Xerox Sues Google, Yahoo Over Search Patents

gnosygnus writes "Xerox Corp has sued Google, Inc. and Yahoo, Inc., accusing them of infringing the document management company's patents related to Internet search. In a lawsuit filed last Friday in the US District Court in Delaware, Xerox said Google's Web-based services, such as Google Maps, YouTube and AdSense advertising software, as well as Web tools including Yahoo Shopping, infringe patents granted as far back as 2001. Xerox seeks compensation for past infringement and asked the court to halt the companies from further using the technology."

Comments

So you are saying

[Anonymous Coward]

that Google and Yahoo COPIED Xerox???

Re:So you are saying

[Pojut]

OH NOES! COPIEDED!

Re:So you are saying

[The Clockwork Troll]

Let's hope for Xerox's sake that the court of jurisdiction is Soviet.

Re:So you are saying

[The Clockwork Troll]

Dupe post.

Re:So you are saying

[mingbrasil]

that Google and Yahoo COPIED Xerox???

No... They xeroxed a copy

Re:So you are saying

[Anonymous Coward]

No no... They xeroxed xerox. :)

Re:So you are saying

[Anonymous Coward]

YeeeeeeeAaaaaaaa!

Re:So you are saying

[jo42]

No, no, no - Google and Yahoo Xeroxed Xerox!

Re:So you are saying

[K. S. Kyosuke]

that Google and Yahoo COPIED Xerox???

I find all these xerography jokes rather dry...

Re:So you are saying

[tzot]

I bow before you, oh master punner. Not many will (bother to) get your joke.

Perhaps...

[FF8Jake]

Yahoo and Google used a Xerox copier to take a copy of the technology for themselves?

Re:Perhaps...

[ak_hepcat]

... ditto ...

Re:Perhaps...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yahoo and Google used a Xerox copier to take a copy of the technology for themselves?

Re:Perhaps...

[datapharmer]

I&Rs%UFL&^

what the heck??

stupid mimeograph, I can't read any of this!

Re:Perhaps...

[FF8Jake]

Nice, Anonymous Coward submitted the same thing a couple seconds earlier and I get modded redundant. Clearly, my copy is the cleaner one here and not cluttered with excess question marks. I will be taking my copying needs to Google and Yahoo.

Re:Perhaps...

[Anonymous Coward]

... ditto ...
--
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)

Can someone help?

[Monkeedude1212]

Anyone have a link to this patent? The summary fails to accurately describe what it is they patented - though the impression I get is... Practically Everything?

Re:Can someone help?

[jornak]

System for automatically generating queries
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6778979

Method and apparatus for the integration of information and knowledge
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6778979

Re:Can someone help?

[jornak]

The ironic thing is that, if I understand correct, Google Patent Search (what I used to find these patents) would be in violation of these patents...

Re:Can someone help?

[BuddyT]

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6778979

Re:Can someone help?

[jambarama]

Somewhat ironically, Google offers information on these patents - number 1 and number 2. Here's a more substantive article.

The bigger question is why not sue MSFT & as well - they're doing everything Yahoo & Google does. Perhaps Microsoft has many other patents they could use to retaliate against Xerox, something Google & Yahoo are a bit lighter on. Given these patents are more than a decade old, could Google & Yahoo make some sort of laches defense?

Re:Can someone help?

[Zedrick]

Well, since Xerox invented practically everything, that would make sense.

Re:Can someone help?

[Anonymous Coward]

Xerox is not going after MS because MS licesnsed the patents for WinXP, (See: "C:\Program Files\Xerox" and this). They had to keep the Xerox directory to satisfy patent agreement. MS had this problem settled BEFORE the release of WinXP.
Given that they are more than a decade old, they only strengthens them. Looks like Google/Yahoo are screwed.

Re:Can someone help?

[__aasqbs9791]

Why am I reminded of the quote about understanding recursion?

Re:Can someone help?

[bkr1_2k]

Wouldn't such a suit be more appropriate to suing over Bing than over WinXP anyway? Also, I've never had a C:\Program Files\Xerox folder in any windows installation I've ever used at home (though there is one on my work machine).

Re:Can someone help?

[liquidsin]

because, in order to be reminded of the quote about understanding recursion you must first be reminded of the quote about understanding recursion. and you were.

Re:Can someone help?

[__aasqbs9791]

Okay, you win. Your prize is 1 internets.

Re:Can someone help?

[Woogiemonger]

System for automatically generating queries http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6778979

Method and apparatus for the integration of information and knowledge http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6778979

You posted the same URL twice.

Re:Can someone help?

[Pinky's Brain]

That's a bit non sequitur ... because they had a protected directory for _scanner drivers_ in Windows XP they licensed the patents??? WTF???

Re:Can someone help?

[cyber-dragon.net]

I wonder if Xerox lawyers used Google Patent Search to find their info. Gotta be easier than digging through paperwork.

Re:Can someone help?

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm...wonder if Al Gore worked for them at the same time.... since.. ya know.... he invented the internet... wonder when his patent-infringement is going to come out suing everyone who uses the internet someday?

Re:Can someone help?

[Anonymous Coward]

In USA it's normal practice to patent everything. Get used to it.

Re:Can someone help?

[hclewk]

Did you mean recursion?

Re:Can someone help?

[__aasqbs9791]

Not quite, I meant the one google suggests on that page, though.

Re:Can someone help?

[Anonymous Coward]

Har har har.

He said he "took the initiative in creating the internet" because, well, he did. If it wasn't for his work as a senator, the internet as we know it would have emerged much later.

Re:Can someone help?

[Anonymous Coward]

if you disabled sfc then you could delete the directory

Re:Can someone help?

[b4dc0d3r]

Patent something
Fail to bring anything to market
Have no idea how to leverage your IP
Wait
Take half a day to see if anything in your patent portfolio could be argued as being infringed by a new software or website
Sue like the troll you are

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1561604&cid=31262548

What he said. Classic failure. I'm going to go Ricoh Minolta my tax return now.

Re:Can someone help?

[thejynxed]

Sorry, he had to xerox you off a copy of the link.

Re:Can someone help?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you spot the intentional duplication of the links to try to play to all 4 positive mods? (Hint: Xerox Copier)

Can you say "Patent troll"?

[calibre-not-output]

I can: PATENT TROLL. Just because people don't use paper anymore...

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well now if it was the OLD xerox... yeah... maybe not a troll. They invented alot of the crap we use today.

But this is the new xerox. so it might be a troll.

Haveta read their bs to find out which one is in court this time.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[unts]

Xerox have done a lot of innovation in the past, particularly at Xerox PARC. They practically invented the GUI.

So although their claim might be a little... erm... aggressive, don't be too quick to dismiss them as a mere patent troll.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[calibre-not-output]

I recognize their historical importance in IT, but the past is past. Whoever is calling their shots now is acting like a patent troll. This isn't the first time, either.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[ircmaxell]

I agree, but not because they are suing for patent violation. I agree, because they waited almost 10 years to enforce this patent. Why the wait? Presumably these companies were in violation for longer than just the past year or 2. And it's not like they can say that they "just found out that they existed"...

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Sir_Lewk]

And once upon a time SCO was a respectable Unix vendor.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[unts]

Point taken.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since 2003 in fact (Google AdWords, anyway). Since the patents are dated 2001 and 2004 (if I'm not mistaken, I RTFA'd earlier today on firehose), that would be rather surprising.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote Eddie Murphy, from when he was cool, "What have you done for me lately!?"

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[jank1887]

after discovery of infringement (maybe a couple years after the event), they could have attempted to come to an agreement with both entities. Negotiation might have broken down and now the patent holder's last recourse is an infringement suit.

Wouldn't be the first time that series of events occurred, especially when multiple patent-lawyer-loaded parties are involved, and it would create a legitimate delay before filing suit.

