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Microsoft Copies Idea, Admits It, Then Patents It
An anonymous reader writes "BlueJ is a popular academic IDE which lets students have a visual programming interface. Microsoft copied the design in their 'Object Test Bench' feature in Visual Studio 2005 and even admitted it. Now, a patent application has come to light which patents the very same feature, blatantly ignoring prior art."
If Microsoft get this patent, which from previous granted software patents doesn't seem unlikely, this again shows that software patents do not deserve the name "patent".
A patent used to be something that had invented something new, if whatever they had come up with was already out in the open and common knowledge then there a patent could not be granted.
So many things have been patented late, as far as I know these patents did now show up until a few years ago, yet all kinds of things that has been out in the open has been patented.
Software patents doesn't seem to have anything to do with who invented anything, it is about who first comes up with patenting something and get the application in.
So far I have never heard a sensible argument for why software patents is a good thing. It doesn't look like the big companies that keep on filing these patents would stop developing because there was no such thing as a software patent, they did so long before software patents would ever show up. I haven't heard of a single case where the lone programmer (inventor?) gets a patent for some smart code he invented and the big companies will pay him for his efforts. All that I heard of is big companies (or maybe small companies that invent nothing but has made it their business to file patents for things that already exist) that have asked money from another big company because of these patents.
Based on their behavior here, Microsoft may also already own the patent on having brass balls!
A quick USPTO search doesn't find any specifically covering brass balls as big as these ones, so look for them to file for that patent pretty soon. Amusing sidenote.. I actually did search, and did come across this. And a backup (less amusing) source if first goes down.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Given that this time, they really really know there is prior art, are they just assuming no one can be bothered to have a long lawsuit with someone that rich?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
the rest of microsofts patent portfolio.
Is the news that they finally gave up any pretense of innovation?
Anybody?
*crickets chirping*
Yeah...me neither...
Ubuntu and the like are pretty close and things like Eclipse and RealBasic are giving people the tools to develop for the Linux platform easily. Hopefully it won't be long before people start moving the majority to Linux or OS X rather than the minority.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
That this is no longer a world of great men, but a world of committees.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Vote with your money against such business practices, use competitive products.
And who's going to sue them? Besides aren't you all command-line junkies? Visual IDE's indeed.
The whole purpose of publishing patent applications was so that people could submit prior art to the examiner.
So, if you care, and if you think you have prior art, submit it to the examiner.
the patent game is just that - a game. it doens't cost that much to file an application, and if it gets granted, the game is tilted way in your favor - it is now up to the other party to prove that the patent is bad.
also, you have internal IP depts, and others, whoose yearly evaluation is probably dependent on the number of apps they file.
Beyond that, it is well known that there are many, many patnets that seem ludicrous; this is really dog bites man
Sorry I just patented complaining about patents. I'm sending you a cease and desist letter.
State of Open Source
Only problem is that the USPTO cant know *everything*. So things will slip thru by nature.
The real test is you present valid prior art to them, and see if they revoke it on the spot.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This kind of patent abuse should be remedied with action against the abuser. At the very least the patent attorneys should be barred from filing or working on patents for a period of at least 10% of the duration of the patents they are abusing. And the filer (eg. Microsoft), if guilty of conspiracy to abuse (provable by repeated offenses) should be barred from filing or working on patents for a similar period.
That kind of consequences would force the filers to carry most of the responsibility for researching prior art and other patent invalidators, rather than the incompetent/overloaded PTO. And weed out many of the crooked patent lawyers who make money regardless of how badly they construct the artificial government monopolies they attempt to create.
--
make install -not war
That's the final straw. How feasible would it be to take the USPTO to court for not fulfilling their chartered duty and as a result causing millions of dollars of damage? There have been liability suits against the government, I think. How is this one different?
They will do whatever they think they can get away with... and more. They always have and they always will. Their patent people know quite well what patents are for and what the rules are. They do it anyway. I think if it can be shown through some sort of evidence that they were compelled to files these patents by some sort of directive, that they should actually be barred from filing any further patents if not forever, then for a specific and damaging amount of time. Abusers of 'the system' should be blocked from using the system.
Why not link to the patent application itself? From the USPTO here.
