Sun To Seek Injunction, Damages Against NetApp

Zeddicus_Z writes to note that Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz has outlined Sun's response to Network Appliance's recent patent infringement lawsuit over ZFS: "As a part of this suit, we are requesting a permanent injunction to remove all of their filer products from the marketplace, and are examining the original NFS license — on which Network Appliance was started. In addition... we will be going after sizable monetary damages. And I am committing that Sun will donate half of those proceeds to the leading institutions promoting free software and patent reform... [Regarding NetApp's demands in order to drop its existing case against Sun:] ...[to] unfree ZFS, to retract it from the free software community, and to limit ZFS's allowable field of use to computers — and to forbid its use in storage devices."

Comments

This is why we need to KEEP software patents

[cperciva]

I disagree completely: This is why we need to keep software patents. NetApp did something innovative with WAFL; Sun then came along, reimplemented everything, and called it ZFS.

Remember, "innovation" means "doing something new" -- not "copying what someone else has done". There are certainly implementational issues with the patent system as it currently exists, but in principle the patent system is all about protecting people who do something new from corporations (like Sun or Microsoft) who just reimplement without adding anything new.

Re:This is why we need to KEEP software patents

[itsdapead]

Many people believe that patenting drugs shouldn't be allowed, what should be allowed are patents on the method of making the drug.

In the case of the drugs industry (frequently raised as a pro-patent argument) - where you need mandatory regulation anyway to ensure drugs are safe and effective, surely it would be quite straightforward to grant a fixed-term exclusive license as part of the (expensive) approval process? No need to get bogged down with lawyers trying to decide who "owns" the underlying knowledge - you pay to get something licensed in a particular country, you get a N year monopoly.

Re:This is why we need to KEEP software patents

[Ginger Unicorn]

The same should go for software. It's fine to patent a specific implementation of some code, but it's not fine for that patent to cover every conceivable way of achieving the same end result.

Surely what you're describing is copyright, not patenting. Being a granted a monopoly on a specific implementation is copyright. Regarding what you said about the drug industry - if your scheme was put in place, what would be the incentive to develop the drugs in the first place? If you come up with a cure for AIDS and start marketing it, then a month later someone comes up with a way to churn your pills out faster and cheaper, and there no possible way for you to do it more efficiently than them, they get to eat your lunch with impugnity, since you would be forbidden from emulating their process, and they arent forbidden from raping your hard earned R&D assets.

Re:This is why we need to KEEP software patents

[The_Noid]

You're correct.
A patent is on an implementation. Abstract ideas are not patentable. That's why software patents make no sense, as software is already protected by copyright.
At least in Europe it still works that way :)

And with regards to drugs, if some else is so much smarter then you that they can produce the same pills a lot cheaper then maybe you're in the wrong business. Do you want to withhold the sick population from cheaper drugs just because the current patent holder is too dumb to produce it cheaper? I personally do not. Patents take away the need to innovate and thus they are bad.

Re:old news.

[Tony Hoyle]

Don't have any development in the US, so if someone goes after you it only affects distribution not development, don't ever incorporate in the US (makes it harder for them to go after you), and make sure you don't look too hard at existing patents (it's triple damages if you knowingly infringe a patent.. since its damned near impossible not to infringe a software patent with any sizable code it's far better if you're ignorant of which ones.. and yes a lawyer was the first one who advised us about that).

We have a sales team in the US but there's no legal company there, to protect ourselves.

Re:This is why we need to get rid of software pate

[BosstonesOwn]

As a former Sun employee and still open solaris dev. I can say your 100 % right. They never like lawsuits. They understand all it does is make lawyers rich, and barely ever gets to the root of the issue, especially when a non technical judge or jury makes a decision based on how much a lawyer makes them think is right.