Be interesting to see what the details actually were, however.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[ircmaxell]

Even at that, more than 2 or 3 years, and I call troll. Either that, or incompetent leadership. Can you say that a negotiation that lasted for presumably as much as 6 to 10 years broke down initiating this suit? Plus, they filed suits against multiple parties. If they did one today, and another in 6 months than your theory would be much more plausible. But as it appears now, I can't see how it can be anything but "troll".

1. "Innovate" an interesting idea, patent it, and do nothing with it
2. Wait for others to independently develop the same idea, and do nothing about it
3. Wait for others' products to launch, and do nothing about it
4. Wait for others' products to gain market penetration, then sue their asses off for infringement
5. Profit

If there's a better definition of a troll, I don't know what it is...

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Rob Y.]

...They practically invented the GUI.
...and if they'd be able to patent it, we'd still all be running DOS, since Xerox never came out with a GUI product. Such is the power of software patents to drive innovation (into the ground).

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[maxwell demon]

Actually, many of us would be running Linux, just as we do today. Just that we would use the command line exclusively.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Creepy]

Except patent trolls file in east Texas, not Delaware. Most patent trolls create a shell office in Texas just so they can file cases there - in fact, I believe setting up shell offices was Texas' biggest growth industries during the recession.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Xerox has done a lot of innovating. They have also quite famously totally failed to properly DO anything with the things they've created. We could have had something akin to Java a lot earlier in the form of Smalltalk-80. Xerox in their "wisdom" decided to charge a king's ransom for it forever enshrining it in it's ivory tower. It took Apple, Microsoft and Amiga, Inc to bring the windowed interface to the world, despite Xerox having the working system right in front of them (again, in the form of Smalltalk-80).

So Xerox missed the boat...nay, the entire 20 year revolution of home computers and business computing without so much as a "duh?" Guess there's not much left to do but become the next great patent troll, now that SCO is out of the picture. See Bing in that lawsuit anywhere? Of course not...look not behind the curtain, mortal.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Creepy]

Well, no - since the GUI would have been patented in the 1970s and at that time the law gave protection for 17 years from the date of publication (and usually took 3 years to get published - current law is 20 years from filing). GUIs didn't really become popular until the late 1980s and that would have been near the end of any patent for it, so it may have delayed the GUI, but not killed it. Some hardware patents Xerox showed off such as the mouse would have already been near end of patent by the 1980s (invented in the 1960s).

    I'm not saying software patents don't suck - I don't think people should be able to patent, say, how to do the Navier Stokes equations for fluid dynamics in software and on graphics hardware, which has been done multiple times (and the methods are trivially obvious in some cases - one hardware accelerated patent I saw was essentially implementing an expired software patent in hardware). OTOH, if you INVENTED the Navier Stokes equations, then sure - allow a patent that can apply to software. I also don't think an idea itself should be patentable, either - for instance, I remember Woz talking about when he made characters display on a screen and then later getting sued by a TV manufacturer that had patented the idea - there needs to be some practical plan to implement it.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[bugs2squash]

sounds like an improvement to me

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[bzipitidoo]

Haveta read their bs to find out which one is in court this time.

Moot. There shouldn't be software patents. Anyone who uses patents on software is most likely trolling.

Software patents have become their own lame formulaic joke, like the one about appending "in bed" to fortune cookie fortunes. Take any idea and append "on the Internet" to it.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Including a picture of goatse on each page as a watermark, and accusing the various companies of being Nazis?

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[DustyShadow]

I agree, because they waited almost 10 years to enforce this patent.

Do you work for either company? How do you know negotiations have not been taking place all this time?

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents were filed in 2001, but it took about 3 years to award them. If the USPTO took 3+ years awarding the patent, why wouldn't a company take more to carefully analyze, try to negotiate, and file a lawsuit.

Don't forget this is not just a game, but it will cost a lot of money, and even worse, it's handled by lawyers. ;)

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Wylfing]

Sorry, posting to remove a wrong mod.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[BatGnat]

we want ..... ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS.

No we know that XEROX actually created Dr Evils clone.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[sjames]

Too bad they never pushed any of that great tech out the door.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[klossner]

Xerox never came out with a GUI product

The first Xerox GUI product was the Xerox Star in 1981.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Bigjeff5]

They may not have come up with a product, but they certainly would have been open to licensing it to someone else. The beauty of patents is it's out in the open where everyone can see. You can't hide it, and if they did not take advantage of it they would have lost it anyway.

Any attempt to bury it would have simply failed, that's the whole purpose of the patent system, is to prevent the loss of innovations.

If they had simply patented it, they would be much more of a technology powerhouse than they are now. We'd still have GUI's, and they would not be expensive.

Besides, by now there would be no licensing fees, and wouldn't have been for the last ten years. Nothing really changes, except we might be 15-20 years farther along with GUI's if Xerox hadn't been so stupid.

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Xerox didn't patent the mouse. SRI International did (Stanford Research Institute at the time of the patent)

Re:Can you say "Patent troll"?

[Bigjeff5]

It took a couple years to figure out that Google was the king of internet search, and Yahoo his chambermaid? Or it took a couple years to drum up something that looks like it may possibly considered infringing if you look at it "just so"?

I can't really buy the first possibility, and the patents sound generic enough to cover most anything they'd have done.

Google has been around a long, long time - three years (the period of their application prior to approval) is more than enough time to find something infringing about Google's search, and another six years to negotiate? Seriously? I call BS on the whole thing, and I hope the claim gets slapped down via laches.

Real Goal: Cross-Licensing?

[Shadowhawk]

My guess is that Xerox isn't looking for any big payout, but rather some kind of cross-licensing deal for patents.

Re:Real Goal: Cross-Licensing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the others have a good enough patent portfolio for Xerox to be targetting. They likely want to force their patents to be licensed, and lots of $$$ from "past damages".

Remember: Xerox used to be a MAJOR force in R&D, and still has some very very valuable patents. They're not patent trolls, rather they are a lot more like IBM: they created a LOT of patents, many of them for non-obvious, very interesting inventions... like the Mouse.

Re:Real Goal: Cross-Licensing?

[Jeng]

SCO wasn't a patent troll once also.

Re:Real Goal: Cross-Licensing?

[ScrewMaster]

they created a LOT of patents, many of them for non-obvious, very interesting inventions... like the Mouse.

Which is not to say that they actually produced those inventions: patenting does not equal innovation or creativity. Doug Engelbart (who was working at Stanford at the time) is usually credited with the invention of the mouse. So, while PARC certainly used the mouse in their Smalltalk GUI, they didn't invent it. Furthermore, patents or not, if a corporation has reached the point where they are expecting to survive financially off their patent portfolio, well, let's just say that they're past their prime.

And who says the mouse wasn't obvious? Actually, it's pretty damn obvious, particularly considering that it was invented in 1968 or thereabouts.

Re:Real Goal: Cross-Licensing?

[Anonymous Coward]

So anything that was invented a long time ago was obvious THEN? Or are you just saying that as a retrospective it LOOKS obvious because you have been using one all your life? Honestly, all inventions could seem "obvious" to folks who have had access to them all their lives. But most of them probably weren't obvious at the time they were invented.

Re:Real Goal: Cross-Licensing?

[Xtifr]

SCO[1] still isn't a patent troll--no patents are involved in any of their lawsuits[2]. They could, perhaps, be considered a copyright troll, except that patent trolls usually own the patents they're suing over, while SCO doesn't seem to own any sue-worthy copyrights.

Just sayin'.

[1] Note that SCO (The SCO Group) is not the same company as The Santa Cruz Operation, so their history is not quite as extensive as their name might suggest.

[2] IBM did originally include patent claims in their countersuit, but they dropped those charges, and SCO has never sued anyone over any of their own patents, mostly because they don't have any.

Re:Real Goal: Cross-Licensing?