(Posting AC = No karma whoring)
As it happens, Visual Studio Express is a free download from Microsoft. Having recently visited a college with my high school aged son I learned that the students in the Computer Science department all used Studio Express for their school projects. So I think ascribing this behavior to "corporate greed" may be reaching a bit. In fact, the author of the blog laments the fact that they (BlueJ) are only trying to educate, not make money. Given that, they should be happy that their ideas have been adopted and given much wider exposure via Visual Studio. Perhaps their motives are not so pure and they now see their chance at big bucks from the big, rich nasty corporation?
If it were Microsoft company policy to steal ideas that are plainly in the public domain and then patent them, a company with Microsoft's money pile would be the target of thousands of these types of accusations, and rightly so. Rather, I suspect this transgression is the result of some overzealous individuals, perhaps trying to meet patent quotas or gain some upward mobility in an enormously large corporation where it is hard to get noticed. Regardless, should Microsoft ever take the next step and go after BlueJ, I will have to eat these words, because that truly would be an unforgivable act.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Surely by version 3.0, you will understand that Microsoft has done nothing wrong? If not, just run Windows update until the whole thing stops bothering you.
If no one has patented it yet, I want to patent patenting - everyone who wants to patent something, come to me first... :-)
The patent office is run as a business these days. They aren't going to make any money prosecuting their "customers" for perjury.
Just read in a blog (http://rulecore.com/espblog/?p=166) that this is happening in other areas too.
From what I understand there are like decades of research within the event processing area and still Microsoft tries to patent it. The comments on that blog are not too friendly.
Do we hear the sounds of a flawed patent system? I mean, it is business and it is not criminal to *try* to patent anything that you come to think of. But still, not very good on ethics. I wonder that it does to your career to have your name on a patent application in one of these insane patents. Good of bad?
> Now, a patent application has come to light which patents the very same feature, blatantly ignoring prior art.
Bet the USPTO grants the patent anyway. Really.
Its absolutely disgusting that Microsoft can get away with the things that they do. The fact that Microsoft believes it can simply use the law to its own advantage, and ignore the law when it isn't convenient, their complete lack of respect for any other companies work (or just a hobbyists), their lack of ethics in general. Embrace, extend, and extinguish indeed.
Its also disgusting that the US patent office allows this sort of behavoiur to occur. Patents are supposed to be for an invention thats new, not an idea ripped off from a guy who hadn't filed a patent for his work yet, and the patent office is responsible for keeping it that way.
Microsoft can steal any patents they want because they own the gov't. After all, corporations and gov't are merely quid-pro-quo whorehouses sold to the highest bidder. When the gov't needs illegal wire-taps, Verizon and Sprint allow them secret rooms to listen in on calls. When Haliburton (and KBR) need more revenue, the gov't hands out no-bid contracts. When the gov't dislikes literature, Amazon and Wikipedia ban the book "America Deceived". We The People had our gov't sold out from beneath us.
Final link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
How much searching ought you to do for a patent? If your country signed up to the international patent agreements, then for your patent to be valid, there must be no published or sold prior art anywhere in the world or in any language. This is an impossible search, so the assumption is always that any prior art search is incomplete. If all patent applications are incomplete, then some people may wonder why we start at all. You could just do a cursory search of the current online patents, and allow the application. Microsoft have lobbied for a more open system where patent application becomes easier, and the public community does more of the searching. Unfortunately, patent applications have titles, summaries, and patent indexes that make them easy to search, while products are not searchable in the same way. If you searched for prior art on the Microsoft product, then you would be very unlikely to discover BlueJ.
I do not think the public should be required to support the prior art searh effort, but if they are going to be enlisted, then they ought to have the right tools. What I would like to see is some searchable index of prior art or prior ideas. This could be classified the same way as patents. For my particular field of image colour transforms, I would list all the different ways in which would could generate and combine and apply different forms of colour transform, invert them, apply them, with all the different variations we could think of. Other people could generalize this list, or add more specific implementations, as a patent can cover a simplification as well as a refinement. We would include references to prior art where examples could be found. This would not stop existing patent applications for stuff we know has been around for ages, but it could frustrate all future attempts.
As a software writer and a filer of patents, I think we would be better off with no software patents. If we have to have them, let's make them good ones before they bring the whole patent system into disrepute.
so
0 - Microsoft sue BlueJ
1 - BlueJ has no resource to defend itself
2 - ??? (first year on court)
3 - BlueJ bankruptcy and seized
4 - lawyers quite due to lack of paychecks
5 - ??? (second year on court)
666 - Microsoft win (thanks $$$)
"Steve Jobs invented the world" -- Bill W. GATES
Yes, this is evil. But you're underestimating the problem if you think it's just Microsoft or that we can stop it by reigning in a single company. Apple does the same thing, for example, as do many other companies.
