Slashdot Mirror
Groklaw Says Microsoft Patent Portfolio Now Worthless
twitter writes "P.J. concludes her look at the Bilski decision: 'you'll recall patent lawyer Gene Quinn immediately wrote that it was bad news for Microsoft, that "much of the Microsoft patent portfolio has gone up in smoke" because, as Quinn's partner John White pointed out to him, "Microsoft doesn't make machines." Not just Microsoft. His analysis was that many software patents that had issued prior to Bilski, depending on how they were drafted, "are almost certainly now worthless." ... He was not the only attorney to think about Microsoft in writing about Bilski.'"
Sure, but the Microsoft Butt hinge with integrally formed butt straps patent is still valid, so watch out for Microsoft cornering the world market on butt hinges! (I suspect Microsoft does have a fair number of hardware patents for mice, keyboards, etc.)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Microsoft has put out some good hardware over the years. They must surely own some patents that cover this stuff.
Bilski was about business method patents not tied to any machine. The Federal Circuit tried to make this clear in the In re Bilski opinion itself (page 21):
It is true that the validity of many broadly drafted claims may be at issue, but many software claims just do not make sense unless the claims are understood to be tied to computational devices. For example, Beauregard claims, which are claims on a computer readable media adapted to implement a method or system, are considered patentable by the PTO. These kind of claims are very popular because they allow patent holders to go after the software distributors rather than end-users.
It will be harder to enforce software patents, now that the defense lawyers can wield Sec. 101 with more power. But it is a mistake to declare victory against software patents based on a case where all the PTO wanted was for the patent applicant to add "computer implemented" to the claim language.
They aren't a patent troll company? Short memory?
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/14/0018242 etc.
dont they make XBOXs ...
No.
I don't think there is anything about intelligence in the test, merely that the taker be indistinguishable from a human.
t
If the threats are just paranoia, why is Novell paying Microsoft for patent coverage for all their GPL distributions?
E pluribus unum
uh, everyone knows that 'Erris' here is the same person as 'twitter' who submitted this story, right? why is he being modded up? reward for using multiple accounts to play around with slashdot, or what?
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS7235986827.html
Novell gets $348 million from Microsoft
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
"Is there some reporting and analysis of this matter from a more impartial source than Groklaw?"
It's hard to find a site more impartial than Groklaw. PJ did *not* say that Microsoft's patent portfolio is now worthless. That piece of brain damage was invented in the article summary. PJ said that Microsoft's patent portfolio became a little less worrisome. The article summary completely butchered what actually came from Groklaw.
It is a very common misconception that patents are meant to give inventors incentive to produce more inventions, by giving the inventor a limited exclusive right to exploit his work. This is what copyright is meant to do.
Patents, on the other hand, are meant as an encouragement to publish inventions rather than keeping them secret. In return for publishing, the inventor enjoys limited exclusive rights, which he could otherwise only achieve through secrecy. The whole point is that good inventions can be inspirational for other inventors, even if they can't use them directly (yet).
Given how common this misconception is, and the way the patent system works, we are probably closer to a copyright-like system than the original intent. Sadly.