Microsoft Patents 'Proactive' Virus Protection

An anonymous reader writes "InfoWeek blogger Alex Wolfe wonders whether Microsoft will go after McAfee, Symantec, Trend Micro, and Kaspersky for software royalties for proactive virus protection software. The technique enables security software to protect a PC against malware which isn't yet in the antivirus definition file, by comparing whether the new malware is similar to an old virus. Wolfe reports that Microsoft has been awarded U.S. patent 7,376,970 for "System and method for proactive computer virus protection," but that McAfee, Symantec, Trend Micro, and Kaspersky have all been selling products implementing proactive virus protection for years before Microsoft even filed for the patent. Writes Wolfe: "One often wonders about software patents. I sure wonder about this one. I also wonder whether McAfee, Symantec, Trend Micro, and Kaspersky are also going to be hearing from their friends in Redmond real soon"."

Comments

Ignoring the Business Decision

[mpapet]

Do you have any idea how much that would cost in legal fees? Antivirus Company XYZ gets a cease and desist from Microsoft with the bottom line being a $50,000/yr payout + units sold data to microsoft. Yes, sales data is part of the discovery to calculate damages. What better way to find out how big their business actually is?

From a business perspective, that $50,000/yr is a heck of a lot less than going to court. It is a shakedown. A totally legal protection racket. Which is why software patents should simply die.

Look at the Crackberry fiasco. RIM knew the patent litigation was a scam and couldn't get the patents invalidated fast enough before incurring HUGE legal expenses. At some point it became a super-priority most likely because politician's & policy wonks lives would be negatively affected by their Crackberry's being shut off.

Re:Prior art

[Clandestine_Blaze]

After reading the article, I'm still left to wonder how the patent was awarded in the first place. The article states that Microsoft applied for the patent in 2004, and that a simple search on Google would yield several "proactive" virus protection software since 2003.

I'm not familiar with the patent process, especially in the realm of software patents, but isn't there someone from the patent office that would investigate something like this? I mean, we're not talking about some obscure college research project, we're talking about Symantec, Trend Micro, and McAfee here.