Microsoft Continues Android Legal Assault

shmlco writes "According to an article on AllThingsD, Microsoft is continuing its legal assault on Android. On Monday the company sued Barnes & Noble, Foxconn International and Inventec over the company's Nook e-reader, alleging patent infringement. To quote Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez, 'The Android platform infringes a number of Microsoft's patents, and companies manufacturing and shipping Android devices must respect our intellectual property rights. Their refusals to take licenses leave us no choice but to bring legal action.'"

Comments

Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when you institutionalize bribery in government. If our politicians weren't so easy to bribe, and the voters weren't so stupid this would not be an issue.

Garbage in, garbage out. And Americans vote for corrupt garbage.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[WrongSizeGlass]

Yeah, and if women weren't so easy to rape then rape wouldnt' be an issue either.. it's clearly the women's fault.

A 'rape' analogy is never appropriate.

What, you couldn't come up with "if cars weren't so easy to steal then grand theft auto wouldn't be an issue either ... it's clearly the car's fault"?

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

*Sigh*

Allow me to explain why your analogy is not relevant and your implicit accusation that GP is victim-blaming is baseless.

Bribery requires consent. One party must offer a bribe and the second party must accept it. For the misdeed of bribery to occur, then both parties must by definition have assented to it. Therefore, there truly are no innocent parties in a bribery.

Rape does not require the consent of one party. In fact, it requires the non-consent of one party. For the misdeed of rape to occur, then by definition there is a perpetrator and a victim. Therefore, there is always a victim in a rape.

Strawman fail.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

And Americans vote for corrupt garbage.

So, what, we solve this problem by voting for the dudes that say they're honest and working for the people?

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Merk42]

Bribery does require consent between the two parties, but the third party (the consumer) is the one getting raped.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

A 'rape' analogy is never appropriate.

Mrs. Godwin's Law.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's an appropriate analogy when a bunch of guys hold you down and have sex with you against your will.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[morgauxo]

Probably not, he was speaking from experience and never learned to drive.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[soloport]

"So, what, we solve this problem by voting for the dudes that say they're honest and working for the people?"

No. Just convince Glen Beck that patents are the spawn of the Devil. Congress will fix this inside of a week.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[DMFNR]

The only reason a rape analogy isn't appropriate in this case is the fact that it isn't an analogy at all. What Microsoft is doing is rape.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[hairyfeet]

Oh please! Isn't this what the FOSS community has been wanting for years? Haven't all the FOSS guys said 'if MSFT has patents lets see them"? Well here you go, now it is up to the courts to ultimately decide.

Now personally I've always thought software patents are a BAD IDEA in giant 50 foot neon letters since we all stand on the shoulders of giants and all software comes down to math anyway, so it basically lets good math implementations get locked up by whomever gets to the USPTO first.

But on the other hand I've seen dickish behavior by BOTH sides such as everyone cheering TomTom even though MSFT offered them the same RAND license for FAT32 they offer everyone else and got the finger even though they did invent the bloody thing. And RAND is something we should support, as RAND makes tech available without making it a barrier to enter which is how we got the name RAND in the first place Reasonable And Non Discriminatory.

So maybe it is better this way, just let the courts sort it all out so that then either Linux developers can pay some RAND license and never have to deal with whatever the patents cover again, find a way around it even it if doesn't work as well like Theora, or just throw out everything that is covered and find new ways of doing it.

But if MSFT just files lawsuits against Linux for every patent they think is infringing then FOSS guys can't scream FUD! and can finally look at the patents in question while the courts sort the whole mess out. Seems like whichever side you're on (and personally I don't really HAVE a side on this one, since I use Windows on the desktop, Linux on the server, and dumbphones so that I can just get bloody calls instead of waiting for a battery to recharge) you should be happy that this mess is finally gonna get sorted out.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, it's not really an analogy at that point. I would actually contend that a rape analogy is always appropriate, unless of course a bunch of guys hold you down and have sex with you against your will, in which case its just rape and you don't need an analogy.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

s/consumer/citizen

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Daniel Phillips]

Not Microsoft's Fault

Nothing is ever Microsoft's fault, according to Microsoft.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Daniel Phillips]

So maybe it is better this way, just let the courts sort it all out so that then either Linux developers can pay some RAND license and never have to deal with whatever the patents cover again, find a way around it even it if doesn't work as well like Theora, or just throw out everything that is covered and find new ways of doing it.

I think we will be more likely to redouble our efforts to tear down Microsoft for good. Seems to be working out pretty well so far.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[somersault]

Whatever. The point is that it doesn't matter if something that's wrong is possible. What matters is if you choose to do it or not.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[fwarren]

Things like this often settle out of court with neither parter admitting they did anything wrong. Thus the racket and be perpetrated again. I don't think Microsoft really has 240 patents that will stand up in court. To bad all it takes is 1.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

I want Microsoft to be dissolved and the Microsoft execs to be shot.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[tycoex]

WE can't fix the problem. We are a minority group of intelligent people surrounded by morons. The only way that we could fix the problem is if we created a magical device that made everyone more intelligent.

American voters would have to be willing to say, "I will not vote twice for anyone who accepts bribes, even if their platform matches my own." As it is now, people will vote for anyone who claims they agree with them on X issue, regardless of whether they accept bribes or not. Voters just turn a blind eye and say, "Well the other guy accepts bribes too, so I'll still vote for my party of choices candidate, even if I know he/she accepts bribes."

The problem is people will vote for a Democrat or Republic without having any clue what that individual believes or has done in the past. Bi-partisanship and ignorant voting has ruined any sense of accountability for our government.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anthony Mouse]

I wonder if Glen Beck is infringing any patents.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

this mess is finally gonna get sorted out.

A little premature. The litigation will probably continue for 10 or more years and it won't actually resolve anything since Microsoft may or may not have more submarine patents - indeed by that time they will probably have created a whole bunch of new ones that don't even exist at this point.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, RAND just doesn't cut it. The problem with it is that "Reasonable" is too vague a word. For instance, to commercial entity M "reasonable" would be "free for anything which doesn't compete with M's products, bloody expensive for everything which does", while for someone else (e.g. the consumer) Reasonable might mean "whatever bloody hell I like".

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[bryan1945]

He's certainly impinging on my brain functions. And I thought Rush and Hannity were bad enough.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Dare nMc]

The people getting hurt, in both cases didn't agree.

In fact, it requires the non-consent of one party.

Ahh, so it would have been appropriate if he had used a gang-rape analogy. After all studies show 9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape (IE 9 out of 10 people agreed to it.)

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[postbigbang]

For many reasons, there will be no out-of-court settlement. If Google doesn't take it to the wall, then they expose the rest of the FOSS community to litigation. Death by a thousand cuts/litigations.

I want Microsoft to sue civilians. Users. Then the excrement will hit the airconditioning.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

How do you even know the situation will improve with your changes (no patents/copyright/trademark...) in place ?

Because frankly, if you don't have either actual, real data (experiments of this kind are plentiful, especially historically speaking. They seem to clearly indicate that without patents, big companies would have a much stronger hold on everything. Without patent/copyright/trademark protection, availability of capital is the only thing that matters, the little guy always loses, because any big company would just undercut them through superior investment). Without a decent, logical argument with actual hard data indicating the situation has changed. I would question who is intelligent and who is a moron ... And please don't use any arguments that boil down to "everyone knows this, how dare you doubt it !", because, again, it would simply prove who the moron is.

It seems to me rather obvious that companies like apple/microsoft/google/... would *love* all these protections dropped. After all, they can rely perfectly well on technological measures (microsoft would simply become a lot more draconian, controlling hardware and software, like apple). But small companies and/or small developers wouldn't be able to do that. Not now, not ever. And they wouldn't have to pay anyone else for their work either. Microsoft could instantly build a catalog of applications that far outstrips anything apple has got, and much higher quality. And they could sell delivery of these applications, without having to pay the authors ... They would do very well indeed, and everyone else would be thoroughly fucked.

Even with just patent protection dropped, the apples and googles of this world easily have the resources needed for reverse engineering large pieces of software. No small software company would be able to keep them out. The reverse, through shear manpower, would not be true at all. The end result being that large companies would write superior software, and would be the only ones able to make a profit out of them.

Btw : feel free to attack me personally, of course, but I really don't know about this issue. Sure copyright and patent nullification sounds nice, but so does free looting ... In my humble opinion your problem probably can't be solved because it's based on a lie. 99% sure. But please, change my mind about this.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[10101001 10101001]

Haven't all the FOSS guys said 'if MSFT has patents lets see them"? Well here you go, now it is up to the courts to ultimately decide.

No, all the FOSS guys have said 'if <open source project> has <proprietary copyrighted code>, lets see it'. That's the thing about copyright vs patents. With patents, it's all about protecting a concept for which anyone who implements has to be able to use the patent or they can be sued. That's why there's been such fuss about software patents, the GPLv3 having stronger patent nullification protection, etc. Copyright is a different matter; unless it's a very simple work, programmers will make things different so the FOSS guys, the various proprietary guys, etc will all produce similar but different code and it'll all be okay. Of course, if it's simple enough--like, say, the base structure you'd find in a header file--it's probably not copyrighted anyways, so copyright doesn't enter into it there either.

In short, you're confusing patents with copyright. Patents seem very evil in a rapidly evolving industry, as you note. And it used to be that MS wouldn't even go after companies over patents (although they might use their patents in self-defense). I guess that's just a sign of new management. :/

PS - The whole reason for the FOSS talking about asking for proof of proprietary code in OSS code is precisely because they didn't believe there was. Look at the Linux kernel, look at Apache, etc. It's clear that tons of code has been created without the need for importing "magical", proprietary code and it's offensive to those who work on such projects to have such implied. And OSS is very much about being open, transparent, truthful, and frank. In short, it was a call to quickly clear their names. And I think the talk was about SCO, anyways.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Ten years ago RAND was enough, but not anymore, not for essential interoperability technology. Basic web technologies are a good example but so should VFAT be -- there really is nothing in the FAT patents that would justify the massive amount of 'drag' to progress they have resulted in.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

No. Just convince Glen Beck that patents are the spawn of the Devil. Congress will fix this inside of a week.

He shouldn't be far from that position already. Beck is a Libertarian who has advocated a non-interventionist foreign policy and large scale cuts in military spending (which distinguishes him from many on the right), and he seems to favor the Austrian school of economics, which is probably where you'll find the greatest concentration of hostility to the idea of intellectual property.

The anti-IP position isn't universal among Austrians by any means, but see, e.g., Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics by Stephan Kinsella for a defense of that position.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[CowardlyAnomalous]

WE can't fix the problem. We are a minority group of intelligent people surrounded by morons. The only way that we could fix the problem is if we created a magical device that made everyone more intelligent.

Its called Public Education and it teaches critical thinking. The current system has failed.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[StikyPad]

Thanks for that. I will never look at toothpaste commercials the same way again. :(

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing there were only 10 people in the survey, one of whom was the target and the others were the perps....

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[icebraining]

So, the dozens of companies with experience of producing the actual devices would simply sit tight while MS cuts their profits to the ground?

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Opportunist]

Sorry, but no. Public education never had the goal to create critically thinking people. Watch the curriculum closely and realize that the goal is to create a workforce able to fulfill the economy's requirements. Nothing more, nothing less. Think about it: What good would critical thinkers serve from a government's or an economy's point of view?

