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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."
Good. Good. Good.
This is how the patent system should work. A guy came up with an idea and tried to make his buck. MS stole the idea, which for all intents and purposes ruined his chances of making his money back. So, he sued them and got what he deserved. Eventually.
Of course, 14 years must be a hell of a long time to wait for your money...
I wonder if someone at MS is feeling just a bit stupid right now. Yeah yeah, £65mil is chump change to them, but they do leave with a substantial amount of egg on their face!
Sure, Microsoft would still much rather win, but I doubt they were kidding themselves into thinking that they weren't in the wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole reason they took it to court was to send the message that just because you think that Microsoft is infringing on your patents, doesn't mean they're going to roll over and pay you off. You better be ready to go the distance if you want to earn your dollar.
The lawyers appear to be hoping for more, but it hasn't necessarily been increased to $65 million yet. Personally, I don't think it's worth that much, since the infringing technology is related to:
but heck, that's patent law for you.
Points in the general direction of Redmond.
Ha ha!
Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam
This guy managed to take two packages made by Microsoft and work a way of shifting data between them. So what? I'll guess (given that no reference is given to the actual patent) that given the two packages there are only very few mechanisms, and these are obvious in the context of the software. I can quite understand Microsoft telling him to take a hike for an export/import routine.
As much as it may pain some, this person looks to be a chancer. Just because its the little guy and Microsoft doesn't make it right.
Cost to Microsoft: Negligible. (Microsoft's net income was over $12 billion last year).
Cost to the inventor: 14 years of his life spent fighting a legal battle.
Message to anybody else whose work Microsoft steals: if you take us to court, figure on losing 14 years of your life fighting a legal battle, and by the way you'd better have a lot of money before you start, because Microsoft won't hesitate to spend a few tens of millions on the best legal talent available.
Its not quite that bad, but yes, stalling the case for a year has gained them much more revenue in the country than the 65M fine. Its just consider a 'cost of doing business'.
We have a radio station in town that was similar. They would regularly violate FCC broadcast power and obscenity rules. However, the extra distance ( power ) and listeners ( obscenity ) far outweighed the fines they incurred and just made jokes about it ( on air even ). The process continued for years until they were top dog in that market and didnt need to do it anymore.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've skimmed through the vast extent of it and some points arise:
- it should never have got accepted in the first place, its a piece of software, written as patent
- it references Microsoft FoxPro as something it works within, which both dates it and calls into question the Access/Excel claims
- its a mess of AI, Genetic algorothms, decision support, data mining and virtually every other buzzphrase in the known universe
- it describes a level of intelligent action on input data such as I've never seen in a Microsoft application
If this is really the PoS that $65m is built on, I'm in the wrong game.If that were all that the patent said, Microsoft's team of top lawyers would have ripped it to shreds in seconds. The fact is that Claim 1 just describes a component, for which no originality is claimed. The essence of the patent is that it takes a bunch of things, none of which are novel, and combines them in a way which is claimed to be novel. The patent itself says "its individual elements respond to prior art in the following areas: decision-support software and executive information systems, expert systems and expert system building tools, ..." and it cites 7 examples of prior art just in the area of decision-support software.
The patent is bad because it is a software patent. But if software patents are allowed, then combining known elements in a new way qualifies for a patent, because there is over 100 years of precedent in awarding patents for just that in other fields.
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.
How many fulltime jobs can one man have?
Let me get this straight: the guy patented a method of using the MS APIs to move data between two of their own products? So...basically, he used another companies intellectual property to create his own intellectual property of a feature they were probably going to add themselves later? This ranks up there with patenting business ideas. If Apple had been on the losing end, this place would be filled with outrage at the patent system (ie, the Creative suit).
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.