The only solution is a total overhaul of the patent system.
(As for the BlueJ feature itself, I'm not exactly sure what's supposed to be new about it anyway. People have been doing that kind of testing since the days of Smalltalk.)
*** blatantly ignoring prior art ***
When is that any different than a zillion other companies filing patents, sitting quietly, then springing the lawsuits on other companies years later?
What happens is the deelopment department works on something. Then the patent and legal department takes a look at the features, and finds anything that looks innovative. They do a prior art search, and if there are no patents in the field, they patent it. It is possible, that the patents department simply didn't know that this idea was taken from another.
Notice that Microsoft's "official" reply tries to proclaim that MS did not look at BlueJ. Rather, MS gathered feedback from educational users who gave advice inspired by BlueJ. In this way, the MS-speak makes the interviewed educators into a sort of "Chinese Wall" for the reverse-engineering of BlueJ. Just pointing out interesting machinations.
Except in the legal sense, Microsoft is not a single entity. It is a collection of people who does not always know what each other do.
The story seems to go like this:
BlueJ becomes popular in academia. When Microsoft ask people in academia which new features they would like to see in Visual Studio, naturally they suggest some of the features that makes BlueJ popular.
Now some people from Microsoft gets assigned to implement this new feature, and for extra credit also write a patent application (or submit the idea to the people who write the patent application).
Later, another person from another subdivision, who happen to be an active blogger, get wind of the BlueJ people are angry that Visual Studio has a new feature copied from BlueJ without acknowledgment. So the blogger find out that it was most likely BlueJ that inspired the academicians to suggest the feature, and acknowledge the fact.
And now, because people think of Microsoft as a single entity, they are angry because Microsoft both patent the idea, and at the same time acknowledge where it came from.
If a King controled peoples free speech and that caused great evil, people would use that a clear reason to justify killing his ability to control any speech. Unfortunately with patents we see abuses causing hell everywhere we look, yet there is no desire to kill them, only gently modify them. Every time the abuse gets worse, harsher, more stupid, and more evil, but yet still no general desire to kill patents. This behavior is not rational. It's like the people who wanted to keep slavery in a kinder form so that the free states could get along with the slave states. But patents are worse than even slavery, like how they held back safety devices like airbags and antilock brakes in cars for 20 years while millions died that didn't need to. Or AIDS drugs in Africa.
The truth is that it is customary for companies to get frivilous patents if only to have leverage for counter suits and to get in patent cross licensing agreements to avoid harassment. It's rather hypocritical to judge Microsoft in this context while the masses still stupidly and foolishly cling to the notion that any patent is just.
and you should memorize it and accept it: Those with the Gold make the rules. Silly Wabbit, software patents are for corporations!
lol..
Grasping at straws here, but suppose Microsoft hates patents, having been burned by them a few times, and decided that the potential to use them for evil doesn't justify their continued existence. How to force abolishment of software patents, or at least patent reform? Publicly show prior art, apply for patent, if patent is granted, you have a smoking gun showing that USPTO just rubber stamps and never actually looks at the prior art. But the big question is, once they have that, will they be able to resist using their shiny new patent for evil?
That's why I don't shed a tear when I hear about how many pirated copies of Windows are in use. It makes M$ know what it's like to be robbed like all the companies they get their ideas from.
Prior art has never been a reason for MS to avoid patenting. They'll try to patent anything they can patent. Remember when they tried to patent a box with numbers in it? It's the nature of the business
In their eyes they have to try to patent anything they've worked on because patents are some form of security on their work, and they have to keep up with companies like IBM that patent a whole lot more stuff than they do. I would imagine doing so is hard though since places like IBM have more revenue streams and areas of development so they have a broader range of work to seek patents on.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
How long before they patent Mono?
If you read TFA, BlueJ is being developed with the support of Sun Microsystems - 'course Sun's recent deal with MS may cool their ardor for defending their IP rights - OTOH, Sun could dredge up the settlement for their Java suit.
All opinions that Microsoft is not really an evil, greed-driven corporate monstrosity. Therefore anyone who wishes to express such an opinion must first pay me royalties.