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Teun]

It's also known as innovation and many years ago the US excelled in it.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[pieterh]

You're either a bad troll, or just badly informed. Small firms do not take patents unless they are non-product entities. Even owning a few patents makes small firms targets for hostile action aimed at grabbing their patents. The vast bulk of software patents are bought by large firms, and are used to keep small competitors out. It is idiotic to confuse a desire for no software patents with no copyright, no sane person in IT wants this. Copyright is the basis of the software industry, both closed and open source.

You are also wrong to suggest that patents somehow cripple Microsoft's ability to innovate. Their focus on patents does that, along with their structural stupidity and large doses of arrogance.

But, I'm sure you're not here to have your mind changed.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[aCameronhuff]

This is very unlikely to happen. A key part of writing a patent is making it so that you sue the people with the money and not your end-users. It's useless to have a patent that involves suing customers because that makes you look bad and is expensive to litigate. This is one of the interesting parts of drafting patents.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anthony Mouse]

The problem there is that the libertarian opposition to patents is ideologically far too similar to the libertarian opposition to copyright for any network to allow it any consequential air time, not least of them Fox.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[postbigbang]

I realize that the chances of a civilian being sued directly are small, and for the reasons you stated stated. But we need some consequential/correlative injury or no one will give a crap. I'm fairly sure that simple coverage on Groklaw isn't going to incense Joe and Jane SixPack et al sufficiently to make them be unhappy at Microsoft. And they should be.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[lexsird]

Greed; it's a strong motivator in a capitalist system. We seem to be lacking the moral fiber to check ourselves versus greed these days as a collective. There seems to be a strong case for a change to our core systems of how we interact with each other in terms of what should be our basic rights as PEOPLE. (not principalities!!)

We need to think outside the box on this problem. We should surely as a species come to some universal agreement on basic interaction that doesn't exploit each other.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

It may not be working as well as the stock chart suggests:
http://news.cnet.com/microsoft-news/?keyword=Microsoft+earnings

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[sg_oneill]

"The libertarian opposition to patents"?

Have you even READ Ayn fucking Rand? She basically built her entire philosophy on the concept of intellectual property.

Unless libertarianism has finally evicted the looney randoids , then no, libertarianism is not our friend here.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[spudgun]

Sure , and if they are not you get a new one next time
ocationally you'll get an honist one and keep him/her.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[WorBlux]

For the misdeed of bribery to occur, there must be some obligation or representation third party by the bribed, and that substantial agreement creates a conflict of interest.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[WorBlux]

Here are some of the patent claims

Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs; Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster; " Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection; and Provide users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document."

Basically look and feel lawsuits all over again. Yes annotating text without changing is so difficult to program, and something that wouldn't be obvious to a skilled computer program engineer. *sarcasm*

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Daniel Phillips]

It's working just fine. Look at the price earnings, well below 11. This represents investors sending a message loud and clear: Microsoft's future earnings growth is expected to be flat. Negative is more like it. There is only so long that enterprise clients will continue to pay a stupidity tax by spending hundreds of dollars a seat every few years on Microsoft office products for unexciting bugware that can't even manage to stay compatible with itself. It's not that those stupid clients will get any smarter, they will just start biting on the new shiny things, which are cloud computing, Apple and Android. And it would be wrong to underestimate the damage that Openoffice (now Libreoffice) has already done and will continue to do in the future.

Basically, Microsoft is doomed.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anthony Mouse]

Read the post I was responding to again. The "Austrians" are pretty much libertarian economists.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[npsimons]

What good would critical thinkers serve from a government's or an economy's point of view?

Well for one thing they'd be better at figuring out how to get a new job after being laid off. Even if it meant reschooling for a new career. Of course, the power hungry elite don't want the peasants to question their policies. No, that's too dangerous. Wouldn't want them thinking they could get themselves elected and implement better policy . . .

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[blind monkey 3]

How much did you pay the guys to hold you down?

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Opportunist]

And how many inventors suffered from public education?

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[xtracto]

No, vote for the dudes who have a trajectory of being honest and working for the people.

Really, is it that difficult to at least read the Wikipedia entry of each candidate?

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[rtfa-troll]

Your post is insightful but I'll pick one little nit.

Copyright is the basis of the software industry, both closed and open source.

The basis of the software industry is people's need for software. If there was no copyright protection business models would have to change, but there would definitely still be customers paying people to create software. Free software would likely do fine, not on the basis of copyleft but simply on the basis of fair sharing. Software users would pay for maintenance and quality control or would learn to download from specific sites and do their own.

Definitely there would be some disadvantages; proprietary software companies would likely rely much more on copy-protection software (unless that was made illegal; a definite thought) and a small number of companies that contribute to software due to legal pressure would not. On the other hand there would be advantages; reverse engineering would advance much faster since there would be no legal restrictions on it and the end results would be immediately usable. This would in turn lead to much more secure software since even closed modules would be subject to serious scrutiny.

I'm not sure that total elimination of copyright is a good idea, but it's very important to remember that copyright is a bargain restrictions on freedom of speech are paid for by a promise that in future there will be more varied speech available. When one side stops keeping up their end of the bargain by using DRM which keeps works locked in even after the term of copyright expires, by continually extending copyright terms, by not delivering source code to proprietary programs even after they have ceased to be fully maintained and by attempting to use other limits on free speech such as patents then the time has arrived to question copyright full stop.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[CodeBuster]

I'm inclined to agree. Let both sides go all in and lets see the river, then we can get on with the showdown.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[N Monkey]

You're either a bad troll, or just badly informed. Small firms do not take patents unless they are non-product entities..

How small is "small"? 3, 10, 100? I've worked for companies that had fewer than 100 employees and they have had products and patents. Anecdotal of course, but one only needs one counterexample to disprove an assertion.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[mpe]

No, all the FOSS guys have said 'if has , lets see it'.

Even if there was a match you'd still need to show that the proprietary code hadn't been taken from a published source. Including an open source project.

With patents, it's all about protecting a concept for which anyone who implements has to be able to use the patent or they can be sued.

Including cases of "independent invention". Even though these would tend to indicate that the patent should be voided.
It also dosn't tend to help that patents can be written in the most obfuscated and ambiguous language possible.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[man_of_mr_e]

I'm not sure what you're looking at. Microsoft's stock price hasn't really changed in the last 10 years, other than some fluctuation back and forth. The reason for that is because they're no longer a "growth" stock but are a dividend stock.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

You must realize that microsoft can just undercut all of them, if it could simply steal their designs. Given 10 billion dollars, all the hard work done by HTC, or apple free to copy without repricussions.

It is generally assumed that for any handset, for example, 30-40% of the price is research and development (and for the components making that 60%, it is at least 20%). What if microsoft brought out an android knockoff with office connectivity, all the specs of the iPhone 4, and for $300.

How long would something like HTC hold out if it could only produce handsets that have double the price of the competition for similar specs ? Do tell.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

And I've worked for 2 research institutions that only produce patents and consultancy. And prototypes, if you could even call them that. More like "technology demos", demonstrating some principle works, but usually far from usable (like a phone with a much more efficient antenna, but not including an actual battery). Consultancy in actual product design that is.

For a *LOT* of industries (including cell phone design) this way of working is quite common. Without patents it wouldn't work.

This allows for the companies to be much smaller : a handset designer (/chip designer/robot designer/...) does not need to keep a lot of research staff on hand, and can thus be a much smaller company. And the companies employing the actual research staff have a steady source of income allowing them to exist in the first place.

Yes, patent trolls exist. That does not mean they're the majority of the industry, or indeed that there are more than 2 or 3 of them at all. Imho we would do well to improve the patent system, excluding patent trolls, NOT affecting actual research and design companies.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Let's do that ... and look to North Korea and China if we're not entirely clear on some details, they do this. So do nations like Venezuela, Libya or Iran (they just have a slightly different view of what "basic rights" are). I know it's a cliche, but can you answer this guy's question ?.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Xest]

Yes, and everything is Microsoft's fault according to FOSS zealots.

What's your point exactly?

I prefer to subscribe to the more objective view personally, where the truth is somewhere in between.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem.

Weren't Patents intended to boost technology and reward innovation?

If so, could you explain what value MSFT's have in this area:

"The Microsoft-created features protected by the patents infringed by the Nook and Nook Color tablet are core to the user experience. For example, the patents we asserted today protect innovations that:

  Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs;

  Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

  Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content;

  Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection; and

  Provide users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document.

By bringing this case, we are protecting our investments on behalf of our customers, partners and shareholders – just as other companies do."

To me, it looks more like MSFT's "Smiley Patent" - just meritless junk that passed the test because U.S. Civil Servants (as well as Lawers and Law / Policy makers) are corrupted from top to bottom.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[tehcyder]

This is what happens when you institutionalize bribery in government. If our politicians weren't so easy to bribe, and the voters weren't so stupid this would not be an issue.

Garbage in, garbage out. And Americans vote for corrupt garbage.

A country deserves the government it gets. If people can't be bothered to organise themselves sensibly, they can't when complain when the government is broken.

Look at Tunisia, Egypt and the rest. It shows what you can do when the mass of people get fed up with their government.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[js_sebastian]

But on the other hand I've seen dickish behavior by BOTH sides such as everyone cheering TomTom even though MSFT offered them the same RAND license for FAT32 they offer everyone else and got the finger even though they did invent the bloody thing.

Oh please, there was NOTHING remotely new in FAT32. No "invention" to be seen, just a basic engineering solution to a practical problem. If you told 10 engineers to solve that same problem (coexistance of 8.3 and more flexible file naming) half of them would have proposed a solution similar to what microsoft patented. Furthermore, patents on protocols and file systems and the like should be mostly useless thanks to interoperability exceptions.

That the patent was granted and enforced is a demonstration of the failure of the US patent system as persuasive as the amazon 1-click patent fiasco.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[niteshifter]

I have, very nearly everything she ever wrote - not just Atlas Shrugged / Anthem / The Fountainhead - but all the "hardcore" philosophical writings. She certainly did not build Objectivism on the concept of intellectual property. It's built upon (in a nutshell):

1. The notion that an absolute, objective reality exists, that human hopes, fears, wishes, prayers and the like are immaterial to that reality.
2. Reason is Man's means of perceiving reality and the source of his knowledge and his guide for action,
3. That Man is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others.

What is true is that Objectivism is friendly with the notion of intellectual property: you've a right to the product of your mind (descends from #3, above). It is a capital mistake to read Atlas Shrugged (a detailed view of objectivist principles in action, in novel form) as defining the philosophy, it's way more than that. For starters read Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology and more to the topic of IP, Captialism: The Unknown Ideal.

--
I went Galt decades before Atlas Shrugged surpassed Dreams from My Father on the Amazon bestseller list.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Lorien_the_first_one]

I'm with you on that one.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Lorien_the_first_one]

No, no and no. RAND is blackmail for "we want our patents, and we want our money. Pay up or die." I don't mind the lawsuit so much as the RAND blackmail, but I do mind that the case may be decided by someone who is not really familiar with the concept of software patents. Here's hoping that Bilski will blot out Microsoft's claims and force them to just make better software.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[scubamage]

We could also demonstrate that democracy is fundamentally flawed for this very reason. Heck, Athens, the supposed model for western democracy, fell to shambles because its representative democracy didn't work; everyone was out under the 30 Tyrants. This culminated in the trial and execution of Socrates. The same thing happened in Rome, and is chronicled in Satire X by Juvenal. Basically the people are letting bad people run things, and voting won't fix it because we're just going to vote in more easily corruptable people. The only way to fix it is to reboot, and start from scratch. And I'm doubting that will happen. So, since fixing the ship won't happen (though it IS noble to try), your real choices are to jump overboard, or help throw more fuel on the fire.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Doctor Faustus]

I do find it a bit depressing that Microsoft started tanking from a business perspective right about the same time they really started to make good products: WinXP, SQL Server 2000, and .Net.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[walterbyrd]

Isn't that actually true in Saudi and Iran?

