Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Retracts Patent
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has retracted their recent controversial patent application. The story was first brought to light by Slashdot on Saturday. Today, Jane Prey of Microsoft announced the retraction on the SIGCSE (Special Interest in Computer Science Education) mailing list. 'Many thanks to the members of the community that brought this to my attention — and here's the latest. The patent application was a mistake and one that should not have happened. To fix this, Microsoft will be removing the patent application. Our sincere apologies to Michael Kölling and the BlueJ community.'"
I have a tendency to believe that humans can err, but are basically good. And even Microsoft consists of humans. So my first reaction was "Oh good, they are not as soulless as we believe, this was an honest mistake." That option had already been pointed out during the discussion on slashdot as a problem within their process:
So, an honest mistake. But this being Microsoft it took me seconds to fall into conspiracy mode. How could they have such mistakes in their process, if they care about intellectual property? Was the mistake that they didn't hide it well? Did they simply try if they can get through with this? Can an entity that consists of basically good humans be not good in the end? (I'm afraid yes). So I still cannot decide if I can trust them or not, they seem to have lied too often in the past.
memomo: free web based language trainer DE-EN-ES-FR-IT
Here is the description from the linked slashdot post, if you were wondering what this patent was about:
"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."
-- lol pwned
...to include half a sentence describing the basics of the patent in the hyperlink?
"The patent discussed on saturday" isn't significantly shorter than "the patent on a copied IDE feature" but contains more useful knowledge and less useless knowledge.
hey they have a lot of legitimate patents, like the one for the task scheduler (cron jobs). There is absolutely no prior art (UNIX) for that before MSFT came around. :-)
Companies like MSFT/IBM/etc shouldn't get patents, not because they don't invent anything, but because they invent so little and patent so much.
The hardware world scares me though. On the one had they collaborate as academics to share results, and on the other hand they patent everything in sight. No, you can't have an XOR gate, not yours!
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Why does it not surprise me that someone named Jane Prey is involved in a Microsoft patent SNAFU?
When Slashdot did the 'bringing to light', it was Saturday. The developers 'brought it to light' for their crowd on Friday. To 'bring it to light' means that you've made some portion, usually a significant portion, of a group of people aware of it. The majority of the Slashdot crowd did NOT know about this before it was announced on Saturday, so it WAS 'brought to light'.
Happy?
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I'd be a lot happier if the Empire's own minions had noticed the problem
and withdrawn the patent BEFORE the outcry arose. As it is:
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." -- Wendell Phillips, (1811-1884)
Modern addendum: "And the price of open software."
Librarian: "If an article is not on Slashdot, then it does not exist." (Turns abruptly and walks away)
Erm, there's a good chance it would have gone largely unnoticed for months if the story hadn't made /.
To be fair, months can mean the difference between sinking thousands of dollars into a patent and deciding to defend it, or cutting it loose.
Anyone who thinks this was an innocent mistake in "implementing a suggestion" probably hasn't seen the screenshots comparing The VS screens with BlueJ. ( http://www.bluej.org/vs/vs-bj.html )
Personally, I'm convinced the most plausible explanation for the *extremely* close replication of the BlueJ screens in the MSFT product is that the BlueJ source was ported to C#, probably using an automated tool.
-=Maggie Leber=-
Microsoft's apology changes nothing about the fact that all the original factors that caused this embarrassing mistake by them are still in play. It is very lucky that Microsoft's misbehaviour in the BlueJ example was quickly noticed, carefully documented and forcefully exposed by the BlueJ people themselves, but it is not and should not be an inventor's job to police the behaviour of big companies like Microsoft. The next time Microsoft misappropriates somebody else's invention, the problem is unlikely to be exposed so quickly. Microsoft should deal with the underlying factor behind this problem: Employees are still being encouraged to file as many patents as possible on the wrong assumption that it is a good indicator of employee merit. This is part of a deeper problem in the Microsoft executive which is fanatically pushing the meretricious concept of software patents around the world to places that have studied the idea and rejected it (EU) as harmful to the interests of small businesses.
Watch now for patents that come as close as possible to stepping over the line, but stop just short. Microsoft easily has the resources to toss up nuisance patents that block possible future development of BlueJ.
After publicly admitting the misstep with the original patent, I'm not sure what the value to MS would be in aggressively trying to thwart BlueJ. It seems their strategy here is to hold themselves out as an ethical player. They have to know that they're on notice now about BlueJ, and any attmpts to block it would be immediately picked up by the technology press, not to mention by existing BlueJ users.
Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but it seems it would be monumentally stupid for Microsoft to attempt to destroy BlueJ through legal means at this point. Perhaps they'll have to suck it up and just compete on technical merits. ;)
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
(A)ssimilate? (Y/Y)
Microsoft will severely punish employees who falsify invention claims.
"No Jack, we're not going to fire you over this."
"You're not?"
"No -cough- there is, however, the minor matter of your reassignment. It's a cushy position - work from home really. We've taken the liberty of routing our 1-800 number for Vista activation to your home telephone number. And I'd like to be the first to welcome you to the Windows Validation department... Jack? Are you ok?"
Microsoft will now review all of the claims submitted by these bozos to make sure they didn't screw up before.
You obviously have little understanding about how a large corporation works. Those "bozos" have probably been promoted...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Move along... It was "just a mistake".
What about the zillions of other patents just like this one that they apply for every day? Is the burden really on ME to make sure that Microsoft hasn't been attempting to patent stuff I've clearly got "prior art" for?
This is terrible. Stop acting like "The system works". This is one example where a prior-art holder had the means to notice someone's faulty patent claim.
I'm not even sure where the burden of proof should lie. When you hire a patent attorney to do a "prior art search", they just give you a pile of existing patents that matched some keywords. How do you do a _real_ prior art search, beyond just what has already been patented? Its not even possible. The system is so hosed that every patent that resulted from it should probably just be thrown out.
I can't believe people are buying this "It was a mistake" B.S.
Why stick up for big business?
If it wasn't for those meddling F/LOSS kids!
*ducks*
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
I call BS on that, especially seeing that the submission on /. included two links to stories related and neither was a direct link to an application. Brought to light to Slashdot? Yes, that I can believe.