"Those who think they know everything are of great annoyance to those of us who do." - Isaac Asimov
of all of M$'s patents - past, present future. They should all be examined for prior art and each of them revoked regardless of findings. screw 'em. Vista be darned.
Power to the Penguin!
There is no obligation (certainly not in the U.S.) to search for prior art before filing a patent. Maybe "is" is a typo and you meant "should be." It WOULD be a reform to require people to do a pre-filing search and report the results. There is a new program right now where you are required to perform and submit a search in order to (optionally) pursue accelerated handling in the patent office. They require you (in that case) to do a better search than they usually do themselves. If the program works out, it might be a good model for across-the-board adoption.
> If it were Microsoft company policy to steal ideas that are plainly in the public domain
> and then patent them, a company with Microsoft's money pile would be the target of thousands
> of these types of accusations, and rightly so.
So how is life under your rock? This has been the Microsoft modus operandi since they began applying for patents (except they don't "steal" anything, especially not ideas). Microsoft are a cheesy imitator who "embrace and extend" the hard work of others and have the chutzpah to cry innovation.
Please start working on your apology now, I could do with a laugh!
If an applicant knowingly fails to disclose relevant prior art in their patent application, doesn't that constitute fraud on the patent office? Particularly in this instance, when Microsoft clearly knows of the prior art? IIRC, fraud on the patent office is a cause of action that the P.O. takes pretty seriously.
That was Gates' mantra he keeps chanting.
So, Microsoft, where's the beef?
That reminds me of this game.4 .html
http://www.cheapass.com/products/boardgames/cag03
Eureka! You've just invented time travel.
But the awful truth is that you're not alone.
In fact, scientists have been inventing time travel since 1814.
But if you have a time machine, it really doesn't matter who invented it first. All that matters is who gets to the Patent Office first.
And by "first" we mean on opening day. Because nothing suits a time machine like U.S. Patent 1.
> They do a prior art search, and if there are no patents in the field, they patent it.
Only looking into the patent DB is a bit short sighted, no? Prior art does not have to be patented, no?
> It is possible, that the patents department simply didn't know that this idea was taken from another.
Asking the developer if this is an original idea is not part of their research into the matter?
That said, here's what I think might have happened.
That's my theory, anyway. It goes to show that there's a perverse incentive for large corporations to have a system of information hiding so that it can later have plausible deniability about this kind of thing.
You see, people. THIS is why everyone hates Microsoft.
...I want to retire someday. If at all possible, I would even like to retire early. In order to do that, I must work where the money is. And those places all use Microsoft products.
Like it or not, I cannot meet my goals without Microsoft. They are evil and I hate them, but I am also stuck with them.
Saying "use an alternative" is a nice way to feel good about yourself, and get moderated up. It's also a cop-out, since the sad reality is that there are not any alternatives for many applications.
I don't respond to AC's.
Well, duh. That's all they do. Except maybe for the admitting it part...
Ok, you guys all have some opinion about the current patent system. I was just wondering, does anyone have a better idea? I can read patents-are-the-root-of-all-evil posts here on /. every single day, but when the whole system that much wrong, at least some of you should be able to propose a reasonable alternative?
im going to file a patent for cake, and say i just asked teachers what they liked and they claimed that they were used to eating cake, so i made this confection that is much like cake, but entirely different, and innovative.
What else would one expect from such a greedmonger pack of thieves?
And the u.s. patent office serves as a lapdog to these groups.
But hey, people here in the u.s. just keep right on giving them their money and using their products. So why should anybody act upset about it?
Big Peter P Ublic asked Red Corporatist; little MS Bill, my little MS Bill what humongous, gigantic big brass balls you have. All the better to be a perverse gelded plutocrat creating a future for my little MS Bills to exploit your children's children, replied MS Bill. Romantically waxing, Big Peter replied, not if I fuck you to death first, you little dickless big brass balls bitch ... remember clueless king Lou and stupid zar Nick got themselves fucked to death.
... businesses, governments, religions today are not democratic, oppose capitalism, exploit citizens, and extol war and genocide as moral, righteous, predicted by prophets, and approved by god. Remember it always takes many little hitlers to make a Caesar/George/... and a nazi/quasi-religious semi-literate dogmatist public. George has his finger on the button, he will save US (by GOD!) with armageddon. Does George believe he is gods instrument for salvation?
