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Microsoft Files "Emergency Motion" To Ship Word
adeelarshad82 writes "Several days after a judge ordered Microsoft to halt sales of Word and handed down $290M in fines, the software giant has moved to stop the ban. On Friday Microsoft filed an emergency motion to stop the judgment and waive the bond requirement, according to court filings. The actual document was filed under seal, so the full contents of the request have not yet been made public."
While reading, I kept hearing the song "For the love of money" from the '70s in my head. The one from the O'Jays that goes "money,money,money,money, mooo...neeey" ;-)
Well; "waive the bond requirement, according to court filings. The actual document was filed under seal, so the full contents of the request have not yet been made public."
It sure helps having money to settle court cases in your favor, doesn't it ?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
You're wrong, and overmoderated.
There is no patent troll in this case.
i4i is an actual company, that sells actual products. They worked with Microsoft, and Microsoft, line for line, stole their code. i4i subsequently sued them, and won.
There is no patent troll in this case.
Who's to say that anyone en masse would have bought their software even if Microsoft hadn't done this?
i4i is an actual company, that sells actual products. They worked with Microsoft, and Microsoft, line for line, stole their code. i4i subsequently sued them, and won.
Hi, uninformed person here. If they stole code line for line, why is this a patent case and not a copyright infringement case?
"'Yrch!' said Legolas, falling into his own tongue."
Of course, because if there is one thing I have learned from Slashdot in the past few months, it is that any judgment that I disagree with must automatically have come about because the judge is corrupt and has been showered with money by evildoers.
It is, of course, impossible that the law could favour my enemies. I mean that is just ridiculous. I'm right and therefore I should win every time. Hell, it works that way in comic books.
As far as I'm concerned, whoever wins in the end, all that's been demonstrated is how absurd software patents are.
Wrong. True, a traditional patent troll is one that makes no real products. However, MS's activity against Linux can certainly be seen as "trollish", because of their vague threats meant to stir up FUD. At least the traditional patent trolls have the decency to state which patents are being violated, even if they're BS patents.
So, unless you can come up with a better term for their despicable behavior, I'll continue to use the term "troll" for MS.
I hate to be on Microsoft's side but they are right on this one. Maybe if they fight off enough patent trolls they will join in efforts to reform patents out of self preservation.
The problem is that they themselves patent just about everything under the sun.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Even if this is unquestionably a patent violation, the Supreme Court has already held, in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. (2006), that an injunction prohibiting sale of the infringing product is not necessarily the appropriate remedy in all cases. Rather, the traditional four factors for issuing an injunction must be balanced: 1) that the injury is irreparable; 2) that there are inadequate alternate remedies to compensate for the injury; 3) that the balance of hardships favors the plaintiff; and 4) that an injunction does not harm the public interest. Microsoft has an least a plausible argument that they are not satisfied in this case, and that alternate remedies (perhaps money damages) would be better than an injunction against sale, even if indeed Word is infringing.
If Microsoft can't post a $290 million bond without suffering irreparable harm, then what chance to they have to pay even larger money damages for future infringement?
Why should a state judge not be able to rule that a company selling a product in his jurisdiction is illegal? Just like this federal judge ruled selling a product in his jurisdiction is illegal.
By the way, global would be outside the jurisdiction of the US supreme court anyway.
You built this mess of "software patents" and it's way past time that it started to bite you in the ass. "Motion Denied" (and also suck-it!)
That's a bit too narrow.
Justice Bradley stated, in 1882
Those "speculative schemers" are patent trolls. It doesn't matter whether they actually use each "shadow of a shade of an idea" in a product of their own; they're patent trolls even if they make their own product, as long as they try to prevent others from using those non-novel or obvious ideas.
By that definition, i4i is a patent troll, and Microsoft has, in other instances, acted as a patent troll.
Not making a product is neither necessary nor sufficient for patent-trollism. An organization which mainly does research might legitimately obtain a patent without any intent of developing it themselves. And an organization which makes a real product might engage in patent-trolling to put competitors out of business, or to obtain a revenue stream when their own product has failed.
I'm sure it's a detailed synopsis as to how the US patent system is utterly broken, how it allows the most obvious ideas, and even ideas with a long history of prior art, to be patented. It probably goes into great detail as to how this is severely damaging both the US and global software industries, and how it burdens large companies with having to maintain vast portfolios to defend against just such attacks, and raises prices and creates uncertainty due to licensing costs.
