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Microsoft Is Sued For Patent Violation Over .NET
randomErr writes "As reported by Info World, Microsoft was issued a cease and desist order on February 7 of this year by Vertical Computer Systems. The order was for patent infringement by the current implementations of the .NET framework. Both the .NET framework and Vertical Computer Systems' SiteFlash use XML to create component-based structures that are used to build and operate web sites. Vertical Computer Systems is requesting a full jury trial. If VCS prevails, .NET technology implementations as we know them may completely change and Microsoft would probably have to pay out a hefty sum."
From the patent:
T O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fs rchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,826,744.PN.&OS=PN/6,8 26,744&RS=PN/6,826,744
"A system and method for generating computer applications in an arbitrary object framework. The method separates content, form, and function of the computer application so that each may be accessed or modified separately."
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
I think I might buy some old IT books, move to America, then patent everything in them.
And you wonder why MS is obligated to patent more and more trivial things? Nobody wants to be eaten by sharks.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
...but I sort of hope they get bit badly by this. Am I a fool to assume that the only way for patents to be reformed is for the big players to get bit so bad they start lobbying for change?
Microsoft just buy them?
Russia and Sweden.
From the wording of the patent (overly broad of course), other affected may be:
Adobe's FLEX platform (the XML language being MXML)
Sun's Java JSP
W3C (the language being.. XHTML)
as well as smaller players like Laszlo and a myriad of other platforms with a procedural part and declarative part in XML (including platforms I've written myself for PHP and Java).
It's laughable, I hope the court acknowledges the loads of prior art. Few years ago someone patented interactrive CMS system (i.e. web appsf or managing sites) and the community was outraged, as the patent was directed straight at everyone using Java/Flash/JS for creating online CMS systems in the form of rich internet applications. The "reference" implementation used Flash.
Nothing came out of it. My advice is don't worry and let Microsoft take care of those clowns (hopefully this doesn't pan out like the Eolas case).
Hello World in old MFC programming violates this patent. Anything in pearl, or nearly any interesting scripting, would probably violate this patent. Like that old Alice thing they did at Carnegie Mellon would DEFINATELY violate this patent. And since that's been producing content, let alone as a concept, since at least 1997 which is when I heard of it, yeah, bs patent. Hell, it was a project started at the University of Virginia, so who knows how old it is at some level of functionality, never mind conceptually. Simple, useful, powerful, at the level where the muscle meets the bones is complicated. This patent is pro entropy, anti work. This patent isn't just helping the terrorists win, it's turning the universe dark.
Old! Lame! Unoriginal! Enough with the damned chairs!
No, we (slashdotters generally) hate their underhand business practices (eg: SCO) and shoddy software. There are 2 recurring themes in these types of story. The first is that software patents are wrong even if the litigation target is pro-software patent. The second is that the target supports the system and deserves all it gets; live by the sword, die by the sword.
Whichever view you take, everyone can appreciate the irony. Haha indeed!
Or does Mono not implement the relavent bit of .NET?
Summing up a bunch of comments: the current insanity of software patents, and the risks of this kind of nuttiness, could be extremely nasty to lots of open source projects. Microsoft and other big companies develop big patent portfoloes to protect themselves, and to use against competitors with even vaguely similar projects.
Open source developers have no such protection. It's exactly why Sendmail rejected using Microsoft's patented "SenderID", as described by Eric Allman here . And it's exactly why GPLv3 has all this complex and oddly writtten patent material (at ), as mentioned in other old Slashdot stories. Even if you think it's silly, or think that software patents are a burden to the market that should be thrown the heck out. it's a necessary licensing step to protect us from this sort of whackiness.
I hope the Mono project can be re-licensed under GPLv3 to avoid repercussions from this sort of suit.
IANAL, but generally, no. First of all, there is no such thing as absolute proof in patent law.
Secondly, if two people skilled in the art (hereafter referred to as "geniuses") come up with the same thing independently and with no knowledge of the other's research or patents, that is proof of nothing but the fact that two geniuses independently came up with the same, or substantially the same, idea. It may, however, be useful for the patent holder to argue against obvious, on the grounds that if it took a genius to devise it, then it's not obvious.
However, if two very average people (herafter referred to as "idiots") both independently come up with the same idea with no knowledge of the other's work, then you probably have something obvious. If any idiot could think of it, and at least two did so independently, it probably should not be patentable.
Again, IANAL, but one of the challenges in defending an infringement suit or in trying to invalidate a patent based on obviousness and/or prior art may that the work of geniuses has historically been much easier to find than the work of idiots. Google changes that more than a little, but it's still easier to find the work of geniuses, I suspect.
The method separates content, form, and function of the computer application so that each may be accessed or modified separately. The method includes creating arbitrary objects, managing the arbitrary objects throughout their life cycle in an object library, and deploying the arbitrary objects in a design framework for use in complex computer applications.
.NET component architecture?
Sounds like any application framework to me. Just because the language syntax is different, why should it be patentable just because it's XML? This was granted in 2004, what about MS's own WSC (Windows Script Component) component architecture fro mth lat 1990's? Isn't that the predecessor to
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Look at this! "A system and a method to do something with XML" And now they can sue microsoft!
Everyone should take this opportunity let's just have ideas of how to combine the different available technologies with different objectives and PATENT THEM! I don't even think we have to produce anything.
Let's patent "A method to sort an array by swapping specific indexes"
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Software patents are written in obscure ways because they don't really exist. A software patent is always describing a system consisting of a computer and software, as only devices are patentable. And they have to make it sound complex, otherwise there would be nothing to patent. There are probably other workarounds the lawyers have to consider to make software patents possible. The legalese is there for a reason, it's because software patents aren't valid by law, only by some court decision made a long time ago, and every lawyer has to make their patent application look like that one!
You can't argue with common sense against stuff like this. That's why lawyers are paid to do the job for you.
You mean, like a certain arrangement of pits on a DVD, causing the playing of that DVD to show a movie based on that plot? Maybe you should also add a claim for specific arrangements of color particles on Celluloid generating that same plot. Oh, and the arrangement of ink, toner or other colored material on paper or other surfaces to form an arrangement of letters which, when read, results in a story following that plot.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.