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Microsoft, Autodesk Guilty of Patent Infringement
rfunches writes "A Texas jury has awarded $133 million in damages to David Colvin, after finding Microsoft and Autodesk guilty of infringing upon Colvin's two software patents for software antipiracy protection. Colvin's company, z4 Technologies Inc., filed patents for 'passwords and codes assigned to individual software copies to prevent unauthorized copies.' Microsoft was ordered to pay $115 million, and Autodesk $18 million for infringement of the product-activation schemes. A spokesman from Microsoft contends that 'Microsoft developed its own product-activation technologies well before z4 Technologies filed for its patent.' Appeals are expected."
From TFA: Well, I don't know about Autodesk, but I think everyone here knows Microsoft's rather dubious track record with patents, as evidenced by this list of previous Slashdot stories:
Sorry, Microsoft, but if you want to play the patent game like this, you can't be too upset when you get played from time to time.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
My initial reaction was total delight at knowing that software patents are biting software companies back. But on second thoughts, all this will encourage is many more mindless software patents by the big firms to cover their asses.
I don't want to read
...it's a silly software patent being exploited to make cash.
On the other, they're taking a bite out of microsoft.
I just don't know how to feel about that.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I remember password and/or code protected software on the earliest PCs, the Amiga, everything! How the hell is this patentable? Oh wait, its the US Patent Office, nevermind.
This patent was filed in September 5, 2003. Here are just a few of the Microsoft products that used this methodology before the patent was filed:
That's not even mentioning the plethora of other Microsoft products for the PC and Mac that used unique IDs. Anything that came with a certificate of authenticity had its own unique number. Microsoft obviously has prior use, and this is a clear case of a computer-illiterate uneducated jury making poor decisions. Surely this will be overturned on appeal.
Sadly the idea of 'defensive patents' only works against other high tech companies with product based revenue streams to protect. It doesn't provide a defense against patent trolls.
The big software companies thought they had a great way to protect them selves from any up and coming, young, innovative start-ups that might compete with them. Create huge war chests of silly software patents and form an old-boys club. All the usual suspects IBM, Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle and others joined in. They've got what they've got and they want to keep it.
If you were already established, you could cross license your patents with the other already established old-boys, and keep doing business. But if some upstart comes along you could charge them money to license your patents, reducing their profitability. That would reduce their ability to threaten your profitability. If the up-start couldn't afford to pay, buy them out cheap. If the people behind the upstart wanted profit, they would either pay or sell because they couldn't profit or gain investors if people thought their products infringed one of the old-boy's patents.
This works against upstarts that have actual products to sell, but the patent trolls just want money. Now that the old-boys have created a system that grants and enforces silly software patents, the patent trolls can buy up defunct tech companies for pennies on the dollar just for their patent portfolios. If the old-boys threaten to use their 'defensive patents' to stop the trolls from selling their products, the trolls just laugh. The trolls don't sell any products. They just sue rich old-boys.
The old-boys created a system of software patents that they thought would help them cripple innovative young competitors, and it does work the way they intended. However they also created a system that could be exploited by patent trolls that have nothing to lose. The old-boys have to decide if the benefits of the added government regulation provided by software patents outweighs the cost of paying tolls to the trolls.
Remember what patents are. Patents are government granted, time limited monopolies. Patents are anti-competitive tools. They are anti-free market devices used to reduce competition in the market place. Supporting increased "Intellectual Property" rights is not a conservative economic position, it is definitely a socialist position that believes the government is better at picking winners and losers in the market place than market forces are. If you support increases in patents copyrights and trademarks, you support liberal economic theories. The constitution already set limits on the length of patents. Patents need to be non-obvious and original. I've seen laws that have changed the way patents work, but I haven't seen any constitutional amendments.