Of course, it's sealed, because while Microsoft doesn't want to be the victim of this moronic and corrupt system, it also doesn't want to preclude being a potential beneficiary either.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's a fucking XML-encapsulated document structure. The entire point of SGML and SGML derivatives like XML is to encapsulate data into documents and other file structures. If this use of markups can be patented, then I'm heading down to the patent office to patent CSS.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And what's that exactly? That they store documents in a single XML file? That's kinda the point of XML, and indeed of most of the SGML derivatives. The concept has been around for decades. What they have is a product based off of a rather old idea, and then Microsoft implemented that rather old idea itself, thus rendering their product worthless. That's not an argument for them getting some sort of monetary reparations, it's an argument for companies not basing their revenue stream on decades-old concepts that probably are older than most of their software engineers.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This is all getting pretty pedantic, but maybe we just need a whole new term for MS's behavior, since I can't think of any other instance where a company went around bad-mouthing its competitors, claiming it has patents which they infringe, but refusing to disclose what those patents may be, just to get people to stop using the competitors' products.
Or, if we wanted to use a more lax definition of "troll", we could say it's anyone attempting to use the patent system (with its lax to non-existent safeguards against abuse) to profit in ways that don't involve direct competition. A normal company using patents does so to protect products it actually makes and sells, and only moves to litigation when a competitor violates one of those patents in its own competing product, such as with someone selling a knock-off of a patented technology. Anything other than this seems like "trollish" behavior to me, amounting to abuse of the patent system. Under this definition, i4i sounds like a troll since I don't see any "i4i" word processors on the market.
Oh no. Very few judges are bribed or corrupt these days. Politicians go so much cheaper and are more effective.
actually if they did steal the code line-for-line it would be both a patent and copyright infringement case.
Some people have the radical notion that perhaps an idea can't be owned by one person.
The patent system was not made for people to own ideas, it was made for people to own IMPLEMENTATIONS of ideas, this is where patents tend to fall flat on their ass with software. With every man and his dog patenting 'the ability to do x'.
No, its okay because Microsoft uses patents as weapons and not just defensively, and so they are now getting what they deserve. See the TomTom case for example.
Except that the plaintiffs are not patent trolls and have a real and verifiable grievance.
What is a patent troll?
I only ask you because you seem to not be using it as English does, yet it appears to be two English words put together.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll
Patent troll is a pejorative term used for a person or company that enforces its patents against one or more alleged infringers in a manner considered unduly aggressive or opportunistic, often with no intention to manufacture or market the patented invention.
Alleged infringers. We have none of those here. The court ruled Microsoft infringes. No more alleged.
unduly aggressive. None of that here. Hell, almost by definition it is not possible to be very aggressive towards a company the size of Microsoft. But that aside, what exactly is aggressive here? Due process is not aggressive.
Often with no intention. Not that this is even required at all, but none of that here. Not only do they have intention to manufacture their invention, they are actually doing it!
So yea, your version does not mean what the rest of us know it as. What does patent troll mean to you again?
Have you read the patent?
It seems like it would cover Adobe Dreamweaver, or any GUI editor that edits an XML-based data and styling application, where the data and the metacode defining the styles are separately stored but selected through some procedure.
For example, Notepad++, an open source notepad implementation, stores style information in a document separate from the storage of the text, which always remains plaintext and without any markup except that which is defined in a separate metadata file. In fact, Notepad++ goes a bit further and defines the method of mapping external to the document itself, allowing entirely plaintext documents, batch files, and dozens of programming languages to be syntax highlighted. That's just one example, and I believe Notepad++ is based off a root engine, Scintilla?
Regardless, I feel like I can continue to think of applications that violate the patent all day. The only reason I4i went after Microsoft in an East Texas courtroom is because they knew they could get either a lot of money, or a lot of publicity, or absurdly, they actually think they deserve the sole right to implement separately stored metadata + data in XML formats.
Tom Tom should not have threatened Microsoft first they approached Microsoft looking for a payoff then got burned instead of the payoff they where looking for. "TomTom is seeking in its current lawsuit "triple damages for willful infringement" on Microsoft's part because Microsoft had been notified of TomTom's claims and had not come forward with acceptable licensing terms."
Microsoft already lost the case, they were already ordered to pay $200 million which they have so far refused to do.
Normally, once the court finds you liable and orders you to pay, you have to actually do what they ordered you to do, or face sanctions and additional injunctions, like they have.
MS has only themselves to blame, they should have paid the $200 million to the court.
If they argued the right way on invalidity (in re Bilski...) they would have probably won the case. But the full-court press on invalidity would have hindered their future positioning on other legal fronts forevermore.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
public interest != convenience
As things stand, at this moment in time, MS Office is a convenience, because it does everything that people have been conditioned to expect of an office suite. As AC says, there are alternatives. And, removing the monopoly will motivate others to come up with solutions to the problems that MS created.
Real public interest ~= innovation
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
this is severely damaging both the US and global software industries
No, US software patents damage only US software industries.
Which they have already used to threaten open source projects. Not terribly defensive.