Microsoft Details FOSS Patent Breaches

CptRevelation writes "Microsoft has released more detailed information on the patents supposedly in breach by the open-source community. Despite their accusations of infringement, they state they would rather do licensing deals instead of any legal action. 'Open-source programs step on 235 Microsoft patents, the company said. Free Linux software violates 42 patents. Graphical user interfaces, the way menus and windows look on the screen, breach 65. E-mail programs step on 15, and other programs touch 68 other patents, the company said. The patent figures were first reported by Fortune magazine. Microsoft also said Open Office, an open-source program supported in part by Sun Microsystems Inc., infringes on 45 patents. Sun declined to comment on the allegation.'"

Comments

Oh microsoft

[falcon5768]

Graphical user interfaces, the way menus and windows look on the screen, breach 65

You really DONT want to open that can of worms. Trust me you really dont.

Re:Oh microsoft

[Kadin2048]

It doesn't matter if they invented it, only if they patented it. Which is what's wrong with the whole system.

Not true. The U.S. patent system is based on a "first to invent" doctrine, not "first to file."

Applying for a patent often serves as proof that you had indeed invented something at a certain time (at least the filing date), and creates a bit of a barrier for someone else to prove that they invented it earlier (since they'd need to conclusively demonstrate that they had done it before you had), but it's not unheard of or even especially uncommon historically.

That's the whole idea behind 'prior art' in the U.S.: if you can demonstrate that you, or somebody else, had invented something and published it before the person who got the patent for it did, then the patent can be ruled invalid.

There are some (IMO, really poorly thought-out) proposals that would change the U.S. system to a "first to file" one, which is more common throughout the rest of the world, but it hasn't happened yet.

Re:Oh microsoft

[dAzED1]

no, MS has to take on you. They have to sue you for patent infringement.

And if you really think MS's pockets are so deep that they can carry themselves through their current lull, survive the dip their stock is going to take, AND sue a couple thousand companies...without details from each of the defendants being shared between said defendants...

This isn't the RIAA going after grandmothers living on welfare. MS is aiming to go up against people that will put up a tremendous fight. You don't think RMS would happily go to court every day just to make MS hire the team of lawyers it would take to argue against him, for instance? You don't think the fact that it was shown they were propping up SCO hurt their case? You don't think that public opinion is already swinging against MS, and would do so even more if they followed through with such a thing? You don't think that the battle-hardened troops that dealt with SCO (much smaller, yes, but that fight was only against IBM, and SCO was claiming much more solid (and false) infringements) are licking their lips to take on MS in the "look and feel" BS that they're saying is being infringed upon? You don't think Motif Windows Manager was around prior to Windows 3.0? You don't think other things were around long before the Motif toolkit?

When the RIAA sues a grandmother living on welfare, all they have to do is show that an IP given to her computer by her ISP downloaded songs from a p2p site. Going after someone for actual patent violations, when the patents are bad patents, is not quite as cut and dry. And you can believe that if MS tries to "make an example" of someone, that someone will have a hell of a lot of support standing not behind them, but with them.

Re:Oh microsoft

[Kadin2048]

no, MS has to take on you. They have to sue you for patent infringement.

No, all they have to do is scare your customers away, by dropping unsubtle hints that they might be sued at some point in the future, if they use your software (without buying a "license" from MS).

It's a protection racket; you don't need to actually be assaulted for it to adversely impact you.

Re:Oh microsoft

[drgonzo59]

A System and Method for Selecting Options from a List

All those poor people, for thousands of years, just sat there looking at a set of items and couldn't select any of them. I can see the cave men, looking at a pile of bones and trying to select one of them, but of course, Microsoft wasn't around so there was nobody to help them...how sad.

Zoom in...

[mccalli]

One more level of zoom required, Microsoft. Still can't tell what you're actually saying.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Zoom in...

