Slashdot Mirror
Corporate Espionage Involving a Patent At Microsoft
thefickler writes "Microsoft is taking a former employee, Miki Mullor, to court for securing a job at the company in order to steal information that would help with a patent infringement case he filed against PC makers Dell, HP, and Toshiba (in which Microsoft quickly became enmeshed). And while it appears that Mullor did the wrong thing, some pundits are asking: 'If you believed that your patent had been infringed, wouldn't you be tempted to do the same thing?'"
"You can't steal information." It's intangible. Thank you.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
I really don't like it when the RIGHT THING is to AGREE with MICROSOFT!
aaaaaaaaaaaa noooooooooo brain freeze aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
signature is pants
If you've filed a patent, and you're about to sue someone I'm guessing generally actually you wouldn't seek employment at a company that is part of it. You know, what with it firstly being a completely transparent move, and secondly because you wouldn't be able to defend your patent when you're in jail for corporate espionage. Who the hell really thinks they could outsmart the Microsoft legal team when it comes to fact checking?
Has the inanity and anti-logic of the patent system finally become so bad that peoples' basic judgement is now impaired. Has the concept of "Intellectual Property" so twisted the fragile mind of the commentators, and public at large, that we now must see it not only as a fundamental right, but as (Paraphrasing DeValera) an institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law and morality.
Personally, no, I don't see that a patent is so important that I should break not only the law, but also the trust and confidence other people have in me, simply to defend my rights to some obvious "invention". I may be a little behind the times here, but I can't say I would be overly tempted, no.
May the Maths Be with you!
Who cares what a bunch of pundits say? Wake me when they become judges or congressmen and can actually make their notions count for something?
Did these pundits question whether the patent should have been issued to start with?
I mean I could easily go woo-hoo fighting the man here. I got it in me no doubts. But there is something in legal cases called the Discovery phase and its illegal during a discovery phase to conceal information requested by the court for a case. If he thought Microsoft had information that would have helped his case his lawyers should have asked for such info in the discovery phase and been done with it. The spy cloak and dagger stuff is for the movies and just fucks you over in the real world. If its true he pitched the idea before he was even hired, then don't try to keep working at the same company you are trying to sue. The counter-suit will be coming that is for sure. Easier than firing him. Sue him instead.
ACK
Would I be tempted to threaten the success of my patent infringement lawsuit, and increase the chance of finding myself on the receiving end of a counter suit such as this one?
Why no, it just so happens that I'm not a moron. Why do you ask?
He claims he revealed his patent when joining MS.
MS claim they were allowed to nick his IP rights since he failed to reveal this when he joined the company (although they also tried to licence the technology prior to him joining)
So the wrong thing was viewing some documents he shouldn't have? Not having your IP rights stolen, then.
>>>have this picture of kdawson in my head having three multiple orgasm...
Can we all pretend that kdawson is a young woman named Karen? That would be far less disgusting. ;-)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If it results in three multiple orgasms, can you really blame him?
(off to look for Microsoft FUD...)
Damn, I'm just not that imaginative.
There's no evidence to demonstrate he did these things. So in order for us to assume he's guilty we have to also assume he's precognitive. It also describes it such that Microsoft "found" the evidence. That's got to be inadmissible, right? No chain of custody there it could just as easily be planted by them. Hope the trial has some evidence behind it as there's insufficient to point fingers either way, but more than enough doubt to clear him.
which in its history has used that as a practice as several others (bringing ppl to denounce their corporation, supply information on paper etc)
so as microsoft was one of the main founder of the bsa, i don't see why they shouldnt inhale their own medicine?
You earn 100. A year later it's only worth 91.
Sorry, but if you think theft of labour is a human rights offence then, your political and financial leaders are also criminals, on an epic scale.
The sad fact is that the theft of human labour is an intrinsic and well rewarded part of our society.
Deleted
It's "articles" like this what does that Slashdot is turning more and more into a cheap yelow page online magazine.