[HiThere]

The mouse wasn't obvious, exactly, but the idea, rather than the device, wasn't a major innovation. People knew what the problems with the light pen were.

So it was a minor innovation with important after-effects. (If you check the internals, you'll see that the modern mouse doesn't owe much, if anything, to the mechanical design of the original.)

At the time I'd have been all in favor of Xerox getting a patent on the mouse. I just wouldn't be in favor of the patent still being valid. It's been too long, even if they had been a major seller of mice. The implementation of the mouse wasn't THAT significant a step. The light pen got us most of the way there. (And the rewards for the mouse should have been shared with the innovators of light-pens.)

Since that's not the way the laws work, I'd be just as happy if the mouse was ruled trivially obvious. It wasn't, but it was that's closer to true than saying that it is worth all the reward for innovation in user interfaces involving gestures. (Except for touch pads/tablets/etc.)

For my personal preference, the best gesture reading tool was the original Felix. The later models ruined the original design, and the original design was seriously hampered by driver problems, but it solved many of the problems that a mouse has. It was essentially a touchpad enclosed in a box with a stick on tracks above it. You didn't need to move your arm at all to traverse the entire screen. It could all be done with finger motions. It wasn't successful because of implementation problems, and because my tastes aren't universal. And because the later designs de-optimized it to make it look slicker (I presume). OTOH, the original design only had one button. (It was for a Mac. Probably OS 3.5.) There might have been trouble adapting it to three buttons, but it didn't last that long.

I don't really think that highly of mice. They're better than many of the alternatives, but that doesn't make them a good design. I should probably give a trackball another try. But I haven't encountered a good trackball with three buttons. (A wheel is a lousy substitute for a third button, but it "sort of" works, and some interfaces are actually starting to make use of it as a wheel. Whether one can design a good trackball that uses a wheel is, to me, an unanswered question.

Basically mice are popular because they are popular. Other choices would have worked as well. Each has it's own particular strength and weakness. And the mouse wasn't THAT innovative, even at the time.

Re:Real Goal: Cross-Licensing?

[Taliesan999]

Yes and no... Xerox has a number of products in the document management space... i.e. things like scanning originals and putting original (electronic) documents in and archiving and making them searchable in house or online.

It's quite possible that Google/Yahoo have a number of patents in the search space that restrict or otherwise hang over features that Xerox may want to incorporate into these products.

Xerox no longer just makes office photocopiers, scanners and faxes ( multifunction machines these days). A large part of their business is document management software and services.

Article summary

[girlintraining]

"We want your cake too. And it'll cost us less in legal fees than the potential benefit. That's a mighty nice website you have there. It would be a shame if anything were to...happen... to it. Probable result: cross-licensing agreement to patent portfolio to lock out smaller competitors, higher costs for consumers in countries with strong IP laws. "

Let the Troll Wars begin

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's that I hear walking across my bridge?

Re:Let the Troll Wars begin

[mister_playboy]

Who's that I hear walking under my bridge?

FTFY

Timeframe

[Jeng]

How long can you sit on a patent before you have to start going after people?

It would appear to me that Xerox must have been sitting on this for quite sometime.

It is also odd how Microsoft is not included in this, Yahoo and Google, but not Microsoft in a search related patent case?

Re:Timeframe

[pavera]

Patent law is retarded. You can sit on a patent for 19 years and 11 months. There is no requirement to go after people to keep a patent enforcible. You can patent something and wait for the entire term of the patent for someone to actually invent/commercialize what you have patented, and then sue them at the 11th hour and take as much money from them as the courts will give you.

The exclusion of microsoft is interesting, perhaps MS already has a cross licensing deal with Xerox?

Re:Timeframe

[Anonymous Coward]

They probably tried to actually find something using Bing and decided they wouldn't have a case.

Re:Timeframe

[spidercoz]

should make a law where any patent has to be developed for actual use by the patenter or official licensee within one year of being granted, otherwise it's revoked, but this is the least of what's wrong with the stupid over-litigated patent system in this idiotic fucking country

Re:Timeframe

[Svartalf]

Actually, no, you can't sit on it and expect to be able to enforce it like you imply.

You don't lose the patent like you do with Trademark- but if you delay, the range of things that ends up happening goes from no damages to an inability to enforce against the infringers that you didn't enforce against during the time you "sat on it". Subsequent infringers can be enforced against during the life of the patent- but not the others if you delay any substantive time on it from the moment that the infringement becomes obvious to you or should have been so.

Re:Timeframe

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting yourself removed from both google and yahoo (+bing) indexes at the same time must be new PR record. I hope all there customers where using altavista....

Re:Timeframe

[belmolis]

I see a problem with this. Suppose that the inventor is an individual or small company that doesn't have the ability to develop the invention by itself. It takes it to companies that can. These companies decline to license it, wait until a year has passed, then begin to make it without needing a license. They're gambling, of course, because a company that does license it within the first year will not only get a jump on them but may get an exclusive license, but if nobody licenses the patent in the first year (and the established companies might well collude in this), they will successfully have screwed the inventor out of the patent.

Re:Timeframe

[Bigjeff5]

It's called Laches. If a person is is infringing on a patented technology unknowingly, and the patent owner knows their patent is being infringed, they must actively pursue resolution. They cannot sit and wait for someone to profit off of their invention for the purposes of suing them later and getting more money.

The defense boils down to what is essentially an implied license to use the patent. You can think of it like this: if the patent holder knowingly allows someone to use their patent, they have implicitly licensed it by their inaction.

Obviously a patent holder has a reasonable amount of time after discovering the offense to contact the infringer and negotiate a license, and there is a reasonable amount of time for the license negotiations. This varies depending on the situation, and is determined by a judge or jury.

In other words, if you know someone is using an invention you've patented, and you let them use it for 5 years without telling them they're infringing on your patent, you generally have no right to sue them for damages, or even to negotiate a license.

It follows the old concept of "if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck". Well, allowing someone to use your patent is exactly what a license does, so if you allow someone to use your patent without seeking payment, you've licensed it to them by action.

It's similar to what happens when someone doesn't fight trade mark infringement, the only real difference is you don't lose the rights to your patent, just the right to sue that particular individual or company.

Re:Timeframe

[4phun]

They probably tried to actually find something using Bing and decided they wouldn't have a case.

FUNNY Best /. of the day IMHO

Re:Timeframe

[almondo]

Or they were concerned that the disease might be contagious and they didn't want to get too close.

Re:Go America!

[Anonymous Coward]

Go America! Way to pervert research into something that lets slow old giants make innovative technical companies suffer financially, all while making lawyers rich.

I believe the point of the lawsuit is that Google, and Yahoo did not innovate. They infringed.

Xerox Gets a Pass

[geoffrobinson]

Given their contributions to the PC, I'm giving them a pass on this one. Cut them a check and send them on their way.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[Cruciform]

They didn't make those contributions to the PC out of altruism.
It was done for profit.

So I say don't cut them any check unless they have a valid claim befitting of recompense. And even then only if the patents in question are non-obvious and not overly broad.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[Jeng]

Microsoft is the one who screwed them the most regarding their contributions to the PC yet that is one of the search engines that is not being targeted.

I'd say the pass is revoked.

If they were merely screwing over those who screwed them over I would agree, but that does not appear to be the case here.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[Cruciform]

You might want to edit that sig.
There are 42 million people in slavery worldwide right now, and communism is alive and well.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[abigor]

Xerox is notable for failing to commercialise or profit from PARC's accomplishments, including the invention of the gui, laser printing, bit-mapped graphics, the mouse, and Ethernet. It is the most monumental example of dropping the ball that I can think of.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[morgan_greywolf]

No, they screwed themselves. They built a machine that was far too expensive for the marketplace, and there was such poor leadership at Xerox, so the Star just didn't take.