[RealEstateGuy]

Google probably has a patent on zooming so you're probably out of luck

No new details

[NakNomik]

This is still old news. There are no new details in this article that were not already present in the one Slashdot reported on Sunday (the CNN Money article, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_arc hive/2007/05/28/100033867/index.htm?section=money_ latest)

You're Giving Them What They Want

[repetty]

By getting ourselves worked up about this we are only playing into their strategy. This threat worries only the people who don't know better. (Not coincidentally, these are frequently the people making technology investment and purchasing decisions. This is an old, faithful Microsoft business technique.)

We all know that this is a ruse. We know it.

We can do our part by ignoring this non-event.

--Richard

Re:E-MAIL?????

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, executing JavaScript in emails was a pretty novel idea. Mostly because nobody else was stupid enough to think of it.

They are afraid.

[shaitand]

Microsoft is afraid, plain and simple. This an edorsement by the market leader that Linux is ready for the desktop. They were afraid to see Novell pushing it but when Dell went onboard and picked the most user friendly of distros to do it with; Microsoft became terrified.

Do you know why you never saw something like this from Microsoft before? They didn't think it was worth their time.

In any case, it is FUD; there might be a vulnerable project or two but there is basically a stalemate on this one. That is why they are pushing for licensing instead of filing a lawsuit.

This is a good thing. Most MBA's will see right through both the motivation and the push for licensing.

Re:The Camerons are spot on:

[Yusaku Godai]

The software patent issue needs to be driven to the front of 2008 election politics. Good luck with that. The average voter thinks that the Internet is the little blue 'e' icon on their desktop, and that Windows is a type of computer (the other type of computer is a Mac). They don't even know about FOSS or could scarcely give a hoot how it's affected by Microsoft, or how software patents affect innovation in general.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I think this is a great evil and I want it to get lots of attention, but even I think there are more pressing issues in the world right now.

And who are they going to sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Microsoft,

In case you haven't realized, "Linux" is not a single entity. When you say Linux breaches patents on email or graphical user interfaces, are you aware that:

• there are multiple email programs and window managers produced in many countries around the world, a lot of which do not have software patenting laws
• Linus & co. working on the kernel have absolutely nothing (or at the most, extremely little) to do with email applications and GUI prettiness
• Unix predates Windows and there is a LOT of prior art (and I imagine patents as well) on most of the aspects of the Windows operating system and Office suite
• Going up against big companies who rely on Linux (Sun, IBM, etc) could unleash a patent war in the reverse direction (and a lot of unfriendliness)

Best Regards from Sweden,

Someone who doesn't care about your patent claims.

Re:The Camerons are spot on:

[A beautiful mind]

Good luck with that. The average voter thinks that the Internet is the little blue 'e' icon on their desktop, and that Windows is a type of computer (the other type of computer is a Mac). They don't even know about FOSS or could scarcely give a hoot how it's affected by Microsoft, or how software patents affect innovation in general.

There is a reason I hate cynical, trying to be realistic assessments. The problem with it is that by taking a view like that, no progress is possible. I deliberately overshoot what I think is the current average state of affairs both in politics and in computing. I _expect_ a voter or citizen to know the basics of what is a democracy, I _expect_ that an average person knows the basics of how a computer works. The reason is simple trends. It will continue to be important knowing about the basic operating principles of a democratic society and will increase in importance. It's going to grow much more important in the future to know about computers since computing is really only getting more widespead and slowly embedded in most everyday aspects of life.

I encourage people to do so. Shooting for the average never helps, it lowers the average in the wrong direction.

(Also, I think your view that tries to be realistic is exaggerated)

to quote Vizzini

[BenSchuarmer]

"You're trying to kidnap what I've rightfully stolen."

So lets be pre-emptive

[lnxnomad]

According to Google (Issued Patents) Microsoft has apx 600 issued patents dating back to January 1987 (don't care about any issued prior to that). So lets create a project to evaluate each patent for validity and non-obivousness, locate prior-art if any, and identify possible infringement in FOSS code.

Note that many of these are for things we may not care about (like mice, keyboards etc) so the number to analyse will go down. Still non-trivial, but all it needs is persistence, the help of a few law students, and the IT crowd to hunt down prior art. And lets put it all in one place where anyone that gets sued can go to for a definitive reference.

