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20+ Companies Sued Over OS Permissions Patent
freemywrld writes "According to the article on Ars Technica, Microsoft, Symantec and 20 other companies are being sued over patents covering 'systems for governing application and data permissions, as well as ensuring application integrity.' The patents were granted in the 90's to the Information Protection and Authentication of Texas (IPAT). From the article: 'A response from any of the defendants is still forthcoming, and it is unclear whether the authentication and permissions systems that IPAT's patent describes are precluded by prior art. Even if IPAT has a leg to stand on in court, however, it certainly didn't take the easy route to recovering any damages by suing 22 companies.'"
The lawsuit details are at
http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuit.asp?id=43183
In particular, the 22 defendants are
Symantec Corp.
Microsoft Corp.
AVG Technologies USA, Inc.
CA, Inc.
Check Point Software Technologies, Inc.
Comodo Group, Inc.
ESET, LLC
F-Secure, Inc.
iolo technologies, LLC
Kaspersky Lab, Inc.
McAfee, Inc.
MicroWorld Technologies, Inc.
NetVeda, LLC
Norman Data Defense Systems, Inc.
Novell Inc.
PC Tools, Inc.
PWI, Inc.
Sophos, Inc.
Sunbelt Software, Inc.
Trend Micro Incorporated
Velocity Micro, Inc.
Webroot Software, Inc.
Let me guess -- this was filed in the Eastern Texas District, right?
"IPAT, which apparently purchased these patents from their listed inventor of Addison M. Fischer, filed its complaint in the Eastern District of Texas on December 30, 2008"
yeah unfortunately that is exactly how the patent system works. Trademark is the only IP that you have to "protect" proactively or risk loosing.
With patents it is 100% acceptable to patent a bunch of ideas and then wait for someone else to develop them commercially, and then sue them and take the profits.
You haven't infringed the patent.
Now, if you want to infringe the patent, you'd have to tell us the command you could issue to allow any program except say, GIMP, from accessing your data. This is 'program access', not 'user access'.
Apparently, a six year delay negates patent protection (the patentee has "unreasonably and inexcusably" delayed prosecution) under the same laches idea as made above.
Patent Law Blog (Patently-O): Laches and Equitable Estoppel.
Too bad they didn't file this 3+ months ago.
See USPTO: Re Bilski
Determining patent viability under section 101. "Under this test, a patent claim is eligible if: (1) it is tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or (2) it transforms a particular article into a different state or thing."
See USPTO: Ex parte Langemyr and Ex parte Wasynczuk
"A general purpose computer is not a particular machine, and thus innovative software processes are unpatentable if they are tied to a general purpose computer."
when we engaged in mild protectionism this wasn't an issue. We used to charge tariffs on imports from nations without proper human and labor rights.
Now we don't.
this video tells the story of congressional stupidity starting at around the 9:40 mark.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
By the way, unix, which incorporated the archetypal permission system, was developed in 1969.
This is a clear case of prior art which even a "patent troll judge" cannot ignore. It's neither obscure nor contestable as its history is very well documented.
Any judge who doesn't throw it out of court after unix is brought forward as an example of prior art should be immediately scheduled for competency hearings.
[Citation needed]
... Or at least a better understanding of what prior art is, before you go calling for competency hearings. The Unix permissions system doesn't disclose all of the limitations of the claimed invention, specifically "establishing a program authorizing information data structure for storing a plurality of authorization entries each indicating at least one of those computer resources and information processing related functions which may be used by an associated program;"
Unix works with user permissions... This is application permissions. You have rwx access to /user/[name]/library, but maybe you don't want /application/fubar to have full access there, even though you're the same user running it. Look, it's right here in the patent:
Thus, the present invention advantageously protects a user from any program to be executed. The present invention is particularly advantageous in light of current data processing practices where programs are obtained from a wide range of diverse, untrustworthy places such as computer bulletin boards or other users of unknown trustworthiness.
99% of what you read on Slashdot regarding patents is not just wrong, but the complete opposite of reality. Such as calling for competency hearings for a judge refusing to invalidate a patent on file permissions at application-specific levels because "unix was developed in 1969".
seceding, as is their right according to their terms for joining the union
Normally I wouldn't ruin a good joke with pedantry, but this seems like the sort of thing people will see and then bring up in conversation for the rest of their life.
Texas isn't free to secede.
Umm... we (I assume you mean the "United States") do spend more on education than on warfare. Even if you consider the entire DOD budget -- much of which is not spent on "warfare" but on being ready for warfare -- the DOD outlays are about the same as those for public primary and secondary education (I'm too lazy to track down exact figures for the same year for both categories though - try using google).
You may be making the mistake of looking at only the Federal budget -- most education spending is from state/local governments (and some is from private individuals/organizations) in the United States while all of the defense spending comes from the Federal budget (this is not a surprise - the US Constitution doesn't authorize the Federal government to involve itself in Education, but requires it to provide national defense -- although the Constitution is often overlooked which gives us the Department of Education and NCLB).
Some references... Page X shows a total 2005-2006 public Primary/Secondary expenditure on education (so excludes expenditures on universities, junior colleges, and all private schools etc) at $527B. The entire DOD budget for 2009 is under $550B
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Not sure where you are, but a worker in the USPTO has informed me that the government can ignore or even invalidate a patent that has significant national security applications. What is tricky about it is that the government tries not to do so, and prefers to grant exclusive contracts to companies that hold the patents, to maintain faith in the patent system. For example, you can be granted a patent on missile guidance systems, and the government will contract with you for missile control, but if you refuse to market the invention, the government might simply ignore the patent and build the system anyway. With software it is very tricky, because the security of the US depends on the security of both government and non-government software, which puts the government in a difficult position in terms of security related patents.
Of course, the point is moot here, because of the immense amount of prior art.
Palm trees and 8