And it wasn't just Microsoft (or, more correctly, Apple) that benefited from Xerox PARC. The following technologies all were originally developed at PARC and their inventors went on to start their own businesses or work for other companies:

- Ethernet: Bob Metcalfe went off to start 3COM
- WYSIWYG word processing: Butler Lampson went off to work at DEC (He now works at Microsoft)
- GUI: Most of the GUI programmers went to work at Apple.
- Laser printers: The Laser printer guys went to work at Apple
- PostScript: John Warnock took his invention with him he founded Adobe Systems (it's no surprise that Apple's LaserWriter was the first printer to use PostScript)

and the list goes on. Today's corporate office PC network basically owes its existence to Xerox PARC and the Xerox Star.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[Svartalf]

I'm not cutting them any slack. Roughly 7+ years to determine if they're infringing and not enforcing their rights is a bit beyond the pale and is very probably subject to equitable estoppel out of the gate. They very probably shouldn't have ran this one up the flagpole in the first place- and it's very, very patent-trolly. Patent trolls do not get an out no matter what their past contributions might have been.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[1s44c]

Xerox is notable for failing to commercialise or profit from PARC's accomplishments, including the invention of the gui, laser printing, bit-mapped graphics, the mouse, and Ethernet. It is the most monumental example of dropping the ball that I can think of.

Plus object-oriented programming, They invented that too.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[abigor]

You are right, how could I forget. I really love Smalltalk the language, but I'm less keen on the whole "modify the image" thing. I'm sure it would have been a lot more successful if it were file-based.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[north.coaster]

I get your point, but need to mention that Xerox has been selling laser printers for many, many years. The book Dealers of Lightning claims that their profits from laser printing have easily paid for all of the research done by PARC.

Also, Xerox did not invent the mouse, and has never claimed to have done so.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[Anonymous Coward]

Xerox is notable for failing to commercialise or profit from PARC's accomplishments, including the invention of the gui, laser printing, bit-mapped graphics, the mouse, and Ethernet. It is the most monumental example of dropping the ball that I can think of.

Or, you could say that Xerox is notable for taking a portion of its profits, and philanthropically donating them to society at large through PARC's accomplishments. It is one of the most monumental examples of enriching society through technical innovation that I can think of.

All depends on whether you want to dump on Xerox or praise them. Personally, I admire them for their efforts, and how they freely gave the results away for others to reuse. I wish more companies "dropped the ball" like this; it'd probably result in a much richer economy.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[chthon]

No, object oriented programming was invented in 1967 in Norway. The language was Simula 67. What Xerox came up with was the application of OO to graphical programming.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[amasiancrasian]

Oh, and let's not forget the beginnings of PDF, via InterScript, later PostScript, where former Xerox employees later founded a small start-up called Adobe...

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[HiThere]

Unh... Apple PAID Xerox for the tech they used. Check your history.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[Ceseuron]

...Or it's one of the finest examples of our glorious American business model:

1. Patent something, no matter how vague or generalized it is.
2. Sit on said patent and do nothing with it.
3. Wait for someone else to invest all the R&D, production, and marketing resources on something that infringes on your patent.
4. Sue for said infringement.
5. Profit on your patent without making any investment in the product or service that the patent was granted for.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[Evets]

Actually, Apple stole the tech from Xerox, then licensed the tech to HP and Microsoft.

Xerox sued, but this was way back when. I don't think there was even a concept of a software patent when the Star system was developed. They originally tried to sue for copyright infringement, but the timing of the suit caused problems. They then tried to sue for unfair business practices. IIRC, they eventually settled out of court.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[abigor]

Also, Xerox did not invent the mouse, and has never claimed to have done so.

You are correct. My apologies to you and to Douglas Engelbart.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[tyrione]

No, object oriented programming was invented in 1967 in Norway. The language was Simula 67. What Xerox came up with was the application of OO to graphical programming.

No, object oriented programming was invented in 1967 in Norway. That language was Simula 67. What Xerox came up with was the application of OO to graphical programming, through the language of Smalltalk which they invented.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[tyrione]

Actually, Apple stole the tech from Xerox, then licensed the tech to HP and Microsoft.

Xerox sued, but this was way back when. I don't think there was even a concept of a software patent when the Star system was developed. They originally tried to sue for copyright infringement, but the timing of the suit caused problems. They then tried to sue for unfair business practices. IIRC, they eventually settled out of court.

You're wrong. Xerox was given the opportunity to invest $1 Million into Apple at pre-IPO status. Upon vesting it was worth approximately $125 Million to Xerox. They pocketed it immediately.

Xerox corporate had no interest until after they saw the runaway success of Apple to try and then enforce patents already shown amicably to Apple. Apple hired 15 engineers away from Xerox who were the key creators of much of that work. The brain drain at Xerox PARC was their own fault was half their fault and half the fault of the engineers. The fact they let a bunch of Ph.Ds experiment and get paid while producing no loyalty to Xerox speaks volumes about PARC and the pricks who exploited this once in a life time opportunity. None of these engineers have an ounce of ethics in their bones. They all saw green, took the money and ran with it. We got 3Com, Adobe, more tech from Apple and much more. The engineers turned out to be the real thieves.

There is a reason you sign NDAs today--there is always a precedence.

Re:Xerox Gets a Pass

[Pictish Prince]

You are right, how could I forget. I really love Smalltalk the language, but I'm less keen on the whole "modify the image" thing. I'm sure it would have been a lot more successful if it were file-based.

I like smalltalk, too, which is why I really like objective-c. Trouble is, Apple is such a bunch of Nazis that I don't want to develop for them. Hopefully, GnuStep will be as usable as Cocoa is sometime soon.

How do I get in on this?

[castironpigeon]

Dear Google, Yahoo, and anyone else who has more money than I do. I would like some of your money. Please give me some money or I will have to sue you for it. Thank you and have a nice day.

Re:How do I get in on this?

[spidercoz]

sue them for causing you mental anguish over the fact that they have more money than you'll ever see

Remember when PARC actually invented stuff?

[Kenja]

Good times, but how the mighty have fallen these days. I for one miss the idea of a pure research group.

Re:Remember when PARC actually invented stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want pure research, you have to fund them. Given that science seems to be a dirty word nowadays, I'm not hopeful for the future.

Re:Remember when PARC actually invented stuff?

[raddan]

Yeah, it sounds to me like Xerox is facing increasing irrelevancy, and has decided to turn to litigation as a new revenue stream. I [ugh, sadly] do a lot of purchasing of office equipment, and now that I think of it, I have not even once considered a Xerox product in the last 6 years that I've worked here. I'm not even sure what they're up to anymore.

Re:Remember when PARC actually invented stuff?

[ScrewMaster]

Good times, but how the mighty have fallen these days. I for one miss the idea of a pure research group.

Yeah ... no kidding. Put Bell Laboratories on the short list as well.

Re:Remember when PARC actually invented stuff?

[spidercoz]

Science, logic, critical thinking, simple human decency...notice that the 21st Century seems to be going the opposite direction all the popular old sci-fi said it would? We should sue.

Re:Remember when PARC actually invented stuff?

[JamesP]

Too bad management at PARC were too retarded to profit from what the guys (and gals) there invented (they were 10 years ahead)

researchers: "We've invented the GUI, OO programming, etc, etc"
managers "hurr durr durr what's that hurrrr"

Re:Remember when PARC actually invented stuff?

[Svartalf]

They make the current incarnation of the solid ink printer tech that got bought off of Tektronix, amongst other things.

Solid ink produces much sharper results than color laser printers and seems like an overall win, but for some odd reason, while they've got units with price points that are reasonable (same basic pricing as comparable laser printers...), you just can't find them except through their reseller channels or online.

I'd have to concur with your and the GP poster's assessment on this.

Re:Remember when PARC actually invented stuff?

[CoderJoe]

Bell Labs? Perhaps you mean Lucent Technologies (or, these days, Alcatel-Lucent).

