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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.
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.
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.
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.
If no one has patented it yet, I want to patent patenting - everyone who wants to patent something, come to me first... :-)
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
We were talking about Integrated Development Environments, and out of nowhere you mention how you hope people will change the Operating System they use. If you had stuck to RealBasic and Eclipse, then you would have been on topic.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
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.
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.
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.
This might be an acceptable situation for some businesses if they did not have to pay for the Microsoft-certified "professionals" to come fix their installations when the OS gets fried by malware, viruses, adware, spyware, and/or patches and "updates". Not to mention the costs of trying to relicense software if a piece of hardware goes out.
The real cop-out is saying that there are no alternatives.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
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?