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Microsoft Loses Appeal in Guatemalan Patent Claim
Spy der Mann writes "A year ago, Guatemalan inventor Carlos Armando Amado sued Microsoft for stealing an Office idea he had tried to sell them in '92. They were found to be infringing on his patent and had to pay him $9 million in damages, but they refused and appealed the decision. Today, just a year after they appealed, the Court confirmed the verdict: Microsoft loses. If that wasn't enough, the amount was raised to $65 million for continuing infringement."
Points in the general direction of Redmond.
Ha ha!
Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam
So that's the son-of-a-bitch that invented Clippy... Only when pitched his name was El Hungry Clippo, the spelling-error eating robot.
I thought we had all agreed that software patents were a bad idea? All of them.
You must be new here.
Here are the rules reg. patents on slashdot:
If it is a patent by google/apple, it is a defensive patent and hence good.
If it is a patent by any other company, it is teh evil.
If it is a patent that hurts Microsoft, then it is good and that is how patents are supposed to work.
If a customer goes into a store, buys an item, and it later turns out that the store was selling stolen merchandise, the customer is still liable for posession of stolen property. It doesn't matter one bit that they didn't know the item was illegal. The situation really isn't any different.
The situation is different..... unless Microsoft habitually sells pirated software, oh wait! That's what's being alleged here!
No, /. is a much larger and varied crowd than you seem to give it credit for. There are people here who despise all patents under any case, others who despise all software patents or patents on methods or some other subset of patets, some who despise patents that don't harm MS, people who would give there left arm to buy a patent for google, those that would give your left arm to buy a patent for apple, and those that enjoy reading about multi-million dollar lawsuits being flung around by the big boys.
I consider myself in the second (I don't like patents on methods - which includes software - and last categories. I am happy to hear this lawsuit is going on, lawyers are getting paid, the trolls are well fed, the little guy wins. This truly is justice my friend. It is a shame you have failed to see it; your upstanding principles must really interfere with your choices for entertainment.
When all else fails, try.
When reached for comment, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated "Carlos Armando Amado is a fucking pussy. I've done it before and I'll do it again... I'm going to Fucking Kill(TM) Carlos Armando Amado!" He then hurled a chair in the general direction of Guatemala.
Yeah, isn't America supposed to be big on capital punishment? If the most extreme form is good enough for children and the mentally disabled, I'd think Microsoft's management would definitely qualify for at least a good caning in the public sqaure. Does Washington even have public sqaures? That would be a great make-work project: public squares for canings. It would also stimulate the local market for canes. A few sets of stocks wouldn't hurt either; those guys at SCO might qualify for a week in stocks. And there could be a law stating that members of congress have to spend a month in a suspended metal cage for each campaign promise they fail to keep. Suspended cages -- oh what the middle ages can teach us about justice.
Ah yes, a very important distinction. Although it is ironic that a nation so willing to execute anyone and everyone would flinch away from a simple caning -- and positively recoil in horror when another nation does to some punk what his own parents should already have.