Microsoft Moves To Patent Time-Based Software Licensing

theodp writes "Microsoft's Open Value Subscription offering didn't get the warmest reception. Nor did the follow-up announcement of Albany, a planned MS-Office Subscription Service. Now comes word from the USPTO that Microsoft feels it deserves a patent for the 'invention' of 'Time-Based Licensing,' which aims to make the traditional pay-once perpetual license model a thing of the past. Hey, if your customers were waiting nine years between OS upgrades, you'd try touting a three-year lease with a balloon buy-out payment, too!"

Comments

Traditional model a thing of the past? Really?

[iYk6]

Microsoft feels it deserves a patent for the 'invention' of 'Time-Based Licensing,' which aims to make the traditional pay-once perpetual license model a thing of the past.

If they successfully patent time-based software licensing, wouldn't that make the traditional model a more viable solution?

Re:Traditional model a thing of the past? Really?

[camperslo]

NASA please test!

It's believed there may be water in the soil in Redmond

Matlab

[volpe]

Invention? What the heck are they talking about? My Matlab license has been time-based for years. I remember one day Matlab stopped working for me because I never got around to entering the new license number that our IT folks emailled me a few weeks earlier.

Re:Matlab

[Tablizer]

Invention? What the heck are they talking about? My Matlab license has been time-based for years. I remember one day Matlab stopped working for me because I never got around to entering the new license number that our IT folks emailled me a few weeks earlier.

I find htat venders uzwolly forgit to tern off feeturs. Four exampul, my spail chekker lisense ran out, butt it steal fixes all my werds just fyne, flaging and perviding opshuns az uzwoll. Woodent that bee funnie iff it listed rong werds aftur? Ha, I probly woodent notiss teh differns anyhowl.
       

Dangerous move

[Anonymous Coward]

People have options these days. I'm on the knife edge myself and Vista was annoying enough to have me considering a shift. Turn my software and OS into a ticking time bomb and I'm likely to jump ship. Microsoft is desperate to establish a revenue stream that requires no innovation or effort on their part. Vista falling on it's face confirmed for them the need for putting a gun to their users heads to keep money flowing.

Re:Give me a break... time keeps on ticking into..

[Zordak]

This patent is absurd.

Two things. One, this is not a patent. It's an application. You can put literally anything you want in a publication, and it will get published after 18 months, even though nobody's looked at it. I could file an application, and my first claim could be, "I claim a data storage device comprising a magnetic platter containing a plurality of magnetic bits, each bit configured to have two states, wherein each state represents alternately a 0 or a 1." That application would publish after 18 months with that claim, and everybody on /. would be hoppin' mad that I'd gotten a patent on the hard drive. And they would be completely wrong. Just because you ask for a particular, broad claim, doesn't mean you're going to get it.

Second, I doubt that you've done anything close to the analysis to even know if the filed claims are "absurd." What do the claims say? Do you know? What disclosure supports them? Does the disclosure have any limiting definitions or statements? Is there any file wrapper estoppel? Are the claims statutory subject matter under Bilski? I'm betting you don't know, which means you don't know if these claims are absurd or not.