And yet you're still here. Obviously, kdawson's not working hard enough to piss you off.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
... I might be tempted to kill the person I thought did it. That does not mean I actually would. In fact, I certainly would not.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Yes the annual ~2% devaluation of my paper is a rights violation & theft of property. The paper should be put back on the gold/silver standard.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
'If you believed that your patent had been infringed, wouldn't you be tempted to do the same thing?
Because two wrongs ALWAYS make a right!
It's interesting how this comment had 5+ (interesting) only 5 minutes ago, and now it's just -something troll, just out of the blue. Censure, or just a pissed off editor?
And it's grammatical hotchpotches like this that make the comments section become unreadable!
those actions are nothing but Investigation methods apply by him. Every individual has (should) right to look for his lost/stolen things ...
You're right, that would be no good because a) the information might be ruled inadmissible in court and b) it would be, as seen here, too obvious.
Instead, I'd have someone I knew get a job there to steal the information for me. Harder to prove how I got the information that way. ;)
My blog
U.S. Patent No. 6,411,941
Any opinions on whether this is bogus or obvious?
IMHO he did a stupid thing by taking that job. He had to sign employment agreements and contracts and they most likely invalidated his claims. And he certainly copied documents he was not allowed to copy as an employee.
supposed to be in the superbowl ads post. wtf?
No, a year later it's still worth 100 but everything costs more. Or you could put it in the bank and it'll be worth 105.
"You can't steal information." It's intangible. Thank you.
Sure you can if the information is in the form of a secret and obtained illegally. Could be a trade secret or it could be a state secret. Once it is stolen it loses its status as a secret and with it potentially significant value to the holder of the secret. That's what spies do, they steal information or more accurately secret information. There may be legal ways to obtain the information an that is not stealing but the illegal methods are colloquially (and accurately IMO) referred to as theft.
Metal standards are no less arbitrary than fiat currency, and have problems of their own.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
How did this go from +5 insightful to -1 flamebait between page refreshes?
Metal standards have value because human beings, for whatever reason, are instinctively attracted to shiny things. An ounce of gold is an ounce of gold, and has wealth even if a government collapses.
A piece of paper has no wealth, especially when the government decides to print 1500 billion piece of it, thereby devaluing all the other pieces.
And if the government collapses, the paper is worthless. Case in point: The Confederate States' paper dollar. A gold piece with CSA stamped on it, still holds its value even today. The paper does not.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
But, if ms stole or otherwise obtained information on the patent or infringed on the patent in a way which subjects them to lawsuite, then they have to submit.
If he stole ONLY information or evidence about the infringement, and nothing else, but successfully drags ms ass into court, then TOUGH SHIT for ms. If he stole OTHER information, tough shit for him.
Besides, with all the CRM and other tools at ms' disposal, it is mind-bogglingly incredible and infuriating that they claim (to believe) that that he deceived them by his claim that his former employer was out of business. Couldn't they have called on business ID information, tax ID information, payroll records? I would think that ANY employer hiring into a sensitive field would be able to easily approach government (federal down to local) records holders and pay a small fee to look up companies.
This says a LOT about shoddy ms internal HR/hiring practices. Seems Salesforce.com (Sugar and others) might be able to beat shit out of ms on this one: "Use Salesforce.com (other product) and our pre-hire background-check module to avoid "the microsoft mistake"..."
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
If 100 dollars today can buy an ounce of silver, but 100 dollars a year from now only buys 0.97 ounces of silver, it's not the silver that changed value. It's the paper that lost value. Devaluation.
More extreme example:
In the 1920s my grandfather bought a suit for $12, or one ounce of gold. Today the same high-end suit cost around $700, or one ounce of gold. The gold HELD its value; the paper did not; the paper devalued.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
A carpenter makes his living as much with his hammer as I do with code. It won't do anything without someone skilled operating it.
Can I have all your code for free, then? Since I'm not a "skilled operator", I wouldn't be impacting your business, even if I give it out free to your customers, right?
