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Microsoft Sues Salesforce.com Over Patents
WrongSizeGlass writes "CNET is reporting that Microsoft is suing Salesforce.com in Seattle federal court, claiming it infringes on nine patents. Two of the patents in question are a 'system and method for providing and displaying a Web page having an embedded menu' and a 'method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display.'" Microsoft says it first notified Salesforce more than a year ago about the alleged infringement.
Yes, SF continues to win contracts from Dynamics or whatever MS is calling their latest CRM this week.
SF are just WAY too nimble in their catering to companies needs while MS expects companies to buy upgraded hardware, software, consultants, etc to conform data to THEIR system.
SF: Here you go, we figured out how to provide x for no extra charge.
MS: Sorry we can't do that without $100,000 and even then there's no guarantee.
So yeah, SF is kickin MS's a$$ets and putting their attempts at a CRM to shame.
Next up, MS buys SF.com. *sigh*
- Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
The're just pissed that SalesForce is using FireFox in all there screen shots.
One angle I could see on this: Sure, everyone might want to make their webpages look this way. But if you rip off the exact code MS is using, change some variables, and get caught, well hey, looky here, we patented that beyotch.
Just a vague idea though.
Nah, that would be copyright infringement.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
I consider myself a pretty calm person. I don't get riled up about much. I've never been one to throw a game controller, to punch a pillow to vent frustration. I see stupid things and I don't like them, I talk about how stupid they are, but that's as far as it goes. I'm about as easy going as they come.
And yet every time I see a story about the activities supported by the US Patent and Trade Office, I want to lift the nearest piece of electronics and dash it against a distant wall.
Once again a Slashdot patent story is posted with reference to the titles of the patents. Patent titles are legally meaningless. The patentee doesn't even have to supply one; the Patent Office will write one for you if you leave it out. What matters are the claims read in light of the specification.
Anyway, from the complaint, the patents in question are:
7,251,653
5,742,768
5,644,737
6,263,352
6,122,558
6,542,164
6,281,879
5,845,077 (the leading 5 was left off in the complaint, but this is the right patent)
5,941,947
The '768 patent was originally assigned to Silicon Graphics. It was one of several SGI patents assigned to Microsoft in 2002 as part of a $62.5 million deal.
Some of the patents are related. The '164 patent, for example, was the result of a continuation application based on the application that eventually became the '879 patent.
Anyone looking at these from a prior art perspective should bear in mind that the patents have quite early priority dates. Most of them seem to date from the mid-90s. The '164 and '879 patents, for example, stretch back to June 16, 1994.
Microsoft, like most other companies, has indeed had it's share of "innovation", popular opinion not withstanding.
It's easy to find things that are "kind of like" a new invention, that can be said for every single product in existence. It's just fun to do it for Microsoft.
Can you name a single software invention by anyone else that was truly unique? Anyone? Bueler? I guarantee anything you name can find something that is "kind of like" something else. That's how invention works, and that's why patents always have a list of references to other patents which the new patent draws upon. Unfortunately, you can't list things that aren't previously patented.
A short list of things which Microsoft has innovated (off the top of my head, without even googling) in would include (whether you like the ideas or not)
The Ribbon
Photosynth
COM (originally OLE)
Internet Explorer Protected Mode
If you google around, you find lots of tongue in cheek and sarcastic comments, and comments like yours that say point blank that microsoft has never innovated anything. It's certainly true they've bought a lot of their technology, but not all of it and even when you consider technology they bought, they've often improved it with their own new technology (IE Protected Mode, for instance).
Also, Microsoft certainly has their share of bad technology they've implemented. ActiveX, for instance. Whether it's a good idea or not, it's still a novel idea (no, plug-ins weren't novel, but auto-installing them, and creating a generic model that could be used by more than just web browsers was).
So in reality, comments like your really are just hyperbole. It's simply not true that Microsoft has never created anything novel. Hell, Clippy anyone?
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SaleForce.com is winning customers away from Dynamics because Dynamics is an absolute pile of crap. If you managed to wade though the absolutely stupid way to customise Dynamics 3.0 you quickly found out that you needed to start from scratch again with 4.0 because MS changed everything and it's still a pile of crap.
Businesses wont use Dynamics despite MS giving away free licenses with every MAPS and partner subscription.
Oh, and the reasons the parent mentioned.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Microsoft sued TomTom over a range of patents, one of which was the FAT patent. It wasn't specifically about the FAT patent, and in reality, TomTom had threatened MS with patent suits first. Microsoft responded to the threats by actually filing a suit, effectively calling their bluff when they settled so fast after a feeble attempt to modify their original threatened suit to be a counter-suit. TomTom was no saint and had sued a half dozen other companies previously after shakedown attempts. They chose the wrong victim when they went after Microsoft.
This is, to my mind, the first time Microsoft has ever filed a truly offensive (as in offense, not offending) patent lawsuit. I have to think there's more to the story here than meets the eye. Microsoft is seeking injunctive relief, not damages. As such, they're not using this as a revenue model.
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I proved you wrong on a bunch of these above... but let's go at it again.
The Ribbon
Already covered in my last post - done better by others before. Or do you think the fact that they call it "The Ribbon" is the innovation part of mangling an idea others already had?
Photosynth
They funded a University of Washington project which became a MS Live Labs project. Their other related "innovations" were acquired by a company called SeaDragon and various others. So, even the ones that are innovative werent innovated by Microsoft.
COM (originally OLE)
Covered above... Xerox Star (and others) and for COM implementation (ie: more than just OLE), it was to catch up with IBM and OS/2, the Mac and numerous other non-PC based implementations.
Internet Explorer Protected Mode
Even if they were first, it doesnt count because it would actually have to work first. And there are already exploits that can bypass IE in protected mode on operating systems (Vista onwards) that support it. That aside, various programs did this far better than Microsoft's implementation before Microsoft licensed various technologies for it and wrote the rest. One such is a package from a big software firewall company (I'll give you a hint...ZA). That aside, Chrome manages it better than IE and Vista/Win7 - even without all the added work that Microsoft did to Windows itself to enable this feature in IE.
So... where were we? Oh yeah... I remember. Microsoft MAY have innovated something, but you cant think of anything. Well, here's one. Edlin.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Saying it does not prove it. Show me the prior art. Bear in mind that merely being a tabbed toolbar doesn't make it the same thing. The Ribbon's functionality is what makes it innovative, not the fact that it has tabs.
Regarding Photosynth, All new ideas are based on research of others. Newton said something about standing on the shoulders of giants, doesn't make his work any less innovative. Photosynth, as a product, was highly innovative.
Are you fucking kidding me? OS/2 was created by Microsoft and IBM together. Microosft wrote nearly all of OS/2 up until OS/2 1.3, and COM and OLE goes back to 1987, the same year OS/2 was released *WITHOUT A GUI OF ANY KIND*.
Wow, you are ignorant of history. Wow, that's just plain stupid.
And Xeros Star had nothing like COM or OLE. It's object embedding technolgy was entirely different.
Now you're just being stupid. Of course it works. Just because it can't protect from every possible exploit doesn't make it useless or "non working". By that argument, just because someone can root a unix box, that means all of it's security doesn't work.
Wow, I just can't believe what passes for logic these days.
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They are using it to suppress competitor. It is still about revenue.
That's a good point. Wasn't it only yesterday that we had a half dozen MS apologists stepping forward to explain how Microsoft only ever used Patents defensively and would never ever ever use them offensively?
Everyone who made that claim, go stand at the back of the class. You know who you are.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!