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[somersault]

I don't think it's "true" anywhere..!

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Rysc]

What if microsoft brought out an android knockoff with office connectivity, all the specs of the iPhone 4, and for $300.

They could. I wish they would. They won't.

If anyone could just knock off the iPhone then everyone would. It's not patents that hold them back, it's ability.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also true in your mom's bedroom.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

No, vote for the dudes who have a trajectory of being honest and working for the people.

Really, is it that difficult to at least read the Wikipedia entry of each candidate?

Hahaha!

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

These are different patents concerning the mobile market than the ones covered in the anti Linux FUD years before. Besides, who other than a damned shill responds with such a dickish slam against OSS crowd for a fucking Microsoft lawsuit? The new wave of slashdot mods suck too.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is there'd be no one left to vote for.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer to subscribe to the more objective view personally, where the truth is somewhere in between.

Basically you're one of those "balanced" types who are unable to distinguish actual right from wrong. Good to know. Spineless twit.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Xest]

I think most people would prefer to be called balanced, it is after all, far better than being unbalanced.

But that would explain your obscure comment which extends to reach a nonsensical conclusion from the information given followed by an insult straight out of the 1980s.

Still, have fun being "unbalanced"- they have places for people like you.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[RockDoctor]

The only way that we could fix the problem is if we created a magical device that made everyone more intelligent.

You'd drown in shit first. We'd all drown in shit first.
People do not do shit jobs out of high-minded personal conviction to do the dirty jobs because someone has got to do it ; individual people do shit jobs because they as individual people haven't got the option of doing something less unpleasant for as much or more money.
If you invent a magic ray that makes everyone in the world more intelligent next week ... then the week after the garbage won't be collected, the sewers will be backing up against blockages, and the dead will be going un-buried.
To say that there would be profound upheavals would be an understatement.

Be careful what you wish for ... you might just get it.

BTW, I remember at least 2 short stories by SF-masters addressing this point. But I'll be damned if I can remember the names of either authors or stories. But they're good examples of what use fiction in general and SF in particular can do to illuminate complex problems.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[tycoex]

If we were all smart couldn't we make machines to do the crappy jobs for us? Just a thought.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[RockDoctor]

Which part of

To say that there would be profound upheavals would be an understatement.

did you misunderstand?

No, seriously ; my fingertips (including the one with the rose-thorn in the tip, thank you roses!) were involved in non-trivial effort to type that post, and several of my braincells collaborated on composing it.

It may be unhip, but I do actually think about what I write, compose it, edit it. I even spell check it. BEFORE I POST IT

Of course, it's possible that I'm treating Slashdot with more dignity than it's worth. That question is more for the most recent few half-millions of UIDs to worry about. But the day I hang up my UID, will be the day that the 5-digit UIDs feel slightly more outnumbered by the 6-digit UID sprogs. Are we onto 7-digit UIDs yet?

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[tycoex]

1: My post contained no spelling errors that I can see, did I miss one?
2: You don't have to get so angry.
3: Why do you assume "profound upheavals" would be a bad thing? In my eyes this world needs some profound upheavals.

IF they hold the patents

[amiga3D]

Why is it that if they hold the patents for what the android phones are doing, then why didn't they make a decent phone themselves to start with? How is it that google took their intellectual property they dreamed up and made something so much better than their own crap?

Re:IF they hold the patents

[oGMo]

Ideas are easy, implementation is hard. MS allegedly has some pieces of paper that say "we thought of this first! you can't use my idea!" Google has an actual piece of software that works pretty well. If patents worked at all like they should, MS could only patent their actual implementation of something, not the mere concept itself.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Polaroid v. Kodak would like a word with you.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't even need to read TFA to see that's about e-readers, not phones.
And as much as you'd like it to be, the quality of their products is not relevant to their patents.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[BearRanger]

Because those who can, do. Those who can't, litigate.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[somersault]

Try reading to the end of the summary. Here, I'll help:

The Android platform infringes a number of Microsoft's patents, and companies manufacturing and shipping Android devices must respect our intellectual property rights.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[MobyDisk]

This is why patents are supposed to only cover implementations, not ideas.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Ideas are easy, implementation is hard. MS allegedly has some pieces of paper that say "we thought of this first! you can't use my idea!" Google has an actual piece of software that works pretty well. If patents worked at all like they should, MS could only patent their actual implementation of something, not the mere concept itself.

Isn't copyright what implementation protection is about?

Re:IF they hold the patents

[WrongSizeGlass]

The Android platform infringes a number of Microsoft's patents, and companies manufacturing and shipping Android devices must respect our intellectual property rights.

Actually, I think the original Microsoft 'Bob' looked an awful lot like that cute little Android thingy. That's what this all must be about.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[recoiledsnake]

Ideas are easy, implementation is hard. MS allegedly has some pieces of paper that say "we thought of this first! you can't use my idea!" Google has an actual piece of software that works pretty well. If patents worked at all like they should, MS could only patent their actual implementation of something, not the mere concept itself.

Well, Apple had lot of functionality iPhone software before Google and Apple sued HTC and Motorola over. So you mean Apple has a valid reason to sue and stop Android?

Re:IF they hold the patents

[poetmatt]

Remember, the more litigious the company, the less innovative.

Apple is not excluded and obviously neither is MS. The only time a company goes "nuclear" with the patent option is when they are betting that in the short term they can make a profit off extortion. Given the open source nature of the products and the sheer size of the companies MS is going after, this is so hilariously shortsighted I don't know where to begin, not to mention how easy it is to get around a patent with GPL'd software.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[ackthpt]

Because those who can, do. Those who can't, litigate.

Those who can do.

Those who can't teach.

Those who can't do either litigate those who can.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[ArhcAngel]

read TFA to see that's about e-readers

In that case they have nothing to fear. I can attest to the fact that the NOOK Color is in fact an Android tablet with e-reader software. Just remove the e-reader (the user can install it themselves).

the quality of their products is not relevant to their patents.

Actually it's the quality of their patents most people have issues with.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[SnapShot]

Isn't copyright what implementation protection is about?

Yes, in that Frankenstein, for example, is Mary Shelly's "implementation" of a story about a the hubris of man and man's inhumanity to man. I don't think Microsoft is accusing Google (by proxy through companies with less resources to defend themselves.... I think Microsoft learned this tactic from Darl) of literally copying code or artistic elements so they have to rely on the U.S. broken system of software patents.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Ciggy]

Yes. And no.

Copyright protects one implementation - if you can create the same output for the same input without copying the actual implementation, then you're perfectly entitled to do it.

Patent protects all implementations [as far as I can see - regardless of whether the patentee actually though of the implementation or not].

Re:IF they hold the patents

[jayme0227]

Who says they haven't put some of this technology into their phones?

Either way, I'm all for big companies suing big companies over patent disputes. Monetarily it's going to be a wash for consumers (minus some money for the lawyers) since all the companies win some and lose some. However, it will be a definite win for consumers as many of the patents often get nullified. And, hopefully, someday these companies will realize it's no longer worth the hassle or money and might support logical patent reform.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Apple would need to prove that their implementation actually worked, but every time they pick up the iPhone to call the USPO the call drops :P

Re:IF they hold the patents

[empiricistrob]

It's a blurry line between ideas and implementations. For example, Edison wouldn't have been able to patent the "idea" of a bulb that produces light, but he was able to patent the "implementation" of using a metal filament in an evacuated bulb, etc. But that's just an idea too, and you could say that the specific implementation would involve the exact size of the filament and metal composition, etc -- but that's more specific than his patent.

My point being: The term implementation in software tends to mean something much more specific than a patent is intended to protect. In software an implementation typically refers to the specific code. The lightbulb analogy would be the specific shape of the glass, the specific composition of the filament, the size, the way it's mounted, etc. Patents are *broader* than that, but not so broad that you can just cover some arbitrary idea like "an electronic device that produces light".

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that's what copyright is for. Patents are for ideas. They don't work for anything other than the most complicated things that required a lot of research to understand, but only little effort to implement once understood (medicine maybe - never software). But of course, that is not how they're granted in practice anyways - so they almost always don't work.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[ackthpt]

Remember, the more litigious the company, the less innovative.

Apple is not excluded and obviously neither is MS. The only time a company goes "nuclear" with the patent option is when they are betting that in the short term they can make a profit off extortion. Given the open source nature of the products and the sheer size of the companies MS is going after, this is so hilariously shortsighted I don't know where to begin, not to mention how easy it is to get around a patent with GPL'd software.

Shades of dBase and Ashton-Tate! They sued rather than innovate. Did you have to Google dBase or Ashton-Tate to see who they were?

Re:IF they hold the patents

[harl]

No that's how patents work. In the States there used to be a prototype requirement. If you couldn't make it you couldn't patent it.

Then they removed it.
Then patent trolls appeared.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Daniel Phillips]

Because those who can, do. Those who can't, litigate.

I doubt that Ballmer is even very good at litigating. One thing is for sure: by attacking Google directly, Ballmer is punching out of his class.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[andydread]

If patents were tied to source code then we wouldn't have this problem

Re:IF they hold the patents

[mcneely.mike]

to stick with the rape analogy, MS might end up raping itself, which is just masturbation really. Wonder if MS people can masturbate without early termination of function.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who can do.

Those who can't teach.

Those who can't teach become administrators.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[hacksoncode]

I've always thought this distinction is without a difference, because how do you *describe* an implementation. It can only be done in abstract language, at which point it *is* an idea.

"Have a machine first do A, then do B, then do C". That's an idea. That's all it can ever be. That's all patents can do, protect ideas.

If you want to say that patents should only cover exact copies of a specific implementation, fine, but just call for all patents to be repealed in that case, because that's useless.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Lonewolf666]

Unfortunately, these days it seems that "inventors" can get away with giving only the most vague description of their invention and receive a patent anyway. In several online discussions where patent numbers were given, I have looked at the patent application and thought
"Huh? How is this implemented? The patent application does not tell you much about how to actually do it!"

And this is one big point where the system is broken. The inventor is supposed to give a reasonably clear description of how the invention is manufactured, so others can use it to reproduce the invention after the patent runs out. But all too often, the patent examiners seem to neglect this. Another is that the USPTO seems to hand out patents for really small inventive steps, again allowing patent holders to get a monopoly without giving society much in return.

Unless these two points can be fixed (and it seems unlikely to me), we might be better off abolishing patents completely.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Hooya]

Those who can, do.
Those who can't, sue.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[bryan1945]

What MS hardware has -not- had/continues to have issues? They're somewhat good at software, but their hardware has generally been iffy. I know they contract out the work, just like Apple, HP, etc, but c'mon ya gotta have some quality control in place.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[bryan1945]

That may have been funny about a year ago.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Wolfling1]

These are the freedoms we are bringing to Libya

Re:IF they hold the patents

[bigstrat2003]

Nah, it's still funny today. I laughed.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Opportunist]

You just gave a pretty good reason why software patents are simply and plainly wrong.

If I can patent a given output for a given input, I can pretty much stopgag all innovation in a field. Imagine what would have happened if, some long, long time ago, someone patented the input "data" and the output "video".

Re:IF they hold the patents

[exomondo]

Ideas are easy, implementation is hard. MS allegedly has some pieces of paper that say "we thought of this first! you can't use my idea!" Google has an actual piece of software that works pretty well.