You disappoint me, after the well reasoned comments previously, even if the GP's analogy is murky.
If PitaBred works in IT, the code he produces would be the tool used to solve particular problems. In that case, while passing the code around might result in security problems, the code itself would not be terribly useful out of context.
If he works in development, the code is the finished product. The "Giving it out free" analogue for the carpenter would be passing out the chairs and desks, etc, his total work output. Not quite what either of you probably intended.
Of course, the analogy would have been better substituting "carving tool" for "hammer", being a tool that requires some skill to get useful results. All it takes to wield a hammer is opposable digits.
Electrician's bill:
Turning one screw a quarter turn to solve the problem: $0.25
Knowing which screw to turn: $2000
Metal standards have value because human beings, for whatever reason, are instinctively attracted to shiny things.
This is true, but if those humans all decide that they prefer cowrie shells rather than gold, the market in gold would collapse.
More realistically, the value of gold currency is not tied to the real value of your economy, but instead tied to the value of your reserves of gold. A foreign power may destroy those reserves with a well-placed missile or 10, or a foreign power like Britain (who of course used a Silver standard in the past) could hoard and dump gold with the intention of controlling the gold market, and thus your currency.
A piece of paper has no wealth, especially when the government decides to print 1500 billion piece of it, thereby devaluing all the other pieces.
This is true, and is a valid criticism of the current fiat regime, I don't dispute that. Of course, it's a problem that can be solved with policy, specifically by making sure that governments don't simply print off more money, willy-nilly, without some kind of regulation. Of course I understand that in the US, many of you don't trust your government to do the Right Thing with regard to fiscal policy, and in fact the nation as a whole is divided roughly 50/50 as to what the Right Thing is, but that's a problem with your Republic and your voters, not with fiat currency itself. Countries exist that do manage to elect governments who regulate the money supply properly, so it can be done.
Interest rates are also a problem, insofar as they serve to enrich people who otherwise do not contribute to the economy (interest rates as inflation controls may on the other hand be a useful tool). There are however, parallel problems with a gold standard. Gold has to be stored, and it has to be guarded, and this costs money. Gold is not amenable to serialization, so thefts and counterfeits are harder to track.
And if the government collapses, the paper is worthless. Case in point: The Confederate States' paper dollar. A gold piece with CSA stamped on it, still holds its value even today. The paper does not.
The value it holds, insofar as it's based on the market value of gold, is vulnerable to manipulations, as in my first point above. Paper money as promulgated by the current Fed in the US and central banks elsewhere, is not vulnerable to those kinds of manipulations (though it is vulnerable to others).
Anyway, my intention wasn't to indicate that fiat currency was in any way a great good thing, if that's what you took from my post. But gold standard currency is not the magic bullet people think it is, to solve the world's problems.
Personally I think I'd prefer to see a currency that was more closely tied to the output of the economy and/or a value for labour. But I'm not an economist, so really I have no idea how you'd do that without introducing as many problems as one solves. And in fact, it may turn out to be the case that you can't ever find the "right" currency system, only competing systems with different effects and vulnerabilities.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against a former employee, charging him with taking a job at the software giant in order to steal information that would be helpful in his patent infringement case against the company.
Stealing information, Ah wouldn't that mean stealing incriminating evidence against MicroSoft?
I have watch this unfold from the side lines (friend of a friend) since Ancore was founded, and it's not a surprise.
It's a desperate act from Microsoft to try to keep evidence suppressed. Ancore was mostly dead due to Microsoft, They should have known better then to steal a guys patents then hire him.
Oh, and then Microsoft acts righteous when he sues them after finding out they ripped his technology, because he came across the proof while he worked for them.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Did the guy subpoena MS for the info first? If so and he found info they didn't provide, then MS may be in hot water regardless.
Or was he looking around so he could ask specifically? In which case he was doing MS a favor, researching how to minimally comply with a subpoena.
Or is MS SLAPPing him around?
Corporate espionage my ass. This is investigation. So what if investigation just happens to be by an interested party.
