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Red Hat Settles Patent Case
darthcamaro writes "Red Hat has settled another patent case with patent holding firm Acacia. This time the patent is US Patent #6,163,776, 'System and method for exchanging data and commands between an object oriented system and relational system.' While it's great that Red Hat has ended this particular patent threat, it's not yet clear how they've settled this case. The last time Red Hat tangled with Acacia they won in an Texas jury trial. 'Red Hat routinely addresses attempts to impede the innovative forces of open source via allegations of patent infringement,' Red Hat said in a statement. 'We can confirm that Red Hat, Inc and Software Tree LLC have settled patent litigation that was pending in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas.'"
a little birdy in the RHAT legal dept said so (tweet now deleted)
Denny Crane.
Lock and Load.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
I really hope they didn't pay them Giving these weasels money just encourages them. I'd add the traditional "unless the patent really was valid" but I really don't think any software patents are valid.
invent foobar system for non-object non-relational data organization
convert object data to foobar data
convert foobar data to relational data
fire lawyers.
profit
But given that the case settled, there's little chance those judges had much to do with it. Also, the reputation is that the court is extremely plaintiff-favorable - so it would not simply be that the judges are well versed in patent law. The implication is prejudice.
Bruce Perens.
that was pending in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas.'"
Enough is enough, with their cochamany legal antics and patent trolls.
I want to add a clause to the GPL forbidding use of software in the State of Texas, until they clear this up, and boycott the state -- with all software products, so Texas will not benefit from the software or technology until they clean up their act, and stop allowing 21st-century robbers to loot the treasuries of successful technlogy firms. Who's with me???
How many clear cases of stifled innovation do we need before we have a major overhaul of copyright? Western government is traditionally quite good about their public attitude to corruption. However, if there's one area of corruption that is visible to Joe average and rampant it's IP law. You can't even make a toy model of a real aircraft or car without paying royalties. (As if this is what the manufacturer's first motivation is. What a joke!). Music and film royalties predominately go to middle men and both industries whine on and on about lost profit. Now we have a situation where coming up with a new idea isn't lucrative because you might just step into some obscure patent.It's become a game of which company can sue the other into oblivion. How is that suppose to encourage invention and innovation? Is it any wonder the western world's going backwards in these areas?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Connect this with Red Hat's recent statement to the U.S. Patent Office telling them to stop granting software patents, although the result in the Bilski case gives them no reason to do so.
Red Hat lost. They caved and paid for their own license, and everybody else has to negotiate separately.
It was obvious that if Acacia went after them again, they would not do so in a way that would allow the same outcome as their first case.
The sad thing about this is the way Red Hat has screwed the Open Source developer community. Not with this case, but with their conduct over the past decade. They refused to stick their neck out by lobbying aggressively for an end to software patenting, both in the industry and with government. Then, there was no sentiment in favor of ending software patenting in the industry when the Bilski case came about, and the court followed the BSA's amicus curae statement extensively while paying little attention to the Free Software / Open Source side.
What Red Hat did was court the biggest patent holders extensively for their business. And they got it in part by not rocking the boat on software patenting. So, they made that money on the backs of the community.
And now it's open season on open source. Thanks, guys.
Bruce Perens.
attempts to impede the innovative forces of open source
Thanks, I want to throw up now.
Must someone make that same dumb observation every time a patent story is posted to Slashdot?
But given that the case settled, there's little chance those judges had much to do with it. Also, the reputation is that the court is extremely plaintiff-favorable - so it would not simply be that the judges are well versed in patent law. The implication is prejudice.
The judge had plenty to do with it. A lot happens involving the judge before an actual trial occurs. In particular, the parties argue claims construction, and then the judge rules on the meaning of the claims. That ruling came down on June 1, 2010 in this case. You can get a copy of that ruling here if you are curious.
The claims construction ruling can be a major turning point in a patent case, as that is when the parties find out what they are actually dealing with. Cases can be won or lost on claims construction.
As for prejudice, the fact is that EDT isn't even in the top 5 districts when it comes to favoring plaintiffs.
A lot of people seem to be overlooking something. Software Tree Inc is an established company that has been selling products based on their patent for a long time. Software Tree LLC is a subsidiary of Acacia that is handling licensing and enforcement of Software Tree's patent for Software Tree. Sure, Acacia also does patent troll cases (acquiring patents that aren't being used and then suing people), but that's not all they do.
One may argue that there should not be software patents in the first place, but given that they exist, this appears to be a legitimate use of them--a company actively developing and marketing technology based on a patent of its own, going after infringers of that patent using another firm to handle the details of licensing and litigation.
You don't "end" a patent threat by settling. Ever.
You don't like to let facts get in your way, do you?
If Red Hat were to need someone to provide expert testimony for prior art in interfacing OO systems to relational systems, I developed such a method in SmallTalk and delivered in C++ in the early to mid 90's. This software is currently running the majority of semiconductor fabs world-wide and the technology is owned by Applied Materials - a company that would likely defend themselves vigorously against a suit by these boneheads.
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
The comment by arth1 sheds more light on the prejudice issue.
It didn't seem that formulation was a big deal this time. Do you think otherwise?
Bruce Perens.
Who do you convince and how do you do it?
That is the question I am trying to ask here.
But did you publish? Either paper or code. It's not prior art if it's a trade secret.
Bruce Perens.
What's so dumb about it?
That you don't like that texas is the best place in the US for patent trolls?
It's like saying there's something wrong with banks because so many bank robbers are found in banks. Trolls chose EDT for the same reason non-trolls chose EDT: (1) patent litigation is complex so you want a court system that has experience with patents, and (2) there aren't a lot of drug dealers in EDT.
No it's like saying that there's something wrong with a particular banks security because it's the 5th most robbed bank in the country with robbers choosing it again and again and again.
What have drug dealers to do with anything?
Acacia's patent examiner never looked at the Object View Broker technology from 1994. That in turn was based on an object-oriented semantic modeling tool called Open Books, released by Open Books, Inc, in Cambridge, MA around 1990. That was written in C and released for the OS/2 platform. It wasn't successful in the market because it came out much too early, but it was a brilliant piece of technology that most prospects didn't understand at that time. And Open Books itself was based on the Camps Planning Architecture, a LISP-based technology developed by Mitre Corporation for NASA and DOD in the 1980s. If I remember correctly, it was the basis for some of the early space shuttle mission planning system tools because of the way it could tie together different relational databases.