BTW, I am not aware of such a thing being out there already, if so then please let me know, my quick search didn't find it this morning.

What do you all think?

Short answer: yes

[Mateo_LeFou]

MS has 155 patents with the word "User Interface" in the title. Have a look:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-b ool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=Microsoft&FIELD1=ASNM& co1=AND&TERM2=user+interface&FIELD2=TI&d=PTXT

What sucks is that yesterday they only had 151...

Is Mono dead?

[L'homme de Fromage]

While Microsoft still hasn't said exactly which patents are being violated, and many of their claims are likely invalid, they probably do have valid claims on certain parts of Mono's implementation of .NET (specifically, Windows.Forms, ASP.NET and ADO.NET). If the Mono team removes those parts, then Mono is effectively dead, in my opinion. Not that I'll be losing any sleep over that, mind you. I always thought Mono was a waste of time for Linux. Even more so now that Java is GPLed.

Apple is no friend of Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think Apple would fall on Linux's side? Apple has cross-patent deals with Microsoft that protect them from this kind of thing and Apple is very clear in the marketing materials that they are just as eager as Microsoft to see Linux go away. There seems to be this naive idea within the Linux community that Apple is a friendly company. Here's a clue guys, the enemy of my enemy is NOT always my friend.

Re:The Camerons are spot on:

[ciggieposeur]

Ellsworth Toohey would be proud of those cretins.

Sorry, all your credibility was lost with the reference to Ayn Rand.

What about PR?

[akozakie]

I think you missed the point of this game. Given the size of MS pool of patents this set is ridiculously small. I think the ones they selected are pretty bulletproof and - surprisingly - that this won't be a legal war of attrition, MS will play nice about it. Why? Because this is just a battle in a PR war, a strategic attack. This is not meant to harm OSS directly - it's a preparation for a major offensive and will be fought without determination, since a minor victory, not a real triumph, is all MS needs.

I think this is a small step in a FUD campaign, a kind of damage control. The SCO FUD is grinding to a halt and likely to backfire. The reason is simple: nonobvious copyright infringement is quite hard to prove and unlikely to be ubiquitous in OSS. The outcome of the SCO case may convince users that OSS is reasonably free of IP problems. MS has to act now, proactively.

This new case will be pushed to the media. It'll linger for some time. MS won't disclose the patents too quickly, waiting for satisfactory media coverage. Finally they will, and then MS will be very reasonable - first they'll just want compensation (we can see that already), then they may even choose to donate some of the patent rights to OSS. No real harm done, end of story. But the PR effects will be great for MS:

• Most of the disclosed patents will be dealt with using workarounds, others will be donated. MS defended its rights, acted benevolent and the problems were solved. PR effect: Bully? Who, us?
• The story is public. The workarounds etc. will be a proof that OSS was infringing. And that's not just Linux - the patents they chose hit many projects, and MS is doing everything to make sure it gets noticed (that's why they publish these numbers instead of listing the patents). PR effect: IP violations in OSS are a fact.
• Now MS will explain why the set of patents was so small compared to the number of patents owned by the company - they weren't really trying, these were just the cases they spotted almost by accident. This will be hard to argue with, especially if they keep a few identified patents secret and show them as further proof if challenged. PR effect: OSS is in violation of IP rights and the scale of the problem is difficult to estimate.
• For a moment MS threatened that they might go after the users. This will be remembered as a possibility. PR effect: Other companies might actually do it in the future.

So, just as copyright FUD started by SCO is dying, MS is preparing an exhibit A for further FUD campaign, a proof that at least patent infringement is a real problem in OSS and a basis for the line "there are IP issues in OSS and sometime, someone might go after YOU, the user, and noone will be able to help you".

In short: a lot of the patents are probably rock solid, and the fact that OSS can work around them should not make you think this case is not a serious problem. Who will invest a sum of money comparable to the MS PR budget in a media campaign showing just how easy it was to deal with the patent issues?