Re:Remember when PARC actually invented stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

Science, logic, critical thinking, simple human decency...

Eat some Soylent Green and calm down, furniture. Remember, Tuesday is the Soilent Green day! Damn it.

Re:Remember when PARC actually invented stuff?

[ScrewMaster]

Bell Labs? Perhaps you mean Lucent Technologies (or, these days, Alcatel-Lucent).

No, I meant the old Bell Labs. The OP was talking about how the mighty have fallen.

Re:Remember when PARC actually invented stuff?

[ColdWetDog]

Science, logic, critical thinking, simple human decency...notice that the 21st Century seems to be going the opposite direction all the popular old sci-fi said it would? We should sue.

Don't know about that. A lot of Heinlein looks scary prescient about now. (His mid career stuff, not the wacko crazy stuff at the end).

Delaware?

[Fnord666]

They filed in Delaware? Don't they know all suits like this seem to be required to be filed in East Texas!

Re:Delaware?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because this one is fully legit. MS licensed the infringing patents before they released WinXP.

Re:Delaware?

[Anonymous Coward]

As some one that has had to deal with this ... East Texas judges are viewed greatly as being in favor the patent holder ... even if the patent is full of holes ... or there is selective enforcement. Unfortunately this view is true much to the detriment to the consumer.

Re:Go America!

[Pojut]

And whose idea was it to make things this way? Why, a lawyer of course!

Links

[trancemission]

Suit:

here

Possible patents:

System for automatically generating queries
Method and apparatus for the integration of information and knowledge


Lifted from the register

Re:Go America!

[ircmaxell]

Technically that's true, but I think the implication is false. To me at least, you statement implies that they "cheated" (knowingly infringed). Multiple people can come up with strikingly similar results from completely different angles (with respect to algorithms especially). The first is by definition innovation. Wouldn't the second still be innovation (so long as they didn't know about the first)? Sure, the results are very similar to the first, but the method used was genuine. So I believe both can be classified as innovation. If the second knew of the first, then it's no longer innovation and could possibly become innovation at that part. It's not how the system works, but perhaps it should be (Otherwise you reward the first to develop, and penalize --perhaps unjustifiably-- all others... Just my $0.02

does Darl McBride work there now?

[doubleyou]

Nice to see Darl McBride landed on his feet and got a job working for Xerox. :-P

Seriously, is this the litmus test for tech companies that are circling the drain?

See laches

[tepples]

You can sit on a patent for 19 years and 11 months. There is no requirement to go after people to keep a patent enforcible.

Citation needed. Where I come from, they have something called equitable estoppel. In this case, you're looking for laches.

Re:See laches

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Well, where the rest of us come from they have something called "lawyers", which renders your equitable defence moot.

Re:See laches

[tepples]

Where I come from, some lawyers have a habit of calling for equitable defences (or defenses) on behalf of their clients.

Re:See laches

[Areyoukiddingme]

How many hundreds of Slashdot patent stories have come across the wire and how many of them have even whispered equitable estoppel or laches in the court filings? I can't think of even one, or if there was one, it failed so utterly we never heard about it.

A legal mechanism that theoretically exists but can never be exercised doesn't actually exist.

Re:See laches

[butlerm]

The inability to collect damages for past infringement (due to laches) has no effect on the ability to enforce a patent for the remainder of the term.

Re:Go America!

[Darth Sdlavrot]

And Google and Yahoo! did something with it.

What did Xerox do with this particular bit of "innovative" property.

Do you just say that every time?

[ThrowAwaySociety]

I can: PATENT TROLL.

I know it's in vogue here on Slashdot to scream "Troll!" anytime a patent holder sues for infringement, but "patent troll" really means something distinct from "patent suit."

From the Wiki, a patent troll is someone who:
* Purchases a patent, often from a bankrupt firm, and then sues another company by claiming that one of its products infringes on the purchased patent;
* Enforces patents against purported infringers without itself intending to manufacture the patented product or supply the patented service;
* Enforces patents but has no manufacturing or research base
* Focuses its efforts solely on enforcing patent rights.
* Asserts patent infringement claims against non-copiers or against a large industry that is composed of non-copiers

TFA and TFS are thin on details, so there is no evidence to support the idea that Xerox is doing any one of these.

Re:Do you just say that every time?

[Svartalf]

I don't see Xerox intending on doing an internet search engine...ever. So, you're kind of wrong on that count.

Re:Do you just say that every time?

[calibre-not-output]

* Asserts patent infringement claims against non-copiers or against a large industry that is composed of non-copiers

This fits closely. Besides, why did they wait 10 years to file this suit? I'll tell you why: There is no patent infringement, but XEROX is looking for an easy settlement to fatten the piggy bank.

Re:Do you just say that every time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Xerox did create an internet search product (AskOnce) and uses the technology in other applications (I think). This is not patent trolling.

And Xerox continues to innovate in printing technologies as well as many areas of software and document integration. Far from irrelevant and far from needing to live on the patent portfolio - actually they just bought a couple of companies for something like $6Billion USD.

Re:Do you just say that every time?

[ThrowAwaySociety]

I don't see Xerox intending on doing an internet search engine...ever. So, you're kind of wrong on that count.

There's nothing to suggest that the patents have anything to do with an "Internet search engine."

Some other posts suggest that they have to do with refining search queries (I think.) Xerox probably does have some product or service that takes search queries and returns scanned documents. If it doesn't already, its a logical business avenue for Xerox.

Re:Do you just say that every time?

[ThrowAwaySociety]

* Asserts patent infringement claims against non-copiers or against a large industry that is composed of non-copiers

This fits closely.

Again, there's nothing in TFS or TFA that explains what exactly the patent is about or what the alleged infringements are. So you're saying, without knowing anything about the patent, that there is no way any search engine company could be infringing it?

One of the Slashdot posts suggests it is a patent that covers (what looks like) suggesting a refined search query based on documents that matched the original query. Google does have a feature that does just that. This may or may not be the patent in question.

Now, there may be prior art, or the "invention" may be obvious, or Google's implementation may be different from the patent, or it may be invalid for some other reason But none of that is patent trolling.

Besides, why did they wait 10 years to file this suit? I'll tell you why: There is no patent infringement, but XEROX is looking for an easy settlement to fatten the piggy bank.

Assuming this is the right patent, it was granted in late 2004, which is not a long time at all for lawyers.

Re:Do you just say that every time?

[Tanktalus]

There is no patent infringement, but XEROX is looking for an easy settlement to fatten the piggy bank.

I think that if you're looking for an easy way to get cash, you don't sue a company made up of nearly nothing but PhDs over technology. Personally, if I were a CEO looking to spend $10m on an easy way to get cash, I'd invest $1m every month in the Powerball lottery. I'd probably come out ahead when compared with using it as a war chest against Google.

Xerox invented everything!

[Halotron1]

So seriously, Xerox invented the GUI, then Apple and Microsoft stole it.

Now Xerox invented internet search, then Google and Yahoo stole it?

They must be smartest programmers in the world, with the worst marketing department ever.

Re:Xerox invented everything!

[Svartalf]

Actually, that would be closer than you'd think to the truth. They did a lot of all of this themselves and the upper management couldn't think past their core business, copiers, for the longest time.

As it stands, they can't seem to get the gem of print tech in the form of solid ink past a few models in their lineup- and while they've got a compelling story on it with price, ink, etc. such that it is actually largely better than color/b&w lasers and competitive with inkjets- you pretty much won't find one anywhere save online through them or through their reseller channel.

It's not their engineering, it's the upper management- and this lawsuit shows they still don't "get it".

Xerox won't win

[Anonymous Coward]

Both patents I've seen cited as applicable were granted (filed in 2001) in 2004.

