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80% of MS Server Protocols Are Unpatented
perlow writes "ZDNet blogger Jason Perlow and Centrify's Tom Kemp discover that 80 percent of all Microsoft server protocols are un-patented. What exactly then, did SAMBA license? Are Microsoft's patent and intellectual property threats simply the growls of a paper tiger?"
...is what they licensed
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+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
Why should a server protocol be patented? A patent should be for something you don't want copied. If I were selling servers I'd want to interoperate with clients and other servers.
Oh, Microsoft. Never mind, my bad.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
99% could be unpatented, it only takes one patent to ruin you.
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
ZDNet blogger Jason Perlow and Centrify's Tom Kemp discover that 80 percent of all Microsoft server protocols are un-patented. What exactly then, did SAMBA license?
Is this article trying to present me with the logic: 80% of protocols are un-patented, therefore SMB is un-patented?
Because I don't see how that follows at all. Is SMB part of the 80% or part of the 20%? If you want to know what SAMBA licensed, why don't you just ask them? I'm sure they'd know...
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It's a little like licensing a sewer system in which nothing is patented except the toilets. That last 20% makes all the difference in the world.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
These days with the patent office handing out patents like candy, you don't even have to do that. For instance, in the firehose there's been this story for a while http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=631632 "Flip Video Camera Maker Sued For Patent Infringeme" Regarding this patent: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5781788.PN.&OS=PN/5781788&RS=PN/5781788
So without further ado, Claim #1 of the patent:So. Based on that, how does one compress video using a single chip (the patent has absolutely NOTHING about its implementation)? Being able to show that might make it actually look like the company actually invented something, instead, rendered to its most basic element, the patent says "anything that does stuff using only one chip plus DRAM" which is something an 8 year old could come up with, without even knowing what DRAM means.
The patent office has long since slid past allowing "crap" to churning out patents of "pure unadulterated bullshit".
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Well, actually Mr AC, it doesn't have to be skewed against MS. As it happens, it is nearly always skewed against MS because historically speaking, MS has always been screwing other people. Did your grandma ever tell you that story about the little boy who cried wolf too much?
/. users hate MS even more because it's fun, and well... MS earned it.
MS has extinguished competitors, acted unethically for long enough that people don't trust MS to have done anything right or correctly. That's normal people.
Bad news always travels farther and faster than good news. MS would have to do a lot of good things to reverse their reputation. So that's how it is. No matter what the story is actually about, if it involves MS it will be expected that MS has fucked up again somehow.
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I always thought the classic reason why a company wouldn't patent a proven technology is to avoid documenting it. To file for the patent you would need to document critical detail and behavior which could be something the competition could read up on and build new products on the idea. Or in other words, if they never file for the patent they never have to claim it exists. Keeping it off the books keeps it obscure and keeps it theirs.