...

[HAMgeek]

To clarify: You would have no problem with getting strip searched yourself?

<evil grin>Depending on who was doing the search...</evil grin> Seriously, although I'd probably not find it an enjoyable experience, I wouldn't consider it a violation of my civil rights. I do not consider a search, even a strip search, to ensure that no one getting on a plane, myself included, is carrying anything that might jeapardize the rest of the passengers to be an "unreasonable search."

I have seen this before...

[reverend0]

Reading the claims this seems to be just like the MS briefcase (which I am sure is stolen from somewhere else). When when docking your machine into the network the briefcase would check versions and make sure everything in cool. Of course that was about 5 years before this patent....

Get your GED, for God's sake !!!

[fizteh89]

"NOTE: the computer as we know it today, could not have been built using the mathmatical limitations of the roman numeral system. The same leap in advancement can happen when software is inherently free because you make it up as you need it, like using a calculator to calculate something as you need it."

What a pearl of idiocy !

So you, Slashbot geeks, can write an advanced speech-recognition software, for example, when you need it, right ?

Go get your GED now !!!

Re:Get your GED, for God's sake !!!

[3seas]

You can get a GED in roman numeral mathmatics today?

Hmmm, let me guess, its thru a catholic school....

Seeing how they took long enough to exorniate Galileo.... in 1990...

Then there is the developer arguement path against something simple...

ie, what do you mean "advanced speech recognizion" explain it in less then ten words but be sure to give enough information to avoid misunderstanding....bla bla bla...

How can nothing have value.... what a silly stupid thought, get a GED..... what roman numeral accountants with their high society status position.. generally used to argue against the zero place holder to suppress the adoption of the decimal system... and in accountability of their limited self interest... kept better from happening... for awhile...

Interesting how I have become "slashdot geeks..."

I thought I was just one person....

speech recognize that! But don't use a mic.

business

[Anonymous Coward]

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A simple Google reveals all...

[icemann476]

Would you beleive that I was in the middle of writing a school paper when I decided to Google the key words "Microsoft lawsuit" and Poof!! Slashdot was Google's first choice!