"The company also accused him of fraud, misappropriation of trade secrets and unjust enrichment."
3 things they (ms) have committed THROUGHOUT their existence....
Fraud: (FUD)
Misappropriation of trade secrets: (who hasn't?, others here can cite cases/examples)
Unjust enrichment: (FUD, and strong-arming manufacturers into loading windoze but not competing OS, browsers, and other software... until courts intervened on at least the browser issue...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Microsoft is basically suing this guy for finding out that they defrauded him. MS is going to lose this suit, and the countersuit could well cost them hundreds of millions.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Is he a licensed investigator?
Is what he did legal in Washington or where ever he got the job?
He made copies of confidential material and took them home. This was material he was not supposed to access and had no right to copy. He gained asses to the material through deception and through violation of company policy, ethics, and probably his employment contract.
His investigation methods earned him a salary at the target of his investigation. Should he return the salary he didn't earn while lying to and stealing from his employer?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Unless you have arranged some bizarre agreement with your employer where they pay you by the byte for whatever this data is that you produce, your post is not relevant to the discussion.
Discounting that situation, the obvious answer is that yes, your employer has to pay you, because they have agreed beforehand to pay for _your time_. It makes no difference whether you produce something that is tangible or not during that time.
... it is mind-bogglingly incredible and infuriating that they claim (to believe) that that he deceived them by his claim that his former employer was out of business. Couldn't they have called on business ID information, tax ID information, payroll records?
By MS standards, the company was never in business. The guy never even paid himself. I doubt that the company kept the meetings, minutes, fees, etc. up after he joined MS, so it was effectively out of business. The company had certainly ceased all operations, had no sales, no employees (the owner had quit doing work for the company). The details really don't matter much in all likelihood since he directly or indirectly owns the patent that MS infringed. He acted in good faith, MS didn't, he found out, now MS is throwing a tantrum that he found out. They should be trying to settle, but it's not really their style.
Perhaps in theory he should have just quit, filed suit and asked for discovery of the documents while looking for investors to pay the legal bills. But unless he disclosed MS information outside the company that he as a plaintiff wouldn't have been entitled to see in discovery, MS is toast.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Stallman's goal is to get the software industry to the point where the automobile industry is today.
I knew a car analogy was subtly hiding somewhere here.
Eclipse PDE and Me
It is, after all, all about freedom to innovate.
He's talking about what ought to be, not what is. Yes, the law thinks of IP as property. The whole point of saying that IP is NOT the same as property (even if it is sometimes treated as such under law) is to point out that this state of affairs is wrong.
So, while legally correct, you have missed the point entirely.
Also, with respect to this point:
> As an aside, the value of an idea can be destroyed when more people know it - this is why we have trade secret law.
The value of an idea is NOT destroyed, rather more people benefit from the idea the more who know it. Yes, the value for *one person* is destroyed in that they can no longer sell the idea to others, but society as a whole benefits from everyone knowing the idea.
This fundamental dichotomy was the original reason for IP law. But now we've thrown aside any such considerations and people think that the only value of IP is how much money you can make off of it, rather than all the people who can use that idea.
Even though you cite a "few thousand years" of this right, you neglect to mention that the modern form is vastly expanded from prior rights. And whatever rights you can trace back to a few thousand years ago, most legal scholars trace the actual evolution of our laws back to English statutes from a few hundred years ago.
Of course, the sad thing is that they're working back towards getting those perpetual copyrights that exist for a few works (Peter Pan, the KJV, etc.) in spite of the other part of Article I, Section 8 (the "limited times" clause, which is close to meaningless so long as you can satisfy a few judges that retroactively extending it every so often is okay).
> Can I have all your code for free, then?
Sure!
Most of it is floating around without my name attached. A couple tools are in the Bugtraq archives somewhere, though not under this name. There may also be some here and somewhere in here, though I can't keep track of where everything is any more.
