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NetApp Hits Sun With Patent Infringement Lawsuit
jcatcw writes "Computerworld reports, "Network Appliance Inc. today announced that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Sun Microsystems Inc. seeking unspecified compensatory damages and an injunction that would prohibit Sun from developing or distributing products based on its ZFS file system technology. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Lufkin, Texas, charges that the Sun ZFS technology infringes on seven NetApp patents pertaining to data processing systems and related software.""
How does the patent in this case "promote the useful arts and sciences." Patents don't do anything to benefit the public. Patents were fine in an era before the need for capital became its own barrier to entry in a given market, but, any more, they are not only a relic, but a dangerous, anti-competitive one. Would it be a troll to say anyone who is in favor of patents is really in favor of oligarchy?
This is my sig.
It would be a damn shame if development on it were halted because of silly patents.
The only thing that matters here is whether prior art can be forund for WAFL.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
It sounds more like both Sun and NetApp are infringing on each others patents, and Sun simply wanted to formally resolve this in order to be on the safe side. This article seems awfully one-sided though, and the way the quote is paraphrased, it looks like the author is more interested in dragging Sun's name through the mud than presenting the facts.
I don't blame them, really. If you are a professionnal blogger (read former print journalist) the more traffic you can generate for your site, the more you make. Get it posted on /. or digg or wherever and watch the traffic flow.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Normally, I would jump on the editor(s) more than the submitter. If a submitter's is *less* interested in getting stories of interest to the community posted and more interested in pulling traffic to their site, then it is the editor's job to recognise this over time and take it into account in their decision. IMHO, anyway.
But in this case, Carpenter has decided to preach about the submission system. She has a conflict on interest in this regard - she wants fewer people to have a say in whether her story is accepted yet doesn't declare her posting motivations. So fsck her - she's not being straight up in about her own motives when she questions those of others. She says:
All it takes to vote is a user account with a valid email. How many of the new account holders are part of viral marketing scams? There are probably people there now who are being paid for submissions or for votes.Yeah, probably there are people being paid Joyce. Ya figure? How 'bout a statement on *your* motivations?
Her full comment is at the URL below. Be aware that you're generating ad revenue going there ...
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/5550[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
To be fair, Sun did start the patent trolling.
I have a F760 fiber channel filer that was made back in 1999 running a WAFL (ontap 6.x now) OS. Funny how Sun didn't 'notice' the infringement until they made their own version of WAFL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS in 2005. Even funnier that the creators of ZFS claim that WAFL is the "closest" file system to their own. All we have to do is look at the dates here people. Netapp has been using WAFL for almost a decade in production systems. I'm no fan of Netapp because they want to charge for copies of software that I already bought years ago (corrupt disks) but I hope Sun eats a crow for trying to claim infringement on a system that has been in use for several years.
The filer is OLD!
That's the whole point. If I invent a product, chances are, in order to really get it out, I will probably wind up infringing on someone else's patent in order to get a complete solution.
For example, let's say I have a revolutionary new programming language. Great stuff, but, ultimately, it will need a bunch of existing technologies to make it work. I'll need parse trees, string manipulations, code generation, and hey, why not an IDE, all of which are covered by a bazillion patents already.
So, if I bring my product to market, the best I can possibly hope for is a cross licensing agreement with a major player, and that in turn, means they can crush me. Or, they can work around my patent in some way, still get the feature, and crush me. Patents don't protect ideas, unless you have a lot of very good patent attorneys and those cost big bucks.
In the world of machines, this doesn't happen. If I invent a new kind of a screw, its pretty obvious that the screw is a patentable thing. But software doesn't exist at that level of componentry and most likely never will. It simply can't. Software wants to integrate and to some extent, that makes it unique from the physical world. You don't need to integrate a particular kind of screw into every single socket and with every single tool, but ultimately, with software, you do wind up having to talk to every kind of protocol, database, and GUI, and in doing so, you wind up flying into a hailstorm of patents.
Seriously, when's the last time anyone has actually checked to see if they infringe before they write something? Only a big company can really afford to do it. Face it, the idea of a little guy with a software patent is a myth, 95% of the time, and its simply not worth the cost to the rest of us - even if we work in a big corporation.
This is my sig.
It's a nice story, but Sun is claiming the exact opposite actually happened, with NetApp trying to extort them over ZFS first. On a purely intuitive basis I'd say that sounds more reasonable, NetApp has much more to fear from ZFS than Sun had to gain by trying to extort some licensing fees.
I doubt this will actually come to trial. I suspect NetApp is just playing the MAD card here to come to some kind "I'm OK, you're OK" cross-licensing deal. As TFA notes, Sun opened this can of worms by claiming NetApp was infringing on Sun patents. If they'd left well enough alone, they wouldn't be getting sued now. When all is said and done, they'll probably be back at their prior status quo. Sun is schizo; they don't know whether to open-source everything they've got, or sue someone over everything they've got :p
So lemme get this straight: a modern filesystem designed and engineered with a specific purpose, capability- and feature-set outperforms an older, more modestly-specced general-purpose filesystem designed with smaller volumes in mind in tests of such capabilities and feature sets?
Say it ain't so!
Ideas are cheap. Patents are not.
If he has no cash to build a prototype, how is he going to pay for a patent portfolio?
In the UK, it costs £200 to have a patent processed by the Patent Office, but there is an additional (approx) £3000 to have your patent drafted/checked by an agent against existing patents and translated into legalese. This £3000 is for each country that you want to apply for a patent. 20 countries, approx £60,000. Minimum. If you don't apply worldwide, the big guy, will simply take your patent and build and sell your product in the rest of the world.
Then, once you have your patent. The big guy sets his reverse engineering team on it, they find a slightly different way of doing the same job, and all your patents are useless. Go ahead, just try and sue that multi billion dollar organisation, see what happens to your house, job and family.
If you're a brilliant inventor with no money, you're pretty much fucked unless you can license your technology to a someone with deep pockets and who are reasonably honourable. Patents protect large organisations who can afford to roll them out worldwide... And patent lawyer's jobs.
They are not there for the small fry.
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