I'd say MS has implementations of those ideas too, it's not like they're saying 'we thought of Android first'. The issue with patents is that they only work if everyone plays the game and cross-licenses those patents. Of course some ideas genuinely should be patentable, but realistically they should not be able to be patented without a working prototype. The USPTO needs to get it together and throw out existing and 'obvious' ideas.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Opportunist]

And who can't even get that done becomes a consultant.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[exomondo]

Because those who can, do. Those who can't, litigate.

That's a nice idea but I think you'll find those who 'do' actually litigate just as much as the others to 'protect' their investment in r&d.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Thing 1]

Aww, I thought your third sentence might contain a rhyme as well. Oh well.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[pieterh]

Actually, if you read /. regularly you'll know that Microsoft precisely accuses Google, via proxies, of literally copying code. They are attacking Android heavily because they think this will turn producers away from it, and towards their "safer" alternative. All this is about trying to scare Chinese producers into staying away from Android. It won't work. There is just too much money in Android and too little in WP7.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[martin-boundary]

If you want to say that patents should only cover exact copies of a specific implementation, fine, but just call for all patents to be repealed in that case, because that's useless.

Now you're getting it. Patents ARE useless and must go (correction: not just useless, but actively harmful).

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to coincide just fine with the recent FUD by the MS shill.
Also seems to coincide with Windows Phone 7 and recent news that phone makers are rejecting WP.

Perhaps they are knowingly spreading FUD to try to even the playing field?

Re:IF they hold the patents

[scdeimos]

Except that nothing in the alleged infringements is Android-specific. Microsoft could just as easily go after Apple, or even the authors of Windows applications but instead they're currently trying to cast FUD on Android so as to get people to use Windows Phone. From Micorsoft's blog entry on the legal actions:

The Microsoft-created features protected by the patents infringed by the Nook and Nook Color tablet are core to the user experience. For example, the patents we asserted today protect innovations that:

Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs;

Enable display of a webpage's content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content;

Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection; and

Provide users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[tinkerghost]

The inventor is supposed to give a reasonably clear description of how the invention is manufactured, so others can use it to reproduce the invention after the patent runs out.

"A person reasonably skilled in the art" is the actually the measure. The problem is that the USPTO is approving patents that are rated for your average 3 year old, the "Well Duh!" patents of blindingly obvious crap. As well as the incredibly vague ones that offer a vague framework with no guidance on execution that could only be understood by a mind reader with a law degree.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[exomondo]

Those who can, do and sue. Those who can't be bothered, just sue.

FTFY.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[npsimons]

Remember, the more litigious the company, the less innovative.

Apple is not excluded and obviously neither is MS.

I was just thinking about this with respect to the whole Apple suing Amazon frippery, and it occurred to me to ask: has an open source company ever sued based on copyright, trademarks or patents? And just to avoid the no true Scotsman fallacy, let's state the qualifications for an open source company upfront: a company that makes it's living via open source software, such that they pay developers to work on open source software.

I'm really curious: are there any open source companies who have sued (especially on bogus claims) over copyright, trademarks or patents? I would like to know, because I already have the moral high ground of boycotting Apple and Microsoft; I would like to know what open source companies to boycott because they don't act in good faith. I suspect there will be very few, and none as large or as unethical as Apple or Microsoft.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[boxwood]

Well some companies have had legal action taken against them because they distributed something based on GPL'd code, because the modified the code and didn't distribute their modifications. I think those companies (its only happened a couple of times) just realeased their source (as required by the GPL) and the lawsuits were dropped. I believe these lawsuits were initiated by the FSF.

So yeah, companies have been sued over open source, but only because they didn't comply with the GPL.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Lorien_the_first_one]

That's called reduction to practice. That should be a requirement for *every* patent. But I'd rather do away with patents altogether. There are plenty of inventors out there. And they're too busy inventing to perform patent searches. I'd rather not interrupt them.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Anonymous Coward]

AHA! We finally have the most efficient code..err motto...it only took 3 iterations...

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Sarten-X]

Then we'd have the problem where bug fixes would invalidate the patent. Changing the order of unrelated statements would allow another company to duplicate the technology, making the patent protection utterly useless.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Sarten-X]

Are they more harmful than allowing any established company to copy the product of any smaller (therefore slower-moving) company or individual, after that smaller entity has put in the research investment?

I have a friend who has patented an algorithm to solve a particular problem using a novel method. Existing software solutions sell for over hundred thousand dollars each, and saves their customers millions. This individual inventor spent seven years working on his algorithm, at his own expense. He has no customer contacts, and no means to develop a salable product on his own. The ability to license his invention to established companies is the only thing he gets for seven years of investment, and his patent is the only thing preventing any of those established companies from simply copying his work. How is it harmful that an investment like that gets a return?

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Stonebird]

I am wondering if the shoe was on the other foot and it was Microsoft that was being sued if your comments would be the same. I wonder if everyone's comments about patent rights would be the same as those they express on this thread. The argument is universal - two sides with differing opinions, with the right to debate them in an open forum. When it comes to patents, copyrights, and trademarks we all have to deal with the way the rules are - if one holds the rights, then they have the right to protect that intellectual property. It is not always the first one who files that gets the patent; fortunately this may change in the near future, as proposed rule changes get accepted. There are many patents that have been filed by numerous people all for one thing – money. These filers had no intention on doing anything with the idea they patented, except to sit and wait for those to infringe upon it – and then sue them, for something they themselves have nothing invested. Lest we think this is only with patents, copyrights, and trademarks it is not. When the Internet was becoming popular, there were people and companies that did nothing but purchase 100’s, if not 1,000’s of domain names simply to tie them up and hold the companies that, by extension would logically use them, hostage. Why – money. It became the easy way to make your fortune, rather than work for it. If we are unhappy with the laws and rules, then change them. Don’t berate those who use them.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[Sarten-X]

I think what you meant to say was

software patents by big greedy corporations that get in the way of me doing whatever I want are simply and plainly wrong.

or perhaps

expecting me to have the same limits as a big company is simply and plainly wrong.

Simply and plainly, that's not how software patents work at all.

They cover all implementations that fit a particular description. Come up with an implementation using a different design (such as a genetic algorithm rather than a greedy algorithm), and the patent's probably not an issue. No, you won't get perfect results all the time, but you aren't the one who made the investment to research the algorithm in the first place. Why should you get anything for free, when others had to work hard to produce it?

Re:IF they hold the patents

[poetmatt]

The answer is no, and it's not even a matter of ethics, it's also engrained into the GPL: where it says that suing over patents can invalidate your GPL license. I forgot where it is in the text of the license, but go search.

So basically, GPL is actually the fix, and that's why businesses are afraid to use it: because they won't be able to sue people for patents on GPL'd software.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[sxeraverx]

Not sure if troll.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[MachineShedFred]

Something about stuff being more than the sum of it's parts comes to mind here, but I can't quite put my finger on it...

SCO anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO didn't die in vain, they were just sacrificed to make this kind of insane posturing and attitude of corporate entitlement seem normal. We got most of our shock at those tactics out of the way over the years McBride & Co attacked Linux, clearing the path for bigger fish, like Microsoft, to publicly act the same without as much backlash.

Good marketing effort. Idiots.

Re:SCO anyone?

[_Sprocket_]

SCO didn't die in vain, they were just sacrificed to make this kind of insane posturing and attitude of corporate entitlement seem normal. We got most of our shock at those tactics out of the way over the years McBride & Co attacked Linux, clearing the path for bigger fish, like Microsoft, to publicly act the same without as much backlash.

Good marketing effort. Idiots.

I'm not sure it's that way. Microsoft put together the play book and placed it out there for someone to follow. SCO picked it up and ran with it. But not many others did. So the question then becomes whether SCO was the over-the-top publicity event to dull our senses or whether Microsoft is being forced to run their own plays since nobody else is.

Re:SCO anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft put together the play book and placed it out there for someone to follow. SCO picked it up and ran with it. But not many others did. So the question then becomes whether SCO was the over-the-top publicity event to dull our senses or whether Microsoft is being forced to run their own plays since nobody else is.

SCO was essentially acquired by MS but their strengths (which are: not being able to do anything useful and suing everyone else who was) aligned well with MS's core business and a reverse take-over took place, with MS's corporate culture and modus operandi increasingly becoming more like SCO's. Now MS is focusing on doing well what SCO was good at (no good and good for nothing).

Disclaimer: I may have a slight bias in favor of useless evil Microsoft.

Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[SerpentMage]

While I am uneasy about patents, a case for truly innovative products can be made. But this is not innovation. This is patenting whatever one can. Like:

Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

You have got to be effen kidding me. That's a patent? Who was the bonehead that thought something like that is innovation?

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[tomhudson]

From Microsoft's FUD^WNews Center

Their refusals to take licenses leave us no choice but to bring legal action to defend our innovations and fulfill our responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard the billions of dollars we invest each year to bring great software products and services to market,&rdquo; he added.

The patents at issue cover a range of functionality embodied in Android devices that are essential to the user experience, including: natural ways of interacting with devices by tabbing through various screens to find the information they need; surfing the Web more quickly, and interacting with documents and e-books.

This from the company that derided tabbed browsing as something that end users didn't want when Firefox had it and IE didn't.

They're doing a great job protecting their "great software products and services" - they're so protected that nobody's seen them.

This is what you do when your own product (WP7) can't compete on the merits.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[recoiledsnake]

Does your statements equally apply to Apple? Just curious. Apple sued HTC and Motorola over Android for patent infringement..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/02/AR2010030203916.html

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/12/04/apple_adds_12_more_patents_to_lawsuit_against_motorola.html

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

The simple answer is greed.

USPTO cares more about taking the $ for a patent application than actually performing their jobs. That is why they are so quota driven these days.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[tomhudson]

Enable display of a webpage's content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

My old 14.4k internet connection and Netscape Navigator 2.0 are prior art.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[syousef]

Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

You have got to be effen kidding me. That's a patent? Who was the bonehead that thought something like that is innovation?

That's nothing. The really innovative patents are:
- Crashing web browser when background image finally loads
- Freezing device until USB device wakes up
- Dropping calls when most likely to jeopardise life or career
- Shutting down at most inopportune moment.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[somersault]

It's kind of funny that they think they can patent "natural ways of interacting" too..

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[jimbolauski]

While I am uneasy about patents, a case for truly innovative products can be made. But this is not innovation. This is patenting whatever one can. Like:

Enable display of a webpageâ(TM)s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

You have got to be effen kidding me. That's a patent? Who was the bonehead that thought something like that is innovation?

It is innovation just not innovation in the 21st century, Microsoft filed a patents for tabbed browsing in 1997 and so the patent have expired yet they are still trying to get people to pay for protection to "Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs"

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[falconwolf]

Does your statements equally apply to Apple? Just curious. Apple sued HTC and Motorola over Android for patent infringement..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/02/AR2010030203916.html

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/12/04/apple_adds_12_more_patents_to_lawsuit_against_motorola.html

To me it applies as much to Apple as it does to Microsoft.

Actually I want almost if not all patenting ended. If you can't compeat with a better product then get out of business.

Falcon

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[snmpkid]

One of the patents held by MobileMedia MPEGLA'S new troll organization is for metallic keys on a cell phone

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[ackthpt]

While I am uneasy about patents, a case for truly innovative products can be made. But this is not innovation. This is patenting whatever one can. Like:

Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

You have got to be effen kidding me. That's a patent? Who was the bonehead that thought something like that is innovation?