Open source is like that, you know. I don't even know who all is using what any more. Especially because I prefer NOT to have my work attributed to me and do most things anonymously or pseudonymously.
There is some controversy here ...
How is the middle man going to pay for that patent portfolio, which is 100 times less the size of that of a companies portfolio with money?
Same with lawsuits, to win one you'll have to have the money first.. Have more money, more chance to win!
In which way is this contributing to the middle man?
Same with SABAM, STEMRA and other organizations (alike HFA) dealing with musical IP rights; you have to sign away YOUR NAME for all future productions to be property of the record industry cartel. Even if you create free music while being registered at that agency; that free music will be charged for by the industry, even making you unable to create CD's with that free music without an authorization... Artistic artificial limitation at it's best...
I've got the distinct idea IP is only for those who can pay it/who get most from it...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Unlike natural Constitutional rights, there is no right to a patent.
The U.S. constitution grants Congress the power to make patent law according to best policy for society---"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
If they should decide, e.g. certain classes software algorithms should not be patentable, then that is the law. This decision could be based on economic considerations, not 'rights of inventors'.
Congress is prohibited only from granting patents of unlimited duration.
1. use someone else idea
2. hire him instead of paying royalties.
3. send him an email about the case.
4. claims he had access to inside info about the case.
5. fire him.
6. ????
7. Profit!
It seems MS doesn't care to have it's own tactics used against them.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
My guess is El Lobo had sockpuppet accounts with modpoints.
That would explain +5 interesting, and the rest is Slashdot moderation system. You would have to have a personal grudge against kdawson to think that El Lobo's comment added anything to the discussion.
I'm seeing a lot of "it's fucked up how you teens and 20-something's think" type of comments... Let me clear something up for you lot:
Employers have been ripping off employees personal inventions (and don't give me that 'anything you ever design while work working for them is theirs - even if you do it on your own shitter at home' bullshit...) for decades. Further, they've been doing it to EACH OTHER ('embrace and extend', etc).
Given the attitudes of corporations these days, I'm really surprised you people make any distinction between software corps and fucking banks and financial corps. They have the same mindset: bleed the consumer/investor.
Personally, I cannot be made to feel guilt over piracy. Considering the overall attitude of corporate America, I really couldn't give a shit about their bottom line. If they reduce their products' TCO, improve features and compatibility and stop patronizing (or ciminalizing) the general public and I might feel a trifle differently.
Until then, they can get stuffed. I'll use what I can scavenge without appology. Age has fuck all to do with it - and honestly, if you'd seen it happen "back in the day", you'd realize just how ruthless and amoral they've been about technology/feature aquisition. They should consider piracy a direct result of how much the public hates doing legitimate business with them.
Suppose for a moment that Microsoft *does* infringe Ancora's patent. Unless I'm very much mistaken Microsoft is very willing to make an effort to compensate any party whose "intellectual property" it infringes upon in the course of its business operations, right? And most certainly Microsoft would never take the hypocritical position that it's Ok to infringe other peoples' rights as long as they're not found out. Or use a phony argument about "confidentiality" or "stealing information" to hide the evidence of their infringement. Or pay people (more precisely: pay the BSA to pay people) to denounce their employers for using unlicensed software. I for one would of course never lend credence to those who maintain that Microsoft has the exact same morals as any other Chinese software copycat but better lawyers and a better PR department. So from that point of view: exactly what's the problem with someone taking a job at Microsoft to find evidence of rights infringement? Does being employed at Microsoft somehow suspend people's civic duty to work against theft? I don't get it.
On the other hand, it just might be the case that Microsoft does not infringe on said patent. I will not share the cynical view of those who maintain that one of the pillars od Microsoft's success is successful (i.e. without both being caught in the act and being convicted) theft of other people's ideas, software, and patents. For at Microsoft they are honorable men! So ... if they are totally clean, what exactly is the problem with someone becoming an employee to verify that Microsoft religiously observes other people's "intellectual property"? I still don't get it.
Perhaps somebody could help me out and explain matters to me ...