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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.'"
Does Turning Machine counts as a machine?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I think Microsoft wins either way. They are not generally a patent troll company, nor are other large companies (IBM) with massive patent portfolios. If their strategy was to countersue little companies which had (somewhat) frivolous patents as a defensive measurement, they win either way. Either their patents are valid, in which case they have a good defense strategy, or they are not, and neither are the patent-troll lawsuit patents. I read somewhere it costs $10,000 or so to file a patent. This is chump change to Microsoft.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
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.
Yes, a turning machine, also called a lathe, is a machine. A Turing machine, on the other hand, is an abstract mathematical construct. A real Turing machine cannot exist in a bounded universe because by definition, it can store an unbounded amount of information. You might be looking for a linear bounded automaton, which is this universe's closest counterpart to a Turing machine.
Microsoft has put out some good hardware over the years. They must surely own some patents that cover this stuff.
The whole reason the patent system exists is so that the "little guy" will have incentive to make a product without fear of the big guy stomping them. Of course, it turns out that the big guy with a 1000 patents a year deters any competition, so, there's obviously going to be more competition if this ruling means as the article says. But, at the same time, if I genuinely do make a product that is new, then, big companies will be allowed to take it. In fact, anyone will.
As such, patents aren't -that- bad, but just imagine if copyrights were also deregulated to a degree. Yeah, people might be able to copy madonna songs more freely (as terrible a thing to do as that is), but, at the same time, the GPL would lose quite a bit of its teeth as its only as good as the rights the code authors have. If you are MS, looking at a billion in Windows development costs a year, suddenly a few hundred million in political "donations" in favor of candidates that are willing to legislate in that open source means public domain, and suddenly Linux is on everyone's desktop, but, it's closed source!
This is my sig.
It's always invigorating to read twitter flamebait in the morning, but I doubt anyone can make a case that Microsoft (or, before CmdrTaco's edits, "M$") is a patent troll, or that it uses patents offensively. Even that FUD about Linux infringing 200+ patents is nothing more than hot air.
If anything, Microsoft has been a large target for patent trolls, and they have been rather successful at it IIRC. I think it's amusing to see people like our notorious troll here obsess with Microsoft's patent portfolio when there are smaller and more dangerous fish to fry in this delightful niche.
Someone might want to call IBM and let them know about this though. And Google. If Microsoft's patent portfolio is "worthless" then so is everybody else's. Which is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but I think it will be a while before courts start punishing actual patent trolls.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
It is great that software patents are finally being examined and reformed. Software patents are incredibly stupid as they can be incredibly broad and are for the sole purpose of stifling innovation. Instead of keeping large corporations from stealing and others inventions and making the inventors effort worthless, software patents do the opposite and allow large corporations from patenting broad techniques that almost always have prior art and leeching off other large corporations or hurting the American Consumer by stifling innovation and creating monopolies.
Patents in themselves and Intellectual Property are good at times but when it comes to software patents, all they do is cause abuse. For example many of our largest corporations have had a lot of their money stolen by patent trolls.
Patent law needs to be reformed and the Government needs to something about how large corporations are taking advantage of their resources to prove that they have the right to do techniques such as "webpages", "structured documents", or "contextual advertisements". Such broad things like that really shouldn't be reserved by anyone.
Patents are useful and are necessary in order to reward people and companies for spending R&D money to fund a lab or years of research. But software patents are basically a race for the first patent troll to type up an idea and spend the money to patent it. They don't have any benefit to anyone and they don't encourage anything except for companies to bully others and to squash competition.
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.
Heh, heh. Phrase-of-the-day, for sure.
Is there some reporting and analysis of this matter from a more impartial source than Groklaw? I'd love to believe what PJ writes, but the history of software patents is one of cleverly worded applications exploiting and widening every possible loophole to expand the scope of patentability. I think Groklaw is putting a very optimistic spin on this.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
dont they make XBOXs ...
No. The decision affects business method patents, not software patents. Software patents will probably get a direct challeng at some point, but that point is not today.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I don't think there is anything about intelligence in the test, merely that the taker be indistinguishable from a human.
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So... Who wants to be the first one to try violating one of Microsoft's software patents and test it in court? Hmmm?
A ruling came down from the board of patent appeals and interferences (BPAI) allowing Beauregard claims. a Beauregard claim is a claim for the steps of a method stored on a "computer-readable medium." The FedCirc could rule that the BPAI is wrong on appeal, but for the time being the PTO will still be allowing software claims using the computer readable medium language.
Practical effect: any patent using that language will still be enforceable. Since you can't violate a software patent without storing it somewhere, there is no downside to including that language in the claims.
Algorithms are not patentable in many countries. So what people do to patent them is they say that they apply for a patent on a "computer system running the algorithm described". Which is a reasonable thing to do since it's pretty hard to run algorithms on a sheet of paper these days.
Turing machine cannot exist in a bounded universe because by definition, it can store an unbounded amount of information.
What if you use virtual memory?
Ha!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The decision directly affects business method patents but also overrides a standard used to test the validity of process patents and that standard has been used as the basis of a great deal of software patents. Apparently, including a large portion of Microsoft's portfolio.
The counter attack there being the "not obvious" leg of patentablity. Using a tool for it's intended purpose is considered obvious, and therefore not patentable. Since running algorithms is what computers do, by definition, it's a short step to an "obvious, therefore not patentable" attack.
Basically, the argument is if you have a nail that isn't patentable and a hammer that was specifically designed to hit nails with then hitting the nail with the hammer is obvious and not patentable.
--MarkusQ
Yeah, Turning engine/Turing engine, joke funny, ha ha. (My laptop's hostname is, BTW: "turing")
But what really does constitute a "machine"? It's easy to name examples that ARE machines, such as the BMW parked in front of my office. That's a machine; no contest.
On the other hand, a math function written in polynomial notation is definitely NOT a machine. That's been found over and over again.
But computers combine the two; It's easily possible to create a "virtual machine" in software, using a 3D toolkit. Not a "virtual machine" like VMWare, I mean a 3D representation of a physical machine. For example, you can simulate engine parts, pistons, bearings, etc. You could, using a 3D toolkit, create a fully functional copy, part-by-part, of the BMW parked in front of my office. You could compute the air compression within the cylinder walls, you could compute the coefficient of drag, in short, it IS a machine, rendered in software.
You can look at it, and using a joystick/keyboard, interact with it; you can enter it and "drive". Since you can even take it apart with virtual "tools", put it back together again, and since it obeys the laws of physics within its virtual world, how is it NOT a machine?
Auto manufacturers do this all the time - "create" cars virtually for crash, drag-coefficient, and general performance testing prior to making prototypes. It saves billions of dollars annually, as well as dramatically reducing time to market.
But is that a machine from the perspective of the patent office? Based on my understanding, the answer is probably no.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.