I thought it was "Buffering Input" which precedes even Microsoft being in business.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly how all web browsers worked in the old days. Anyone using dial-up with bouncing text will be able to tell you that. And MS were late to the table with their's.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[tomhudson]

Short answer: Yes.

Even shorter answer: 1

Fairly short answer: Software patents are a mistake, as are business patents. Software is written, not "built", and should only be protected by copyright or trademark law, not patent. Patents are for "things".

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[Gnavpot]

Enable display of a webpage's content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

You have got to be effen kidding me. That's a patent? Who was the bonehead that thought something like that is innovation?

The worst part is that 12-14 years ago, IE was actually severely lacking in this area compared to Netscape. Netscape could load the page immediately and fill in the images as they loaded. With IE, you had to wait for all images to be loaded, before the page would show.

Admitted, that was images in the page, not background images. I don't remember how background images loaded in the two browsers back then.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[jbeaupre]

That's a patent?

No, that's not a patent. If you knew anything about patents, you'd know that.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the interaction part.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[tomhudson]

"Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs"

Web pages composed of framesets, with the navigation in one frame, and the results displayed in one or more frames, are prior art. There is no semantic difference between tabs and textual links.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[black3d]

Indeed.. and AC who already posted clearly came along too late to experience RIPscript on BBSs. One certainly could interact with the alternate-text labelled RIPscript areas before and whilst the images were loading - which actually made graphical BBSing on a 14.4k modem bearable.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I want almost if not all patenting ended

Should we throw the rest of the Consitution out the window as well?

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[nschubach]

I figure by that statement alone; Natural == obvious... thus invalidating all patents defined by this 'natural way.'

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[Belial6]

Maybe not, but I know that IBM released a tabbed browser in 1996. Lotus Notes 4 had HTTP browsing as one of it's features, and was definitely a tabbed browser. So, not only was tabbed browsing already thought of in 1997, but it was widely deployed in the market.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[somersault]

That is in fact what I was implying, yes :p

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[Kalriath]

Sounds like Nokia patents.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[tycoex]

Just because most of the Constitution is good, doesn't mean it's perfect.

I can just see it now:

"Alright, we're here to remove the sections of the Constitution that state Blacks are only worth 1/3rd of a person."

"Should we throw the rest of the Consitution out the window as well?" /facepalm

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[tomhudson]

Except for the interaction part.

You could click on links before the entire page was rendered. Is that "interaction" enough?

You could also stop the page download and avoid having the background image load at all.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[tomhudson]

It's kind of funny that they think they can patent "natural ways of interacting" too..

I suspect the pr0n industry already holds the patents on "unnatural ways of interacting with devices."

Either that, or the developers and testers of "unnatural ways of interacting with devices" are less productive (strange work injuries, lots of RSI and carpal tunnel, burn-out from being too emotionally involved in their work, etc).

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Enable display of a webpage's content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

My old 14.4k internet connection and Netscape Navigator 2.0 are prior art.

Screw you! My Internet connection went down this evening for some unknown reason, and I have to connect trough my phone connected to my laptop to get online. And it's slow, and high latency. And I just guess so is most of what people do on the go.

Get used to it, tech gets more portable, old speeds come back for a while and loading huge backgrounds is a bit counter productive (though Google seems to manage somehow).

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[angel'o'sphere]

Actually I want almost if not all patenting ended. If you can't compeat with a better product then get out of business.

That would mean only the established big players can compete/produce. Because if I invent something with a 10M budget and start producing it, they easily can take my invention and produce it cheaper, and thus I'm out of business, as you wished. What would be the point then for me to invent anything?

angel'o'sphere

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[DaHat]

"...Blacks are only worth 1/3rd of a person."

Do tell... which fine public school did you attend to learn about that mythical portion of the Constitution? ... let alone didn't learn about the phrase "three fifths of all other Persons" (ie did not apply exclusively to blacks, nor free blacks).

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this any different from now, except that not only do they produce it cheaper, but they already have 12 patents that your great idea infringes, even though none of those patents actually have anything to do with why your idea is great. The big companies have rubbed you out before you even try, because they have been sitting on patents to nonexistent products for 20 years that you might not even know about.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[Anthony Mouse]

That would mean only the established big players can compete/produce. Because if I invent something with a 10M budget and start producing it, they easily can take my invention and produce it cheaper, and thus I'm out of business, as you wished. What would be the point then for me to invent anything?

As opposed to the situation now, where they just use your invention anyway, and if you sue them then they counterclaim because you're infringing hundreds of their patents?

The little companies tend to get bought out. But it's almost entirely because of the copyrights. The little company has a head start on implementing the invention and employees with know how, which means first to market advantage for whoever buys them out. The patents have almost nothing to do with it -- they just end up on the stack when it comes time for cross-licensing negotiations.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Fairly short answer: Software patents are a mistake, as are business patents. Software is written, not "built", and should only be protected by copyright or trademark law, not patent. Patents are for "things".

How is a system for dealing with digital objects any less innovative than a system for dealing with physical objects?

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[tomhudson]

The "digital objects" are actually arbitrary output of a compiler, and the compiler doesn't exercise any "creativity" - the same source code with the same parameters and target had better not vary between runs. The output is always a stream of characters. To the point that the output embodies the creativity of the source code, it can be protected, but only by copyright, not patent, since it IS just a stream of characters, and writings (streams of characters) are protected by copyright, not patent.

The source code, on the other hand, is where creativity takes place. Written works (writings - streams of characters) are protected by copyright, not patent.

Think of it - if I take an executable file that should work on one os and copy it to another, its' nature hasn't changed. But it's certainly not going to be considered as the same sort of "digital object" by the host system.

Then again, the term "digital object" is also totally bogus when applied to computing. "Objects" is just the term we use for an arbitrary collection of bytes. There's no real "object" behind the scenes. Just arbitrary data patterns.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

The "digital objects" are actually arbitrary output of a compiler, and the compiler doesn't exercise any "creativity" - the same source code with the same parameters and target had better not vary between runs. The output is always a stream of characters.

That doesn't matter, at the lowest level it's about how you manipulate resources to achieve an outcome.

The source code, on the other hand, is where creativity takes place. Written works (writings - streams of characters) are protected by copyright, not patent.

Why are you discussing source code? It's well known that source code is just like the plans to build a device, which is obviously nothing to do with patents and everything to do with copyrights. Don't try and take this off topic, source code has absolutely nothing to do with this issue.

Think of it - if I take an executable file that should work on one os and copy it to another, its' nature hasn't changed. But it's certainly not going to be considered as the same sort of "digital object" by the host system.

The interpretation of anything varies depending on the context, that is true of physical objects as well.

Then again, the term "digital object" is also totally bogus when applied to computing. "Objects" is just the term we use for an arbitrary collection of bytes. There's no real "object" behind the scenes. Just arbitrary data patterns.

And a "physical object" is just a collection of atoms and it's how they are arranged that forms an object.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[symbolset]

Like the power to declare war, the Constitution delegates from the people to the Congress the power to grant patents, or specifically "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;".

And like the power to declare war, the Constitution does not require that Congress use this power. At all. The US Constitution does not confer a right to patents and copyrights for authors and inventors.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

It's even more amusing since my Android phone does not have a "tab" key in the first place.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[somersault]

I thought they were referring purely to software tabs. It would be pretty devious if they are in fact referring to their alt-tab functionality but trying to apply it to software tabs..

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[MachineShedFred]

Now if only there was some method of changing the parts that are arcane, and should be removed. Some kind of procedure for amending that document.

If only.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[falconwolf]

That would mean only the established big players can compete/produce.

Not even close. Big established players only can compeat today. It won't take long for a new, smaller, player to be slapped with a lawsuit from those established big players today. Without an army of lawyers it's difficult if not impossible to wade through the patent mine field, and what small business can afford such an army of attorneys?

Because if I invent something with a 10M budget and start producing it, they easily can take my invention and produce it cheaper

Again not quite. As the inventor you have first mover advantage. Big players can take years to turn around and produce something. Big players don't turn on a dime. And if you haven't made improvements in your product by the tyme your competition releases it's own compeating product then you're not progressing.

What would be the point then for me to invent anything?

If the above do not work for you then there's these things called trade secrets. Fabrication businesses already exist that will build or manufacture other businesses products on contract. The Taiwanese business Foxconn builds computers and other electronics for others, Apple contracted with Foxconn to make iPads, iPhones, and iPods. Trade secrets, and contracts, prevent Foxconn from making these and selling them as their own products. I as an inventor could go to Foxconn or another fabricator, have them sign an NDA or Non-disclosure Agreement, and ask them if they can manufacture my product. Then if Foxconn started to sell my invention as their own product I have good grounds to sue and believe I can win.

Now I may not have enough money to file a lawsuit myself but I could find an investor would does have deep pockets. Or better yet again with signed NDAs I can show my invention to angel investors or business incubators. With their assistance I can start manufacturing my product myself.

And all that ignores why patents are granted, yes patents are granted and not a right. According to the Constitution of the USA patents are meant "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;". However economic studies have shown patents impede progress. Yet Another Study Finds Patents Do Not Encourage Innovation. Economists say copyright and patent laws are killing innovation; hurting economy.

Falcon

Redmond and tone deafness.

[phrackwulf]

You would think well into the Post Gates era the folks at Microsoft would consider a little better how this type of thing looks? Nobody is going to win on this one. All parties involved could have met to negotiate on this and come to some type of agreement long before the legal firepower gets involved. I want to like Microsoft now that they've been taken to the woodshed several times by Google and Apple. Wil Wheaton says "Don't be a dick."

Re:Redmond and tone deafness.

[falconwolf]

You would think well into the Post Gates era the folks at Microsoft would consider a little better how this type of thing looks?

Didn't you know we're in the Steve Ballmer era? This is a person who loves to throw chairs, and shouting out how he's going to kill Google.

"This is what happens when a great deal of intelligence is invested in ignorance" - Chairman of Bregna, Trevor Goodchild

But things are unraveling.
We're meant to die.

Falcon

List of these important patented innovations

[binkzz]

The Microsoft-created features protected by the patents infringed by the Nook and Nook Color tablet are core to the user experience. For example, the patents we asserted today protect innovations that: â Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs; â Enable display of a webpageâ(TM)s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster; â Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content; â Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection; and â Provide users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document.

Re:List of these important patented innovations

[binkzz]

The Microsoft-created features protected by the patents infringed by the Nook and Nook Color tablet are core to the user experience. For example, the patents we asserted today protect innovations that:

- Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs;

- Enable display of a webpage&#226;&#8364;(TM)s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

- Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content;

- Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection; and

- Provide users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document.

Sorry for not using preview :-"

Re:List of these important patented innovations

[BabyDuckHat]

Those were considered innovative enough to warrant a patent?

1. File patents for obvious ideas involving computers
2. Wait for someone else to implement the ideas and make money
3. Sue them
4. Profit!

(The lack of the ??? step is the truly sad part there.)

Re:List of these important patented innovations

[Belial6]

I think you have #1 wrong. It should be:

1. File patents for ideas that are already available in the market.

Re:List of these important patented innovations

[Antisyzygy]

In other words, something so vague it shouldn't be able to be patented.

Re:List of these important patented innovations

[Anonymous Coward]

At the time, yes... consider this, all but 1 of the patents were filed in the late 90's with the earliest filed in 94.

Re:List of these important patented innovations

[Kalriath]

- Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection; and
 

Oh, well in that case Android doesn't infringe then.

Re:List of these important patented innovations

[MachineShedFred]

Zing!

Same as SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they so desperate?