USA, EU
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Micrsoft is just doing what companies have to do in this day and age: Patent everything or your competitors will do it instead and use it against you. In the actual world I can't think of any instances of Microsoft actually using their patent warchest against any little guys, and BlueJ didn't invent debuggers.
There's no news here.
industry forces are pushing the USPTO to adopt a "first to file" patent right as opposed to first to invent and demonstrate.
having the patent system "overhauled" sounds a lot like having the copyright system "updated" to me.
case and point:
The "right to work" laws in the states.. started out as a proposal for workers rights, ended up as a bill allowing companies to bypass all labor obligations.
DVADSI in france - started out as a law to prevent *IAA's screwing people with DRM.. ended up as a law worse than the DMCA which the *IAA's now use to screw people with drm.
The conflicts of interest written into patent laws are written there by design, and are a result of a conflict of interest created when people who are elected to serve the greater national good are financed by the corporations who have every motivation to take actions against the greater national good.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Do we really need a patent system?
Oh, I understand the purpose - The purpose is to allow someone who developes a new technology to be able to make the research costs back by having a monopoly, thereby encouraging innovation.
But, I see two situations:
1. The new invention is so clear an obvious that there is no effort at all to reverse engineer it when it comes on the market. (i.e. Sporks, intermittent windshield wipers, etc.)
2. The new invention is technically sophisticated, and requires significant effort to reverse engineer.
In case one, we probably don't want those obvious types of things patented anyway. In case two, even if there is no patent, the person will have a monopoly while other companies reverse engineer the product, tool up for production, etc.
I just don't think that people are going to stop innovating because there are no longer patents. In fact, I think it will ACCELERATE innovation. A company won't be able to develop a product, patent it, and just rake in the bucks from their monopoly anymore - They will have to make constant improvements to be ahead of the curve.
(Well, no references, but this is how I heard it...)
A brass monkey was a triangular framework on which to pile cannon balls, back in the days of sailing ships. They were so sized that in Britain you could pile the cannon balls into a neat pyramid, with no extra space.
Now cannon balls are made of iron (steel?) and the brass monkey was made of brass...which had a different coefficient of thermal expansion. Occasionally, in ships that sailed north of the arctic circle, it would get so cold that the brass triangle shrank sufficiently that one of the bottom rows of cannon balls wouldn't fit...and you would end up with a bunch of loose cannon balls rolling around on deck, changing direction each time the ship rocked with a wave. Both unpleasant and dangerous. And funny when you think of it happening to someone else. (A cannon ball packs a LOT of momentum into a small package. DON'T try to stop it with your foot, or you'll be using a peg leg.)
I presume that most of the loose balls ended up going over the side, but that detail wasn't included in the report that was relayed to me (by someone from Boston whose family used to be connected to the sea a few generations back).
Believe this is you want. I can't prove either way, but I found it convincing.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The innovation Microsoft has, is just as innovative as all the "other" innovations they have had.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
In the grand scheme of things, it's a pretty small evil, but a spade is a spade.
I'm guessing the mainstream press won't even bother with this, in the rush to sell magazines with Vista reviews.
Does anyone outside of slashdot even care?
You would hope that the bad press generated by Microsoft "up to their usual standards as a corporate citizen" would not be worth the patent,
but their actions speak volumes..
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
There is no law stating you can't patent something with prior art then sue the person who actually invented it, ruining their business and their life. There is also no requirment that patent clerks have to check prior art outside of the patent system. Its the American way people, and through 'diplomatic' pressure, it will soon be your country's way too.
Microsoft Copies Idea, Admits It, Then Patents It
Which isn't really much different from the usual "Microsoft Copies Idea, Then Patents It" methodology which they've been using for decades. Lather, rinse and repeat over and over again until you've made as many billions as you need.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Oh oops!!!
n c.+(OPTI)+has+Filed+a+Patent+Infringement+Lawsuit+ Against+Apple+Inc+(AAPL)/1507089.html
http://www.streetinsider.com/Basic+Content/OPTi+I
If you do, and as is typical the patent office drops the ball and issues the patent, then that prior art is lost forever to you as an anti-patent defence, and cannot be used in a court case.
This is why companies rarely challenge inappropriate patent filings via the USPTO, and save prior art until they need it in a court of law to challenege enforcement of a bad patent, so they can have it argued by their own experts.
The system is broken in many ways, this is just one more.
We need to penalize people and corporations that patent stuff that has prior art. And if they KNEW it had prior art, then, well, they should face triple penalties.