Given that they're just suing now, unless there's been extensive negotiation privately that's somehow managed to not leak out at all over 5-6 years (unlikely), Xerox probably won't be able to get any court to enforce shit. It's called laches - you have to actually work to minimize your damages. If you knowingly let infringers make use of your IP so you can sue them when they're worth something, you lose the ability to enforce your patent.

Re:Xerox won't win

[akac]

No, that's for trademarks. Not for patents.

Re:Xerox won't win

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the GP is correct. Look up "lache".

Re:Xerox won't win

[rollingcalf]

"If you knowingly let infringers make use of your IP so you can sue them when they're worth something, you lose the ability to enforce your patent."

Not entirely. You lose the right to sue for past infringement, but you can still successfully sue for infringement that occurs after you've warned the infringing parties.

Re:Xerox won't win

[RavenChild]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Parc#Adoption_by_Apple gives a great example of Xerox's past(failed) attempt to do the same thing.

Prior Art for search'gVeronica,Archie,Wais,Gopher

[Anonymous Coward]

Previous document search methods that were done in the 90's and earlier for text and website frontends are:

a). Veronica and Archie
b). WAIS
c). Gopher
d). News by dialup and and internet
e). webcrawlers
f). database queries using webfrontends and opensource DBMS'

patent should have been denied.

Go Xerox !!

[Anonymous Coward]

So much for the Google's "DO NO EVIL".

You better backup your Google "docs".

Yours In Vladivostok,
K. Trout

I'm fine with it if they sue facebook, myspace...

[Sleeping Kirby]

any and all podcast grabbers, twitter, flicker, friendster, eharmony... let's see... what other social/popular sites do people keep tell me to join.... There needs to be a law where if you are going to sue for tech patent infringement, you need to sue all the companies that have infringed at once or none at all.

My new patent

[Anonymous Coward]

A system generates an interface to query information stored on a hard disc drive. When the information is obtained and processed it is displayed to the user.

Robert Frost

[ThatsNotPudding]

"Will the world end in fire or ice?"

Neither, Bobby; it's gonna be lawsuits.

"Xerox sues someone for copying?"

[argent]

Still one of the best headlines ever.

What?!?!?

[iceT]

No Bing?

Re:What?!?!?

[neo-mkrey]

What's Bing? ;-)

Patent problem solved!

[msimm]

Personally I think patents are great, they give innovators a way to protect innovations giving them a small lead to jump-start their project. In fact, I'll go so far as to say I think patents could solve much of the trouble we are currently having pulling our selves/society in to the digital information age.

Bear with me..

The problems with patents as they currently stand is they are often used as bullshit tools whihc stifle technology in an attempt to extort or monopolise any technology or idea. What once might have been a useful tool has become a strategic game-piece often crippling American innovation when it was intended to encourage it.

But I don't believe the answer is to abolish the system, or even to make it increasingly difficult to make use of, that would punish legitimate users and patent trolls and legal firms would no doubt find ways to continue around it.

What I'd like to see is it remain almost exactly as it is today, with a few small changes:

• Patents should be granted rapidly. Pending patents help no-one while discouraging research and innovation. Either you have one or you don't.
• Patents should be reasonably easy to get. We should encourage their use, with a few sensible restriction (below).
• Patent length should be very short. The protection they provide should last no more then 1-3 years. When a patent expires competition should be able to immediately begin.
• Patents sole purpose should be to encourage innovation. Patent trolling and patent portfolios do nothing towards this end and actively, often parasitically discourage it and a great cost to the society they depend on.
• Businesses that can't gain a reasonable advantage using a patent protected 1-3 year monopoly should not indefinably limit those that might.
• Patents should only be granted for new ideas or new technologies and should never extend their protection onto old or existing technology. This is particularly important for software, where new code should be patentable (explained below) but at the end of the patents term only additions or patches might be considered new and therefore patentable.
• Patenting code should be valuable because it would allow developers benefit from their work without relying on strictly on licensing or obscuring code through binary blobs. Quality projects would still could continue funded development with changes and updates eligible for patent protection. Of course nothing requires that anyone patent such work, or that should they chose to patent it that they drop protective licenses or release source. But we're heading towards a future where the user will be increasingly technical and black-box application may eventually find they have a disadvantage in the marketplace. Should they chose to make their products reasonably open source and use patent provisions to protect their business process it's possible that both society and business might benefit from a new form of commercial open source.

It's probably worth noting that software companies which wish to keep their code and related processes black-boxed would still have several options, one obvious option (aside from restrictive licensing and binary only releases) being SAS, where they control the process by keeping access to all relevant code and business systems themselves, only pushing relevant/needed data out to the client front-end. SAS is really the ultimate black-box solution and it protect your property from just about everything but internal abuse (staff, break-ins, social engineering) and network related penetration. And that's nothing new.

Sorry about any grammaros/typos/spellos. I just wanted to get these ideas out while there was still active discussion. Over the past several years I've begun to strongly believe our own enemy (patents - via trolling/hording and other related anti-competitive business practices) are actually our best hope for a sensible business/technology future.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[d34dluk3]

Honestly, the people who wrote the patent laws probably had similar ideas. The problem is big business, which will tug and twist and throw money at laws, perverting them from their original purpose into a protection device for said business' revenue stream

Re:Patent problem solved!

[spydabyte]

tell that to pharmaceutical drug companies. A patent's goal isn't just for "innovation" protection.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[msimm]

We're getting to a point where even big business has started to look critically at the patent system and it's effecting our ability to compete and stay relevant in the global market. I can understand how big business might have wanted to come to this but it seems increasingly likely they underestimated their positions as technology world leaders and in the next several years our exports and technologies will be increasingly at risk as the system we developed continues to ham-string our ability to develop and deliver new and innovative technologies.

American businesses, even multinationals don't want to become one of the worlds largest technology third-worlds and that's the risk we face if continue to allow business processes to dictate a societies technology and innovation.

Business needs protection, encouragement, but too much strong protection and the business trades inertia where it once held innovation and relevance. America is a great nation, and a strong producer of innovative products and technologies but we won't remain so indefinitely if we continue to legislate our competitive advantage. Sooner or later some nations will choose to not be bullied into international copyright or patent treaties and we will slowly be left to our unproductive back-biting and infighting.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[butlerm]

Simpler solution: Besides all the other problems with them (like the inability of the patent office to tell what is an "invention"), software patents are a net drag on the economy, therefore they should be eliminated.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[greenbird]

I'll go so far as to say I think patents could solve much of the trouble we are currently having pulling our selves/society in to the digital information age.

Arcane patent and copyright laws are the major obstacles preventing society's move into the digital age. I dare say they're a major contributing factor to the current economic situation. Instead of society being able to embrace new efficiencies they're are being tied up in legal fees and monopolies rents. The music industry is the perfect example. Technology allows for a way to reduce the distribution cost of music to almost nothing and instead of embracing this tremendous new efficiency they fight it tooth and nail. Pretty much any software project of any significance is going to violate multiple patents in a system where linked lists can be patented. Just think of where we'd be if they had started issuing similar software patents in the 60's.

The only hope is instituting a independent invention defense that invalidates the patent do to obviousness. If someone, or especially more than one someone, comes up with the same idea you patented independently I'd say it pretty much proves the idea was obvious to someone skilled in the art. Just because your the first one to do something that advances in technology have made possible doesn't mean it isn't obvious and wouldn't have have occurred a week or 2 later if you'd been hit by a truck. it certainly shouldn't give you monopoly rents for what is in essence eternity in terms of technological advancement. Just think of where the tech industry was 17 years ago.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[Jaykul]

1-3 years? Yeah right. Even in software that's nowhere near long enough to protect you from the Microsoft's, Google's and Yahoo!s of the world. I mean, sure, if you're a Fortune 500 company, you can probably get a software product to market in under 18 months and still have a year or two to try and promote it and get people using it ... but for the garage inventor they're supposed to protect, a 3 year patent is just an insult.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a small problem with your 1-3 year limit on patents. Certain things (like pharmaceutical products) have a set of regulatory requirements to fulfill before they are allowed on the market. These requirements are impossible to fulfill in 1-3 years' time. These requirements also can require hundreds of millions of dollars in investment just to meet. This doesn't include the money required to discover/invent the product in the first place. A company needs time to first develop and get these products to market, as well as time to sell them in order to recover an investment.