Re:Same as SCO

[somersault]

Clearly :) ABANDON SHIIIIP!

Re:Same as SCO

[matt_gaia]

Being that they basically funded SCO's little escapades against IBM, I would venture to guess "yes, they really are (still) that desperate."

figures

[cshark]

Classic legal stance from the losers. If having success in the marketplace alludes you, sue sue sue.

Re:figures

[pclminion]

Are you eluding to the difference between allude and elude? Also, your definition of "loser" is awfully strange. "Amassing billions and billions of dollars" makes one a loser, I guess.

Re:figures

[0123456]

"Amassing billions and billions of dollars" makes one a loser, I guess.

How long can you continue 'amassing billions and billions of dollars' when your market is shrinking and your competitors own the new markets you want to get into?

Re:figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who can, can. Those who can't, sue.

Re:figures

[h4rr4r]

They did not make that money in this market place, they made it in the PC realm.

MS cannot compete in the smartphone market so they fall back to rent seeking.

Re:figures

[pclminion]

MS cannot compete in the smartphone market so they fall back to rent seeking.

In other words, they are making money in a market they have no significant products in? Sounds like a success story to me.

Re:figures

[h4rr4r]

Sounds like market failure to me. Rent seeking is not a good thing.

Re:figures

[imric]

Competing through lawsuits isn't even innovation anymore. Its just pathetic.

Re:figures

[0123456]

Sounds like market failure to me.

Except that patents, a government-granted monopoly, are pretty much the antithesis of a free market.

Re:figures

[h4rr4r]

Correct you are, I used the wrong term. I meant, it sounds like a market broken by these granted monopolies.

Re:figures

[tomhudson]

They're attempting to make money in the smartphone market. Remember, they gave Nokia over a $billion. They also have the development costs, so say another $billion. And now there's the advertising blitz, half a billion and counting, that just doesn't seem to be working.

You've got two and a half billion in sunk costs. How many handset licenses do you have to take in at $20 each to pay that off? 125 million.

Keep in mind that MicroNokia - oops, Nokia - has said they won't be releasing Windows smartphones until 2012, and that the other manufacturers are NOT happy about the MicroNokia deal, which they see as Microsoft helping Nokia compete against them in the Windows phone market.

WP7 might eventually earn back it's sunk costs, but it's looking pretty doubtful, especially since Microsoft leaked a WP8-based smartphone.

So that brings us to another question. Why is Ballmer still at Microsoft? The answer is simple - remember how he dumped a bucket-load of stock? Look at the timing. That was a warning to the board of directors - dump me, I dump the rest of your stock, and the price goes through the floor.

The pressure to call him on his bluff is just going to intensify, and someone's going to make a fortune shorting MSFT.

Re:figures

[PeterM from Berkeley]

So, would you regard the playground bully who beats other kids up for their milk money a "success" too? Or will you concede that "might" doesn't make "right", and "law" and "right" are sometimes on opposite sides?

As in, for example, when someone who never produced anything collects money from those who do?

--PM

Re:figures

[mywhitewolf]

Not to us, but to Microsoft it is.

Re:figures

[Billly Gates]

Gadhaffi and the former Egyptian dictator have billions. Does that make them noble figures that are not losers? It still does not make it right to steal. Whether it is from your own people or Andriod customers.

MS wants Google and others to simply just charge us and have Google and everyone raise the price and get rid of free apps so we can pay Microsoft. To me that is stealing

Re:figures

[bigstrat2003]

Success has nothing to do with what is right or acceptable. The bully is very successful. He also is acting in an unacceptable fashion. Don't confuse the two.

Re:figures

[Anonymous Coward]

So, would you regard the playground bully who beats other kids up for their milk money a "success" too? Or will you concede that "might" doesn't make "right", and "law" and "right" are sometimes on opposite sides?

I checked the dictionary and there's nothing in there that says a success has to be a moral triumph.

Re:figures

[pclminion]

Where are you people getting this "noble, right, wrong, ethical, moral" shit? What does any of that have to do with success?

Re:figures

[Pulzar]

How long can you continue 'amassing billions and billions of dollars' when your market is shrinking and your competitors own the new markets you want to get into?

What's this shrinking market? The PC market is most definitely not shrinking, and isn't showing any signs that it will start to.

!!! Fix the Patent System !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

!!!! USA !!!!! Fix the Patent System !!! Don't you geeks have the control over there??? ;)

Re:!!! Fix the Patent System !!!

[imric]

If we did it would be a happier country.

Not perfect, maybe - but happier.

Re:!!! Fix the Patent System !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? It's working exactly as it should be. Party A invents something. Party B copied it. Party B either starts paying for the right to use Party A's invention or they stop selling it. I don't see what the problem is.

Re:!!! Fix the Patent System !!!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

If we did it would be a happier country.

Not perfect, maybe - but happier.

Why, will Ponn Farr be made mandatory?

Oh look

[Khyber]

More bullshit from Microsoft.

I'm too busy kicking China's ass to do anything about Microsoft. Anyone else want to step up to the plate?

Please don't say that.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an insult to the gay niggers!

Re:Please don't say that.

[Tsingi]

It's an insult to the gay niggers!

I'd chastize this remark,

It is so N.P.C.

With the sentiment however,

I feel I agree.

--- SamIAm

Re:Android owners suck cocks

[amiga3D]

you're as witty as microsoft is innovative.

This discussion is missing something important

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright, where are all the Microsoft astroturfers telling us why this is actually a good thing?

Re:This discussion is missing something important

[tomhudson]

Alright, where are all the Microsoft astroturfers telling us why this is actually a good thing?

They're still in shell-shock from having their last piece of FUD (that Android has a "bigger problem than Java" because of the linux kernel headers) blow up in their face. That has all the appearance of a support operation for today's announcement, but they've clearly lost the momentum.

They'll be back ... right after the Beast from Redmond receives a new batch of chairs.

Uh..

[Haedrian]

There's a list of some of the patents in the article...

" Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs;"

This is so vague even I can't understand what it is.

" Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;"

Woah. The insight of this is truly staggering.

" Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content;"

No idea what this means either.

" Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection; and"

. . .

" Provide users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document."

Could we take "Colour Markers", "Scribbling on a document" to be previous implmentations of this? Because then there's a lot of people you could sue.

Re:Uh..

[dgatwood]

Enable display of a webpageâ(TM)s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

Didn't Netscape 1.0 do this? You know, before the background attribute was added? So they have a patent on programmatic regression?

Re:Uh..

[Dcnjoe60]

There's a list of some of the patents in the article...

" Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs;"

This is so vague even I can't understand what it is.

" Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;"

Woah. The insight of this is truly staggering.

" Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content;"

No idea what this means either.

" Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection; and"

. . .

" Provide users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document."

Could we take "Colour Markers", "Scribbling on a document" to be previous implmentations of this? Because then there's a lot of people you could sue.

With the exception of that download thing, my old Palm Pre did all of that with WebOS. I wonder why Microsoft isn't suing HP since their new tablet and phone also does all of this?

Re:Uh..

[hedwards]

I'm not sure about that, but I remember years ago learning HTML and it being considered best practice to specify dimensions on all images so that the browser new what space to reserve so that people could start reading whilst the pages loaded. It was relatively obvious back in days when it could take a long time for even a small page to finish loading.

Re:Uh..

[Anonymous Coward]

Not defending the lawsuit here, but it is worth noting that some of these patents are rather old and while they may be used for patent trolling-esque purposes now, some were probably innovative at the time.

While noting now-obvious behavior as obvious, it is worth realizing that some of these features were pretty substantial back when they came out.

Enable display of a webpage's before the background image... was filed April 18, 1996.
Allow apps to superimpose download status... was filed May 6, 1997. By the way, the actual title for this one is: "Loading status in a hypermedia browser having a limited available display area." It was a patent for displaying status on one of the original Windows CE devices.

Re:Uh..

[Haedrian]

I dunno. But given how quickly technology progresses, even if the patent was a great idea in 1996, shouldn't it be irrelevant by now?

Technology progresses too quickly for patents like this to stay there.

Re:Uh..

[0123456]

Yeah, because no competent programmer could have come up with those ideas by themselves. 'Oh look, my web page is taking a long time to display because I'm waiting for the background image to download. I can't think of any possible way I could avoid that.'

Re:Uh..

[pla]

"Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs;"
This is so vague even I can't understand what it is.

I think it means something like the annoying Win7 rolodex-o'-apps that replaced the formerly clean-and-easy-to-use alt-tab behavior.


"Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content;"
No idea what this means either.

Progress bars, nothing more.


Truly revolutionary stuff here, Microsoft. Did you run out of boolean operators (*cough* XOR *cough*) to patent?

Re:Uh..

[Ciggy]

...

" Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content;"

No idea what this means either.

...

At a guess: a progress bar on a transparent background?

Re:Uh..

[jdgeorge]

HP's deep patent warchest would make them a significantly less appealing target than such patent lightweights as Barnes and Noble, Foxconn, or Inventec.. Furthermore, if I understand correctly, Microsoft has cross-licensing agreements with most major computer companies that specifically prevent many lawsuits of this sort.

Re:Uh..

[Fallen Andy]

LOOLZ! Mince -> Mark of the Unicorn's EMACS clone would have "infringed" that patent (for faster interaction) because of deferred redisplay.

It was standard practice on screen editors in the old days

(on CP/M-68k for heaven's sake)

The rest mean *zero*. Go SUE the late Bob Wallace for"easily selecting text" (if you don't see the irony in my comment,you're too young)

Andy

Re:Uh..

[Anonymous Coward]

For the millionth time, patents don't work like that. You need to look at the individual claims.

Re:Uh..

[MachineShedFred]

" Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content;"

No idea what this means either.

They mean having a progress bar, that shows up in the middle of your screen, rather than at the bottom. I know, that's just amazingly intuitive, and you've never heard of that before.

Re:Uh..

[dgatwood]

*shrugs* I'm just basing my comment on what the blurb at the top says the patent is about. This is Slashdot. Do you really expect me to read the article, much less the patent linked to by the article?

USPTO problem

[grilled-cheese]

This is the result of letting companies get patents that boil down to numbers and abstract generic processes. I think the only way to fix it is to reform how patents are granted, for what, and for how long. If USPTO simply can't handle the load they're under, then they should complain to their bosses for more resources, reform their practices, or change applicant's expectations.

Re:USPTO problem

[grilled-cheese]

I'm just sick and tired of the intellectual property arms race/cold war that's been going on now for some time.

Re:USPTO problem

[ackthpt]

This is the result of letting companies get patents that boil down to numbers and abstract generic processes. I think the only way to fix it is to reform how patents are granted, for what, and for how long. If USPTO simply can't handle the load they're under, then they should complain to their bosses for more resources, reform their practices, or change applicant's expectations.

I'm just sick and tired of the intellectual property arms race/cold war that's been going on now for some time.

Visualize this scenario: Alien civilization arrives on earth tomorrow. Wants to engage in trade, they desperately want food and what they have to offer is very advanced technology, much of which at some point infringes on IP held by Earth companies. We explain how the process works and they boggle, "The only way we ever were able to develop space travel was by rolling back IP laws - bar one: All processes or inventions are Fair Use after no more than 5 years (one of theirs is roughly equivalent to one of ours) with financial incentives to those who release their ideas to the public immediately.

You people are still driving cars?!?

Re:USPTO problem

[falconwolf]

This is the result of letting companies get patents that boil down to numbers and abstract generic processes. I think the only way to fix it is to reform how patents are granted, for what, and for how long. If USPTO simply can't handle the load they're under, then they should complain to their bosses for more resources, reform their practices, or change applicant's expectations.