I believe you are mistaken! You can take a corporation to court over something, but no person is responsible for the company. Company killed your wife? Good luck trying to get a person held responsible. No - the COMPANY may be held accountable, and be fined, but no PERSON - regardless of how liable a person is, will end up taking the fall.
This is a major flaw in the US legal system in my view - that corporations are treated like people until someone has to stand up for it - then no one is to be found.
I would tend to argue this is why US corporations are so poorly behaved, and many US CEOs are so despicably dishonest: because the people at the top, who make the decisions, are not held liable for those decisions.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
The advantages are:
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
German was proposed as the offical language of the US in the 1700s. If I recall right German, Dutch really, barely lost being the official language in Pennsylvania, ie "Pennsylvania Dutch". About the same tyme Benjamen Franklin proposed a law barring Germans from immigrating to the USA.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The "inventors" are Gautam Goenka, Partho P. Das, and Umesh Unnikrishnan.
At least the first two have some neglected blogs. Goenka's blog is at http://blogs.msdn.com/gautamg/
Das neglects a blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/parthopdas/ I guess they are very busy "inventing" things, so can't update their blogs regularly.
No Netherlands involved. The "Pennsylvania Dutch" are German descent. As the article in wikipedia you pointed to notes. It is incorrect corruption in the of the German word for "German" which is "Deutsch". So really no Dutch in volved. I knew that PA state history class would finally pay off!
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
I first saw Blue in action in 1997 at Sydney University, and then used Blue in COMP1901 at Sydney University in 1998. The Blue IDE also featured an 'Object Test Bench' like feature for examining objects and invoking methods interractively at runtime, as well as a visual class designer that showed references and inheritance. (In fact, the first thing I thought when I saw VS2005 was, "Hey cool, I haven't seem someone do this since Blue.")
I still have my Blue CD, my "Blue Reference Resources" text (1998) and my "An Introduction to Computer Programming with Blue" text (1998).
The Blue language was based on Eiffel (which afaik does not have these things in the IDE). Blue had language support for generics, pre-conditions, post-conditions, and class invariants.
Believing something doesn't make it true. Not believing something doesn't make it false.
This sounds just about right... Classically Microsoft... I mean I wouldn't be surprised if they took open source code, relabeled it and then patented it...
_
"Get your facts first, then distort them as you please" - Mark Twain
No Netherlands involved. The "Pennsylvania Dutch" are German descent. As the article in wikipedia you pointed to notes. It is incorrect corruption in the of the German word for "German" which is "Deutsch". So really no Dutch in volved. I knew that PA state history class would finally pay off!
Look at my reply to the person who replied to my post before you., yes I switched German and Dutch around.
FalconShould there be a Law?
See Wikipedia entries on Jonathan Aitken and Jeffrey Archer, both well known political figures. Both brought actions for libel against newspapers which had uncovered unsavoury behavior, and both perjured themselves in doing so. Aitken's case, about corrupt involvment with Saudi arms dealers while he was a Minister of State for Defence Procurement, unravelled at the time. He was subsequently tried for perjury and perverting the course of justice and sentenced to 18 months, serving 7. Archers libel case against the newspaper, about his use of a prostitute, was won at the time. His perjury was exposed much later when he stood as a candidate for election as London Mayor. He was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice and sentenced to 4 years, serving 2.
This must be a joke... I've used BlueJ, and various Smalltalk environments. My perspective of BlueJ, when first using it, was that it was a bug-filled attempt at mapping Java, with some of the features in an average Smalltalk environment. Dynamically instantiate, inspect, and call methods on objects in real-time--- this has existed since the very early days of the Smalltalk environment, except to a much greater magnitude. I find it hard to believe Microsoft could try to patent an idea that has been in mass use since the 70's, and recently pasted onto static image based programming environments.
Well apparently you're not. I've got an idea. Let's man that 'troop surge' in Iraq with USPTO officials. Either way they grind the Iraqis with fees "Sorry Sir, but there is a $250 fee for setting up an ambush. That's per person" or as decoys draw the fire away from real troops.
Many of these ideas aren't really innovative. 'One click' for example. So write a scrip that generates randomly a taxonomy of ideas, through sheer brute force and sentence manipulation. {noun} {verb} {noun} {conjunctive} {conditional} etc. Like those things that generate random 'research' papers. Give everything a number.