Now, if we take your plan and modify the regulatory environment too... that may work ;)

Re:Patent problem solved!

[mcgrew]

I agree with most of what you say, but--

Patent length should be very short. The protection they provide should last no more then 1-3 years

I think the current 20 years is a good fit, particularly considering the research costs involved in coming up with some patented tech. Ten or fifteen years to develop a revolutionary idea and it's only protected for three? Now, copyright, OTOH, is far too long, and copyright length has hindered artistic creativity. If patents lasted as long as copyrights, technological innovation would come to s atandstill.

It's probably worth noting that software companies which wish to keep their code and related processes black-boxed would still have several options

One reaon for patents' existance is to keeo that from happening; to patent a thing, the design must be public. No invention should die with its inventor.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[msimm]

Simpler solution: Besides all the other problems with them [...] software patents are a net drag on the economy, therefore they should be eliminated.

Well..

1. I'm not sure that's much of a compromise. Compromising might not be fun, but an uncompromising position usually leads to stone-walling.
2. I'm not sure you've taken into consideration all of the possible collateral effects. Mainly, the resulting focus on the use of copyright to protect such assets. Restrictive licensing and the inevitable bending of copyright to suit software and traditional hard technologies. Not to mention copyrights ever increasing length.

If we turn the situation around by only slightly tweaking the existing patent system we can create a system that encourages business while increasing the rate at which new technologies become generally available. We end up with a more rapid and competitive technology life-cycle. Which is what we need to maintain relevance as a world technology leader, otherwise what is it we should export? Services? English and Spanish speaking call-centers? Will we have to resort to military-based expansionism when we fail to product high-quality exportable commodities? I think the best solution for all parties is to quickly put the patent system back in shape. America is a country that has been founded on innovation and it would be crime to lose any lead we might have gained by allowing this protectionism to continue to work against the society and businesses that once created it.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[msimm]

If you can't accomplish it in 1-3 years, chances are you simply won't.

But let me clarify a little. I'm currently developing a social network-like application (feel free to roll your eyes, but there are some features about it that you probably will see as at least somewhat useful, I hope anyway). I'm doing this on my own, creating a fresh code-base and using 1 or 2 ...unusual schema/functional approaches. So I might be a fine representative of your struggling, independent developer.

So the question I might have in scenario we've described is at what point do I seek a patent? I'm in early development right now, testings done mostly in-house and if I wanted feedback from a friend or colleague I might use an NDA (probably not, but MMV). There's a lot of work developing an application, but the protection a patent provides isn't necessarily required for all of it.

Maybe later during funding rounds I'd want my patent in place, or even if I push forward with live/public alpha or beta, that might be the time. But that still gives me 1-3 years from the point the patent is granted to build my product with a little protection in place.

If you can't start dark or fail to achieve a substantial advantage with a monopolistic 1-3 year lead I'm not sure why we should allow your 'assets' to stand in the way of those who might succeed.

And lets not forget that technology (like everything else) has been built on the backs of the thinkers and innovators who came before us.

Should software or any kind of technology pay licensing fees to every company, college, individual or institution who took part in developing the technologies we use in our own bid to improve or invent things?

Re:Patent problem solved!

[butlerm]

I am not opposed to short term software patents for real inventions. The problem is that 95% of the software patents granted in the last decade are essentially garbage - grants of monopolies to entire fields of endeavor based on the slightest hint of originality, if that.

As someone recently said, if you can put 10 PhDs in a room, ask them to solve a problem, and they do not come up with the same idea in less than an afternoon, then perhaps it should be patentable. Most of the software patents I have seen lately are for things that anyone with experience in the field is likely to suggest off the top of his head. Some are *much* more obvious than that.

An idea shouldn't be patentable just because no one has bothered to patent it before, because there was no economic interest in doing so. Software patents are granted all the time for things that exhibit no originality or creativity, but rather standard engineering practice - old ideas that reach the point of economic viability even though someone could have done exactly the same thing fifty years ago on a less economical basis, no creativity required.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[msimm]

If research costs can't be recouped by monopolistic 1-3 year lead maybe bending the law to suit your business model is a good solution. But at 20 years we're talking about artificially slowing innovation by almost a full generation. And that's only taking appropriate use into consideration.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[butlerm]

Besides the things you have mentioned, here are a couple of others:

1. A patent holder pays legal costs policy. If you want to sue someone over a an artificial and probably defective government granted monopoly, you should pay reasonable legal costs for their defense, up front. Then if you win, you get those costs refunded as part of the judgment.

2. Mandatory licensing. No patent holder should be allowed to refuse to license a patent under reasonable and non discriminatory terms. Mandatory arbitration to establish what is "reasonable".

3. Cost recovery. All patent submissions should be required to include documented research and development costs associated with the invention. Then cost recovery from all parties should be limited to twice the research and development costs plus $10,000. As soon as the licensing fees exceed that amount, the patent should go into the public domain.

Both the patent office and the courts should have the ability to review and discount dubious research and development cost claims. We are talking about an artificial, government granted monopoly to something that is not naturally "property" after all.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[Bigjeff5]

Three years is far too short for a patent. 20-30 years might be a little excessive, but 3 years is just as absurd as 100. If you put that into effect, the only things that will be patented are trivial items of no great benefit to society. Everything that takes more than three or four years to develop will be locked away as a trade secret instead, which is the opposite of what we want.

In case you don't understand the consequences of that, one would no more generic drugs. They would be gone, because Big Pharma, who spent 20 years developing that new wonder drug, would never tell anybody how they made it. Currently, however, after a number of years generics are licensed and cheap drugs flood the market. It's one of the few things keeping socialized health care afloat outside of the US, because some of these drugs retail at $1000 a pill.

Patents sole purpose should be to encourage innovation. Patent trolling and patent portfolios do nothing towards this end and actively, often parasitically discourage it and a great cost to the society they depend on.

You didn't say what you'd do about this. Personally, I'd make patent ownership non-transferable. You could still put clauses in employment contracts stating that anything patented during their employment is immediately licensed to the company at no cost, but actual ownership and further licensing belongs to the inventor. They should certainly be able to delegate management of the patent to their company or a third party, but it should remain the individual's (or group of individuals) patent and it should never belong to a company, period. That would destroy patent trolls, as they'd never own another patent.

Patents should be granted rapidly. Pending patents help no-one while discouraging research and innovation. Either you have one or you don't.

The problem there is the sheer number of patent applications and the expense to process them. Right now it costs about $200 to file for a patent. Because of this, hundreds of thousands of patents are filed every year. To get them processed in a reasonable amount of time would take ten times the staff and much greater related expenses. You would probably have to raise the price to $3000-4000 per application, which seriously raises the barrier to entry. That may not be a bad thing, but I don't think it is what you were going for.

Patents should be reasonably easy to get. We should encourage their use, with a few sensible restriction (below).

Doesn't jive with:

Patents should only be granted for new ideas or new technologies and should never extend their protection onto old or existing technology. This is particularly important for software, where new code should be patentable (explained below) but at the end of the patents term only additions or patches might be considered new and therefore patentable.

It is already too easy to get patents, and too difficult to do adequate research on whether or not a patent idea is unique, innovative, and non-obvious. Any sort of streamlining without making these things easier for the patent officers simply makes things worse.