You ignored a fix, one that would encourage more progress. Get rid of patents altogether.

Falcon

Re:USPTO problem

[Anonymous Coward]

> complain to their bosses for more resources

The USPTO is funded by the fees. Most of the funds arise from granted patents. If they want more resources then these must be paid for from fees. There is no downside. Re-exam is done for a fee. Litigation over patents comes out of the court system and from defendant's pockets, with no effect on USPTO (except they get re-exam fees).

Best strategy for USPTO is to grant all patents with only a cursory glance for spelling errors. Sorting out what results is _not_their_problem_.

Re:USPTO problem

[JamesP]

The Aliens would probably evaporate the USPTO and a certain Texas court first

The Patent Stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

My only question is why Google doesn't have a counter-suit in the works. They should have been preparing for this sort of patent stupidity long ago. This is how the game is played in the phone market. Company X sues company Y for infringement on patents a, b, and c. Then company Y sues company X for patents i, j, and k. That's how it goes. If Google doesn't have patents i, j, and k then they are sol and it's someone's fault, and that someone should shape up or ship out.

Re:The Patent Stupidity

[PickyH3D]

Google has a very small number of patents compared to Apple and Microsoft.

Re:The Patent Stupidity

[tomhudson]

I wouldn't be surprised if Google has a BSD implementation of Android.

Or better yet, maybe a new OS not based on any previous OS. Even Linus said he expects linux to eventually be replaced by something else.

The next OS:
small, fast (written in assembler)
self-modifying code with the correct privileges (why have jump tables when you can just update one address)

That last one is important if you want to start giving your core any of the characteristics of AI without the waste.

Re:The Patent Stupidity

[shmlco]

That's the cute part. They didn't sue Google, just the companies that sell products using Android.

Re:The Patent Stupidity

[UnknowingFool]

Which is more devious. Android competes directly with MS with devices. Apple competes indirectly with MS when it comes to devices. Instead of companies licensing some variant of Windows CE for their devices for a fee, many companies like phone manufacturers are choosing Android instead. Android licensing may be lower than MS but the OS allows them more customization that they would have had with Windows. Over time, MS may lose all their customers. In order to fight back they have to dramatically change their terms or build their own devices. Of course in the meantime, they could sue to delay the slide.

Re:The Patent Stupidity

[MachineShedFred]

I imagine it's harder to get an injunction against shipping products against Google than it is against HTC, who actually ships a physical good.

Besides, Google could lock this up in courts for decades - they have a money bin that rivals the one in Redmond.

Re:The Patent Stupidity

[shmlco]

"Instead of companies licensing some variant of Windows CE for their devices for a fee, many companies like phone manufacturers are choosing Android instead."

Not so cut and dried. Windows CE could not compete with modern touchscreen interfaces, and WP7 wasn't available. Android was a solution to the problem of iPhone.

Re:The Patent Stupidity

[UnknowingFool]

I don't think MS really cares that their customers had to pick another product because of rational or technical reasons. All they see is that Android is taking away their customers and future customers. Creating FUD by suing is a viable option to them it appears.

Ridiculous Redmon strikes again!

[theBully]

The specific patent claims are not very well described in the article but of what I can tell they have some patent claims for widely used, basic GUI features. I feel this may affect more than Android if they're gonna win.

They seem to act just like a patent troll in this situation. In my industry (Pharmaceutical) there's a company that has a patent on validating user input in web applications by verifying it at the server. They've been going around and threatening all EDC (Electronic Data Capture) makers with that. Of what I know, they have never won a single court appearance with this and never got a nickel out of it. It's just way too easy to patent something in the US.

I hope Microsoft will not win anything here for the sake of the precedent it would set. It's bad enough some companies already settled with them over this. It's just what happened a while ago with their claims on Linux. Novell and RedHat cut a deal with them. Canonical never settled for their claims and nothing ever happened. It's a good example.

Re:Ridiculous Redmon strikes again!

[tomhudson]

They seem to act just like a patent troll in this situation. In my industry (Pharmaceutical) there's a company that has a patent on validating user input in web applications by verifying it at the server. They've been going around and threatening all EDC (Electronic Data Capture) makers with that.

Any pre-javascript web page login screen is definitely prior art.

In other words, this has been around since the first days of the web.

... and before, if you want to count logging in to a remote server (or even localhost).

Can you email me the name of the company?

Microsoft attacts Android

[falconwolf]

Is this more MS FUD? Are we actually going to find out what MS patents are being infringed? Or is it going to turn out to be another SCO case? A bunch of lies but no proof?

Falcon

Re:Microsoft attacts Android

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think this is direct FUD.

I think it is MS response because Barnes & Noble, Foxconn International and Inventec didn't accept the preliminary MS proposal (extortion) they offered for "regularize" their patents.

Dear Microsoft....

[blind biker]

For a very short period it seemed to the more gullible among us, that you're starting to be a decent company. Thankfully, you've show in no uncertain way that you have not changed, and are still that douchebag bully in dire need to be body-slammed on concrete. I hope that one day it finally happens.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[Dan667]

it already has. They just are still in shock.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in a corporate environment, but I've somehow managed to escape using Windows for over a year, mostly under the guise of "It works a lot better to develop Android apps on Linux or a Mac." I used to dream of a time when MS wasn't a factor in my life, because I have always found them offensive. I'm enjoying the sensation of not giving a crap about them.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[straponego]

Give them a break. It must be hard to admit that they absolutely cannot compete by giving customers value; that they are totally incapable of delivering products that customers want; and that they have no intention of ever attempting to create products which equal or surpass those of their competitors; and that the only way they can think of to remain in business is to waste everybody's time and money through extortion.

Me, I'd find that embarrassing.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally happens? It's happening NOW - why do you think they're going after Android from a legal front? Because they know they can't beat it technically.

Enter: Microsoft the IP Company

[ackthpt]

They can't make a decent media device or phone, so they hold IP and sue those who do make them.

What next? A counter arguement : Why shouldn't we use this idea, it's not like you had any clue how to properly implement it!

Look who is sued

[Dcnjoe60]

Look who is being sued -- Barnes and Noble and other companies that use android on their device. Correction, relatively small companies without large legal staffs that use android on their device. If android is the problem, then why isn't Microsoft suing Google for infringement? Oh, wait, Google has as much money and as many lawyers as Microsoft does. This is much like locking the drug user up in jail, but ignoring the pusher. If Microsoft really believes that android is infringing, then they should go directly after Google.

Re:Look who is sued

[MetalliQaZ]

They have to show damages (lost sales) to obtain a large settlement. Android is open source. Google isn't really selling any hardware in the US anymore. Motorola, HTC, they DO sell stuff, and in large quantities. MS already got to them. B&N is doing pretty well with the Nook. They are the juicy targets.

-d

Re:Look who is sued

[linuxrocks123]

The last I heard, Motorola was still fighting them. Good on them, even though they make crap phones and DRMed the Droid 2 to hell.

I'm actually not too worried about the Android patent battles. Phone companies are big, have a lot of patents, and are used to suing the crap out of each other. That's probably why the whole industry was locked-down and stagnant until Google finally liberated it, but that's beside the point. The point is that phone manufacturers are used to patent wars and can afford to fight them. It's like how the Greeks never built an empire because they were too busy beating each other up but nevertheless managed to stop the Persians because their experiences beating each other up actually made them pretty good at fighting.

I doubt Microsoft will be able to stop Android with lawsuits. Microsoft will have to compete on the merits against Android, which has the functionality advantage, and Apple, which has the fashion advantage. It's in pretty serious trouble.

Re:Look who is sued

[pak9rabid]

Look who is being sued -- Barnes and Noble and other companies that use android on their device. Correction, relatively small companies without large legal staffs that use android on their device. If android is the problem, then why isn't Microsoft suing Google for infringement? Oh, wait, Google has as much money and as many lawyers as Microsoft does. This is much like locking the drug user up in jail, but ignoring the pusher. If Microsoft really believes that android is infringing, then they should go directly after Google.

Who's to say that Google isn't going to give Microsoft a taste of their own medicine and fund B&N's legal battle?

Re:Look who is sued

[gtall]

But Moto cannot really sue MS unless MS is making phones. I forget, are they? Isn't the deal with Nokia so they can hide behind their skirts when the sueballs start flying?

Re:Look who is sued

[linuxrocks123]

I don't believe M$ is making the phones, however, Microsoft can still be sued for making the software.

Promised not to do this?

[nurb432]

Didn't Microsoft promise not to use their patent portfolio in this matter?

Of course, i wasn't one that believed them and i know they are evil, but it would be nice if the media would pound them with being hypocrites.

Re:Promised not to do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft really believes that android is infringing, then they should go directly after Google.

For all their bluster and bombast, they lack the balls; like the 6 foot 250 pound bully who talks tough at the bar... and beats up on a 6 year old on the way home."

Re:Promised not to do this?

[Vernes]

Please link to this promise.

MPEGLA biggest leech in patentdom

[snmpkid]

MPEG LA created their own smartphone patent licensing firm last year... Get ready for the patent showdown of the ages Google vs Microsoft vs Apple with leeches like MPEG LA taking a cut off the top. http://www.osnews.com/story/23258/MPEG-LA-owned_Patent_Troll_Sues_Smartphone_Makers

Moral High Ground

[BabyDuckHat]

"Android devices must respect our intellectual property rights"

I'm always amused when a corporation get's on it's intellectual property high-horse to try and claim some kind of moral superiority.

That's like a greedy sociopath who uses and abuses people suing someone for besmirching their good name.

"The little people I step on must respect my rights."

I am pissed

[DMFNR]

What happened to that friendlier Microsoft that was hiring an open source advisor and all that other bullshit. Look at the fucking patents they are trying to enforce, just fucking ridiculous. I can't believe this kind of shit doesn't get laughed the fuck out of court?! Software patents either need to go, or there needs to be some serious revamping to the system. According to those patents, Microsoft can put every fucking open source text editor, word processor, web browser, operating system, fuck, any interactive piece of software, out of fucking business. I AM FUCKING LIVID.

Re:I am pissed

[DamonHD]

And I'm distressed that you think that your profanity adds to the discussion at all.

Why is your deranged state of mind so important? Are you a CEO or President or respected scientist or commentator or indeed anyone with achievements and stature and a track record that would suggest that taking your emotional temperature would be of any value to the rest of the known universe?

I won't ask who's basement you're living in, even if this is /.

Rgds

Damon

Re:I am pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'm distressed that you think that your high-horse adds to the discussion at all.