"But idea #133,727,981,451 clearly alluded to the same thing!"
I've never heard any convincing arguments for patents at all. Consider KSR VS Teleflex for example, or the Dean Drive, or the Pharmaceutical company that was going to patent a traditional Indian medicine (until the Indian government got involved). The Patent System in the United States is totally and utterly broken. It should be shut down.
Consider - if the FDA made as many mistakes as the Patent Office, how many people would die?
The Patent Office problems aren't as noticeable as people aren't dieing, but when you consider the costs incurred by a defective system, it is quite possible that the United States would be 25% more productive without the USPTO.
"Vote with your money against such business practices, use competitive products."
Except for the fact that people who "borrow" (be it the US or some asian country), have no monetary vote, nor do they write letters, or practice civic duties. Their very actions entrenches the present sytem even deeper. Something to think about while bragging on the internet how you're going to "bring the man down", and "we should do away with...". There may be no "harm" to the artists. But the same may not be said for all of you who don't play honest and your "rights" slip away, helped along by your misguided actions.
And you are guilty of inducement to commit perjury, which is also a crime. People like you belong in prison.
There have been some posts here and over at the blog that suggests that MS has a special branch to handle patent applications. Well, someone from MS even said that he thought he could get the application retracted.
/F
Now, I tend to give such statements a lot of credence. Imagine yourself in a position where your employer is obviously acting against all common sense, and is also seen as being almost omnipotently evil. If you cared about your job, you would stay silent, if the assertion of omnipotency held credence. On the other hand, if you actually also cared for your employer, and knew that some allegations were wrong, you would most likely try to explain, if not pardon.
I am not trying to assert that the case in point isn't blatantly wrong, but for once in my life, I actually think that MS is more misguided in their business model, having unknowledgeable serfs filing for patents, than that they are actually knowingly evil.
The case in point just goes to show, that this business model actually promotes evil behaviour, and that that should be a case for any government seeking foul play at MS, and that the ones that came up with this model, are the ones to blame.
"The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again."
copied directly out of someone's comments on Micheal's blog:
II. CONDUCT A THOROUGH SEARCH OF THE PRIOR ART
Prior to classifying the claimed invention under 35 U.S.C. 101, Office personnel are expected to conduct a thorough search of the prior art. Generally, a thorough search involves reviewing both U.S. and foreign patents and nonpatent literature. In many cases, the result of such a search will contribute to Office personnels understanding of the invention. Both claimed and unclaimed aspects of the invention described in the specification should be searched if there is a reasonable expectation that the unclaimed aspects may be later claimed.
check 37 CFR 1.501 Citation of prior art in patent files.
http://www.bitlaw.com/source/mpep/2106.html
This is great! Microsoft has done us all a favour by patenting BlueJ's completely horrid interface, so that no developer would ever dare make such a bad IDE again. Now we just need Microsoft to patent Myspace-style web layouts, and they'll have made some serious contributions to society.
firstly, it is ridiculous to suggest that it is in any way a good thing that, even in general terms, a software patent gets effectively stolen.
however, i am very concerned that you see BlueJ as a poor IDE- with its absence of the use of a main statement, i highly doubt it was intended for serious programming. if BlueJ was actually poor as a teaching tool, it would not be used to teach java in australia, the US and the UK in universities. i used it along with the bluej based textbook for my course as a beginner and can personally vouch for its use; its interface clearly demonstrates the relationships and mindset of object orientated programming.
therefore i find such accusations almost as offensive as microsofts patent attempt itself.
JGRASP http://www.jgrasp.org/ has similar functionality and was based on papers published back in 1988 by one of its principle authors. What is especially interesting is its acknowledments state: "The development of jGRASP has been supported by a research grant from the National Science Foundation. The development of previous versions of GRASP was supported by research grants from NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), and the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)." Therefore, Microsoft wants to patent something that was developed with US taxpayer's money... I'll let you take over the rant from here.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
From the same people who brought us9
http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX030
Unless I'm mistaken, the date that counts when it comes to patent applications is the "Date applied for." Whoever applies first, wins. I believe that the expiration is based on the date granted, though. If those two assumptions are correct (and I admit that they may not be, but I'm not going to do any research to back up my point - hey, at least I admit it), there's a huge dis-incentive for any company to ever pay for expedited processing. In fact, slow-as-hell processing may well be worth paying for :)
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!