All we really need is to be sure that patents are truly innovative first, that the information in the patent is significant enough that a subject matter expert could easily duplicate the invention, and that the patent is granted as quickly as possible while still maintaining the first and second criteria.

The real magic of patents is that, even if someone can't afford to license the patent themselves, if they have the design in their hands and the knowledge to implement it, they can then begin work on the next progression in the technology. They can then patent the innovative improvement and make their own money, and somebody else can then improve upon that design. The technology can progress as fast as possible in this way, regardless of whether the patent terms are 5 years or 50. O

Re:Patent problem solved!

[msimm]

Pharmaceutical companies are a good example. What's a 1-3 year lead (lets just say 3) worth to their market? Remember, the competitors will have to meet the same requirements, leaving them at a roughly 3 year disadvantage. And barring disaster or incompetence who will be first to market? First to brand? I'm not suggesting the solution I've put forth is without fault, but so far I haven't exactly seen it. Competition is good for everyone. No-one should be hamstrung by business process protections lasting 2 decades. That's not innovation, that's stifling innovation and crippling the value of our export economy.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[ducomputergeek]

It's taken us also 3 years to take an idea and turn it into a viable product. If we were to use your patent system, all that hard work would have been for not, because just as we got ready to start selling it.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[msimm]

I agree with you. But patents for existing things (prior work), obvious things (which typically attempt to restrict the obvious use of existing technologies) shouldn't be permited under either system.

Further I suggested: patents should only be granted for new ideas or new technologies and should never extend their protection onto old or existing technology.

So the great new idea can gain fair 1-3 year market protection, but may not form a symbiotic patent with the existing technologies. Once a patents protection ends a technology should remain unencumbered and free to use by the business, individuals and greater society that made it's creation possible.

Re:Patent problem solved!

[msimm]

Then I'd like to ask, did you need patent protection to create your product?

Re:Patent problem solved!

[d34dluk3]

Your analysis is spot on...from a long term perspective. Unfortunately, a lot of the lobbying decisions were made by CEOs with a 3 month stock price perspective.

Re:Go America!

[maxwell demon]

What did Xerox do with this particular bit of "innovative" property.

Patent it.

Time Frames

[Stregano]

They should definately put shorter time frames on these. Go after them when they are small, and you never have to worry about them continuing to use your patent.

Wait until they make millions or billions instead of taking care of it when you knew this happened: then you are just after money.

Sure, companies need to put their foot down so that other companies do not walk all over the patents, but when you wait almost 9 years to fo anything for some of these, than obviously you are not caring that much about your patents for allowing another company to use it for that long.

Oh no. Here I go again...

[Pedrito]

Now I'm going to have to sue Xerox for violating my patent for the business process of how to make money from companies using ridiculous patent infringement lawsuits.

Re:Oh no. Here I go again...

[myrdos2]

You'll never get money out of Xerox for copying something.

Dang, comma

[ittybad]

Xerox Sues Google, Yahoo Over Search Patents
Because of a lawsuit between Xerox and Google, Yahoo is now no longer "in to" search patents?

How will Xerox get to the court?

[coryodaniel]

My bets that they'll use google maps. Any takers?

Prior art : Ingres/Postgres

[Teunis]

I would suggest looking into the Ingres/Postgres historical code for prior art - or for that many, any of the pre-1991 database engines. If I remember correctly (from circa 5 years ago - the last time I looked at it) - the postgres code prior to the 1995 adoption by the PostgreSQL group had functionality in it under the first patent and was built during it's period before it became abandonware. I seem to remember similar functionality for text searches in DBase III, but I could be poorly remembering.

As for the second - as the link is not valid - I would examine LISP designs for prior art circa 1956. Other environments since have also had "Method and apparatus for the integration of information and knowledge" - but LISP is one of the original to have this as an architectural component. I believe the 1945 paper used as a prototype for some of LISP design also had this, but I've misplaced the reference. (it's on one of the many, many fine lisp websites *grin*)
Without more definition than a title, any expert system would qualify and much of all the historical research into Artificial Intelligence.
*thinking* - expert systems may also hold prior art against the first patent as well.

IANAL,and I'm rusty as all anything- but I hope it helps someone.

Meanwhile, in the boardroom

[MattGWU]

Chief Legal Counsel: "The bottom line, ladies and gentlemen, is when we win these lawsuits, we will be Google."
Chairman of the Board: "And you're sure it will work?"
Chief Legal Counsel: "It cannot fail. We have.............The Patents."
All: "Aaah...."
Chief Financial Officer: "Are you sure we waited long enough to enforce our patents? Perhaps if we wait a bit longer..."
Chief Legal Counsel: "NO! The time to strike is now! We will be rich beyond our wildest dreams"
Chief Operating Officer: "Has anybody ever tried something like this before? How did they fare?"
Chief Legal Counsel: "Other companies have tried this approach, but their claims were weak and meaningless, and they met with failure and the derision of the world. Our patents are strong. Bulletproof even. Any intelligent judge in the world will see that we invented web search. We will succeed beyond our wildest dreams. We here will all buy Maybachs so we have something nice to drive to the Bugatti dealership."
Chairman of the Board: "Then......let us begin."

I can only assume this is how this discussion tends to go every time.

Re:Meanwhile, in the boardroom

[lgw]

Which one of these guys is the Sith Lord again? I get that confused ...

ACS, A Xerox Company

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.acs-inc.com

Halt the technology?

[neghvar1]

"Xerox...asked the court to halt the companies from further using the technology." So they are asking the courts to have google shutdown the search engine, youtube and google maps until the verdict is in? Fat chance! Same with yahoo. There is no way youtube, google maps or Google search would get shutdown while this court case carries on. It could take months or even years to finish this case

Re:Halt the technology?

[julesh]

"Xerox...asked the court to halt the companies from further using the technology." So they are asking the courts to have google shutdown the search engine, youtube and google maps until the verdict is in? Fat chance! Same with yahoo. There is no way youtube, google maps or Google search would get shutdown while this court case carries on. It could take months or even years to finish this case

A fairly obvious gambit --- they request an order that cannot be granted because it would be disastrous for the victims^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdefendants, so that if they win the case the court will look more favourably at them when it comes time to setting the award. Court thinks: "if we'd granted that injunction, they'd have lost less, so let's give them more".

Re:Halt the technology?

[Jaykul]

Pretty standard fare for an IP suit

Patents on non intangibles are stupid.

[HellProphet]

How is it xerox owns all intellectual property pertaining to computers, hardware, software, and internet. Why does the patent office grant them all the time. To bad they lost out on chat acronyms(LOL) to IBM.

OT - your sig

[mcgrew]

That quote is from Aleister Crowley's "autohagiography", a very thick, very facinating book. Crowley was the self-proclaimed "beast of the revelation" and the "Mister Crowley" that Ozzie Ozbourne sang about.

Re:OT - your sig

[tyrione]

That quote is from Aleister Crowley's "autohagiography", a very thick, very facinating book. Crowley was the self-proclaimed "beast of the revelation" and the "Mister Crowley" that Ozzie Ozbourne sang about.

Aleister chose that moniker to piss off his mother and the devout Plymouth Brethren. He was her protagonist at every turn. She called him the Beast from Revelations and he fondly took that label on as he delighted in pissing off the social mores of his time.

Lets hope the patents are invalidated

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from hordes of prior art this really seems obvious. Really all search engines have done this for quite some time. After all HTML Is a document.

They are only suing search engines

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sites like bing ;-)

They missed their chance

[Pictish Prince]

They invented the mouse but failed to patent it, missing out on billions. Now they come out with some bs patent of prior art. That's what happens when you let bean-counters run the company.

Xerox is stuck in the past...

[Anonymous Coward]

They have a totally 1980s attitude to "intellectual property" and they are in the process of trying to follow where HP went in the Carly years. Xerox is dis-investing in R&D and trying to become an IP and Services company.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't Google just buy Xerox and be done with it?