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Microsoft Patents the Crippling of Operating Systems
theodp writes "On Tuesday, Microsoft was granted US Patent No. 7,536,726 (it was filed in 2005) for intentionally crippling the functionality of an operating system by 'making selected portions and functionality of the operating system unavailable to the user or by limiting the user's ability to add software applications or device drivers to the computer' until an 'agreed upon sum of money' is paid to 'unlock or otherwise make available the restricted functionality.' According to Microsoft, this solves a 'problem inherent in open architecture systems,' i.e., 'they are generally licensed with complete use rights and/or functionality that may be beyond the need or desire of the system purchaser.' An additional problem with open architecture systems, Microsoft explains, is that 'virtually anyone can write an application that can be executed on the system.' Nice to see the USPTO rewarding Microsoft's eight problem-solving inventors, including Linux killer (and antelope killer) Joachim Kempin, who's been credited with getting Microsoft hauled into federal court on antitrust charges." Sounds like the mechanism by which Microsoft sells one version of Vista to all users, and lets users upgrade to higher-tier flavors of the OS after cash changes hands.
... but it definitely isn't in other areas.
A number of NAS and SAN vendors ship products with features disabled on the OS until you pay a 'licensing fee' to unlock the features. NetApp, Isilon, and EMC/Clariion are just some I can think off the top of my head that do this.
Technically, it isn't quite the same as say, unlocking Windows 7 Ultimate from the Home version, but it's fairly common practice in the enterprise world.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
How can they patent this? Microsoft has all sorts of prior art.
Forget Microsoft. Enterprise (software and hardware) vendors have been doing this for decades.
Heck, anyone who has even a passing familiarity with "enterprise" infrastructure like SANs will be familiar with paying tens of thousands for a piece of paper with a license key printed on it to, say, unlock the other 32 ports on their Fibre Switch.
Hello Verizon? Can you hear me now?
Verizon (and others) have been crippling features in phone OS's and charging to turn them back on for years.
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/02/1755207
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The date on the patent application is 2005. Vista was released November 8, 2006.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
There may be prior art for this in the mainframe or embedded-systems world.
The term of art is "feature protection". It's as old as mainframes.
(I believe it was a Univac where the difference between two models was a jumper that adjusted the clock rate. The info got out to the customers and one salesman was really embarrassed when he brought a prospective customer to an existing installation for a demo. The customer asked if he wanted to see it running as this model or that, pulling open a door and reaching for the jumper...)
One mainframe company I worked for put out a machine with multiple CPUs in it. The extras served as switch-in spares or for field upgrades if the customer paid to enable 'em.
It isn't just a "cheat" to get more money from the customers. On some devices (like printers) running at a higher speed increases the wear and the resulting maintenance requirements. Similarly, in the CPU case, running more CPUs increases the heating and shortens the life, while having less spares shortens the time until / increases the probability that you actually have to pull something out and replace it.
Making a single model and selling it as multiple levels using feature protection may be a lot less expensive (especially on high-dollar, low-volume products) than engineering multiple models. This benefit can be split between the manufacturer and the customers. It also makes upgrades a lot cheaper and less disruptive for both the customer and the company.
In software licensing it's been around since license manager software and dongles: Pay for more seats or more functions, they get turned on.
What's so special about doing it for OSes?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
A shareware OS hmm... it has been a few years but what about TSX32. http://www.sandh.com/os.htm ? It was distributed in the shareware channels back in the early nineties. It was crippled until you purchased a license if I recall correctly. I believe that would make it prior art.