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.'"

Comments

Moral is complicated

[chriss]

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:

1. Microsoft collects suggestions from different sources
2. Someone suggests the BlueJ functionality
3. Someone extracts a list of features that should actually be implemented
4. Some developer implements the function, not knowing where it came from
5. At the end someone sees the function, attributed to the developer, does not see the BlueJ connection and suggests it for patent application, because this is the routine way to handle new ideas at Microsoft

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.

Re:Moral is complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

My cynical reaction: The patent application would not have been pulled except for the written admission on the part of a Microsoft developer that the feature was copied from BlueJ.

Re:Moral is complicated

[Frosty Piss]

But this being Microsoft it took me seconds to fall into conspiracy mode.

There's no "conspiracy" about it, this is now common among most big technology corporations: Throw buckets of patent applications at the Patent Office, and see what sticks. Often the "little people" they are ripping off don't have the means to fight it, and while the other big players know it's bullshit, they find it cheaper and quicker to just pay the license. It's not just Micorsoft, they all do it.

Re:Moral is complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

So you know what happens now - MS issues a company-wide edict forbidding staff blog references to the possible origins of new functionality in their products.

Re:Moral is complicated

[sholden]

Except that three people are listed as the inventors on the patent application.

So those three must have thought they'd invented something - otherwise they lied on that application.

Or is it legal to put people's names on a patent application without asking them if what they did is actually an "invention"?

The people at both 3 and 4 have to know they didn't "invent" anything and surely the people at 5 have to ask them at some point?

Re:Moral is complicated

[Frosty Piss]

My cynical reaction: The patent application would not have been pulled except for the written admission on the part of a Microsoft developer that the feature was copied from BlueJ.

A week or so from now, a headless body will turn up floating in Lake Washington off Madina.

Re:Moral is complicated

[kansas1051]

Each inventor listed in a U.S. patent application has to sign an oath (declaration) that states that he believes that he is the first to invent what is claimed in the patent application. So you are correct in that these Microsoft inventors were either: (1) lazy (didn't read the patent application); (2) lying (knew of BlueJ and didn't care); or (3) incompetent (didn't know what BlueJ was).

Re:Moral is complicated

[kansas1051]

As a follow up to my own post, inventor oaths are typically made under penalty of perjury, so that if an inventor knowingly signs a false declaration, the inventor may be punished by fine and/or imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. 1001.

Re:Moral is complicated

[Speare]

I have to say, with all the legal loops that you have to hop to work with corporate lawyers just to get a patent to the submission stage, that this is not just a simple mistake.

In other words, I definitely heard "And I would've gotten away with it, if it weren't for these meddling kids!" running through my head. Zoinks!

Re:Moral is complicated

[joe slacker]

Only for the autopsy to reveal decapitation by a flying chair

Would it have killed the editor...

[ivan256]

...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.

Re:It's a good start...

[tomstdenis]

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

Re:Um...what did Slashdot have to do with it?

[Aladrin]

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?

Re:Um...what did Slashdot have to do with it?

[jimbojw]

The story was first brought to light by Slashdot on Saturday.

Um...what did Slashdot have to do with it? It looks like this fellow started complaining on Friday: http://www.bluej.org/mrt/?p=21

Obi-Wan: "The article that I'm looking for should be right ..." (points at screen) "here."
Librarian: "If an article is not on Slashdot, then it does not exist." (Turns abruptly and walks away)

Re:In case you don't feel like clicking

[gregarican]

In more detail this feature is something akin to an Object Inspector, something that has been a part of Smalltalk languages for probably 20 years in a GUI form. Funny thing, seeing how Visual Studio 2005 has an Object Browser, which is another throwback to the System/Object Browser feature of various Smalltalks dating back to Smalltalk-80 :-)

Prior art detected

[Ravear]

(A)ssimilate? (Y/Y)

Re:Mistake?

[drinkypoo]

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.

That's a bunch of nonsense. I mean, it's not impossible, but it's ridiculous to jump to that conclusion. There are tons of workalike tools in Unixland that look and behave just like the programs they're knocking off. Does that mean they were developed by porting the original program? I just made some documents that look amazingly like some other documents in-house (I'm a graphic artist, and I needed some documents very similar to some old ones but with new graphical elements, and couldn't find the originals.) By your argument, the most rational explanation for the existence of these documents is that I loaded up the originals and altered them. The new document is just so similar!

Maybe the GNOME desktop is actually a port of Windows' source code, since it looks so much like Windows?

"nothing to see here"

[mary_will_grow]

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.

Brought to light *by* /.?

[r_jensen11]

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.