Re:I am pissed

[DMFNR]

Honestly, after reading my comment back to myself, I feel I must apologize as I probably should have found a better way to express how I feel on the subject. I pretty much typed that stream of conscious, and we all do have those "*#&%$!!!" moments in our head from time to time. Allow me to clarify my feelings on this, as I'm sure there probably are other who have similar feelings on the subject. Lately, I've been warming up to Microsoft just a teeny little bit, it seemed to me that their attitudes and tactics towards the Free Software and OSS movements were beginning to change. It seemed logical to me as many of the people who contribute to open source projects are the same type of people who might have a great idea for a phone app kicking around in their head that they just might want to release on WP7. Maybe if Microsoft was kind to the community, their attitudes towards their company would change as well. Now I'm sure there's a very large chunk of Free Software advocates who will have nothing to do with Microsoft no matter what, but I also believe that there are others like me who respects most of their software, but just wish they would respect our culture more. I tried to remain optimistic while many other called bullshit on the news of Microsoft hiring an OSS advisor, articles about them supporting hacking of the Kinect, and a few other things they have done as of late. It made me feel kind of fuzzy inside, the idea of big evil Microsoft reaching out to the same hacker culture that their founders and I'm sure most of their employees grew up in. I honestly feel hurt. It's kind of like going to high school with a girl, and you positively can't stand each other, but five years after graduation you run in to her at a party and you find that you both are mutually attracted to each other, and maybe even agree on a date. The day of the date comes along and she shows up and punches you in the face and tells you what a loser you are and how she always hated you anyway. I know if I got out of my basement and experienced the real world and maybe talked to a real girl I probably wouldn't feel so strongly about software companies, but with my deranged mind that's probably not going to happen. TL;DR I know, so I'll summarize: I am angry to see Microsoft trying to enforce these absolutely ridiculous patents simply because their product isn't doing as well as they'd like, especially after they seem to have been trying to present a friendlier image to the Developers! Developers! Developers! as of late. If they felt so strongly about their ownership of these concepts, why didn't they enforce them years ago when a billion other pieces of software were "infringing" on their inventions? Because they didn't feel threated in any major way by them, that's why. And as computing paradigms begin to change paving the way for new faces to rise, you can be assured that you'll be seeing a lot more of this garbage in the future. Now that I got my explanation of my ignorantly written rant, I would like to ask why a CEO or President or respected scientist or commentator such as yourself (probably all of them combined!) would even give my hotheaded vociferation the time of day and even become upset enough to stoop to the level of insults? You have a perfectly valid point, yet you needed to insult someone you know nothing about, which is just as useless a contribution as mine was. After all, if a person as intelligent as yourself is for some reason offended by certain combinations of letters, surely you would know that there are several ways you can filter them out of every web page you view ensuring that your eyes are never again subjected to the sheer ignorance of a basement dwelling idiots foul mouth!

Re:I am pissed

[DMFNR]

Wow, you really must be much smarter than me, because you managed to get spaces in between your paragraphs, and mine disappeared when I made my post!

Re:I am pissed

[bigstrat2003]

You need to use paragraph tags. For all the redesign of the site, they haven't managed to write a parser to put those in for us. Figures.

Re:I am pissed

[DamonHD]

Hi,

1) Thanks for your gracious reply. Microsoft the company annoys me too, through what has been described for another company as "aggressive stupidity".

2) Thanks for recasting your answer. What annoyed me about your answer was the apparent assumption that your touchy-feely state emotional matters to us or should: this is /. not BigBrother, and I hope we do analysis and thinking here. You evidently do.

3) Paragraph breaks just seem to happen for me (they'll probably fail this time). Maybe I have "plain text" set in my preferences as the default.

Rgds

Damon

is microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

playing the pimp in the Open Source Software World? The story is the same as usual: By licenses (aka thin air) in order not to sue you. Go make something useful instead of pimping around biatches

Kindle?

[robmv]

With rumors around about Amazon looking for Android developers on the Kindle division, I think this legal attack to B&N is some kind of warning to Amazon: "be prepared if you switch to Android, why do not pay right now?". Another market (ereaders) dominated by Android is not something MS wants

Re:Kindle?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Kindle's Linux based. All Android happens to be is a Linux distribution with a Dalvik based application framework with some C/C++ native bindings for the same.

They're going after the successful "small fry" instead of directly going after Google. Don't be surprised if Google doesn't offer some help here.

Re:Kindle?

[Belial6]

Google would be stupid not to jump in with both feet. This is absolutely a proxy war against Google.

Re:Kindle?

[Anonymous Coward]

With rumors around about Amazon looking for Android developers on the Kindle division, I think this legal attack to B&N is some kind of warning to Amazon: "be prepared if you switch to Android, why do not pay right now?". Another market (ereaders) dominated by Android is not something MS wants

Amazon licensed the patents, hell the kindle is sold at the Microsoft stores!

Not exactly

[killmenow]

So, what, we solve this problem by voting for the dudes that say they're honest and working for the people?

I wish I knew. I really wish I knew.

Re:Big fight about the patent for the laser

[Jeff1946]

The fight over the laser patent was over the idea not a working model. See for example, http://tc.engr.wisc.edu/uer/uer97/author5/content.html

microsoft is saying win7 mobile is not as good

[Dan667]

makes me want to buy an Android Phone even more if they think theirs cannot even compete in the marketplace.

SIM only plans

[ChunderDownunder]

So, MS sues US companies into oblivion... Are htc and samsung etc, in international waters, subject to such extortion?
If not then all these giants of Asian tech need to do is open a web shop with international shipping. I doubt O'Bama is going to hunt down private citizens purchasing goods online.
No GSM carriers with decent SIM only plans? That's another story but illustrates, even in my own country, what a cartel the entire phone industry is. i.e. where it's often cheaper to buy a phone on an expensive contract than prepaid + own phone.

Re:SIM only plans

[St.Creed]

They could stop the shipping of mail from said webshop to US addresses at the border. That has been done before.

Re:SIM only plans

[xiando]

No GSM carriers with decent SIM only plans? That's another story but illustrates, even in my own country, what a cartel the entire phone industry is. i.e. where it's often cheaper to buy a phone on an expensive contract than prepaid + own phone.

You can get a Android phone for $160 (999 SEK) if you just buy the phone and get some SIM card for it on your own. You can get the same phone with a 1-year binded plan for 1 SEK. Yes. 1 SEK, that's giving them away to make you sign up with their stupid plan. Android phones + free SIP software like LinPhone make them excellent home phones, though (they all have wifi). You don't even ned a SIM card as long as you accept that people can only call you on a SIP number when you are at home or some other place with a WIFI.. Microsoft will probably claim they've patended phone calls and try to stop this , though.

Re:SIM only plans

[Anonymous Coward]

Are htc and samsung etc, in international waters, subject to such extortion?.

Yes.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/apr10/04-27mshtcpr.mspx

http://www.pcworld.com/article/130955/microsoft_samsung_sign_patent_deal.html

fuddles softwar gangster shyster based os obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

never worked anyway.

Small, nearly dead companies, Sue GOOGLE instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has gone after nearly dead companies rather than going after growing, ready-for-legal-battles Google.

It is time for all the Android using companies to join a "legal defense fund" to fight any actions against Android. Selective suing is smart, but if any of these small fry settle (and they probably will without support), then Microsoft gets the FUD they want regardless of the true legal outcome due.

If Android using companies do join together, nobody will sue them again out of the same fear that Microsoft and Apple have pushed on the rest of the computing world in the USA.

Huh.

[lostmongoose]

So we've gone from adding '...on a computer' and calling it a new idea, to adding '....on a *mobile/handheld* computer' and calling it a new idea. Sad.

If you can't beat-em, sue em.

[Anonymous Coward]

We are too slow to implement our ideas and when we do, we don't implement them as well as others, so we sue everyone we can't compete with.

This patent, that patent

[Flector]

/>

Re:Ridiculous Redmond strikes again!

[theBully]

Can you email me the name of the company?

Can't remember it. Do a search for EDC Patent Troll. It might be DataSCI although I just read they did get money out of some settlements with at least PhaseForward and DataLabs. My prior statement might have been wrong. I apologize and promise to severely punish my sources.

F.ck off, patent's trolls!

[anton_kg]

Microsoft, Oracle and other trolls just get to $$ck off. Double click and thousands more such patents are not IP. It's axiom which does not require proving. Any other person with less brain then you could "invented" it 5 sec and probably did. They just didn't have money and impudence to "patent" it.

Re:Small, nearly dead companies, Sue GOOGLE instea

[tcr]

Agreed. I'm sure the Open Handset Alliance members can scare up a few patents between them.

RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[Benanov]

RAND doesn't work for FLOSS projects because "reasonable" is in terms of "reasonable fee" and non-discriminatory is "same price to all comers" so while it didn't present a barrier to entry when it was dreamed up, it does to FLOSS where a fee is never charged.

The inability for FLOSS to work with RAND patent licensing is why MPEG is thinking of moving to FRAND - F being Free as in Beer.

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

Arguably this is FOSS discriminating itself (by insisting on being free). They are still offered the same terms as everyone else, they just don't want to accept those terms.

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[jrumney]

"Those terms" in the case of Microsoft are carefully chosen to explicitly exclude Free software.

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[hairyfeet]

Exactly! And why do FOSS advocates insist on acting like getting paid is bad? hell even RMS sold copies of Emacs! I think this could be a GREAT chance to say once and for all the Free is FOSS stands for freedom and NOT beer. In fact I'd say it is the beer part that is holding FOSS back, as imagine if those writing the programs that made up the distros got paid to simply work on those programs

Hell I bet it wouldn't even be that hard to figure up. lets say that the community decided that $10 per desktop is the price (seems fair to me and still undercuts MSFT by a good $90 at retail and $20 at OEM prices) I would propose it be divided thusly:

$3 for the "mother sauces" as I call them, that is the RH/Slax/Debian/what have you that you base the distro on, $2 for any RAND licensing and any left over being used to buy patents and copyrights to give to the community, $2.50 to your packager, that is Canonical, Texstar, etc, and $2.50 to be divided to those writing the software in the repos and packaged in the distros, with share determined by how often a package is downloaded or included in the distro.

This would both work to help support the community as a whole by giving it more funds for developers, marketing, testers, QA, etc and give developers of the software both the money to dedicate more time to their programs and the incentive to keep improving and listening to the people actually using their software as the higher it ranks the more money they earn.

Now of course this is a VERY simple view and a lot would have to be worked out, but it would sure beat the "buy me a beer please!" kind of begging many have to do now, while at the same time encouraging developers to come to the FOSS platform. After all look at what just the chance to make good money has done for the iPhone, with an explosion of developers, most of whom won't strike it rich but are still plugging away trying to make the best app they can so they can make a living off of it.

But even RMS has said as long as they respect the four freedoms charging is perfectly okay, and at the same time helping the developers and the community by giving them some tighter interaction. In FOSS right now there really isn't a way to "vote with your dollars" unless you have enough money to afford to hire coders to take the code and rewrite it how you wish, and this would give even the average Joe a chance to be heard.

Writing software just for a warm fuzzy feeling might be fine if we were living in Star Trek, where one could push a button and get a steak, but that ain't the way things are. Making FOSS strictly free as in freedom would give a shot of funding straight into the heart of the community and help foster competition and innovation.

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no problem paying $2 in for actual nonobvious patents for each copy of Debian I have. I do have a problem paying what will be demanded: tens of dollars for obvious patents. Microsoft has not revealed what these alleged infringing patents are, indicating that it is hot air FUD. Microsoft will not "play fair:" they want control more than they want profit right now. They are not going to shortsightedly legitimize another serious OS competitor.

Donating to packagers and specific developers is an entirely different question. It should be encouraged, but obviously cannot be required.

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[Anthony Mouse]

Exactly! And why do FOSS advocates insist on acting like getting paid is bad? hell even RMS sold copies of Emacs! I think this could be a GREAT chance to say once and for all the Free is FOSS stands for freedom and NOT beer. In fact I'd say it is the beer part that is holding FOSS back, as imagine if those writing the programs that made up the distros got paid to simply work on those programs

Are you trolling? The GPL allows anyone with a copy to make copies with or without modifications and redistribute them for free. Even if distributors started charging for downloads, it would all still be on The Pirate Bay -- legally -- for free. And if you tried to change that, it wouldn't be "free as in freedom" anymore because anybody who wanted to make changes and publish free to the world couldn't do it.

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[KingMotley]

The GPL isn't the only FOSS license.

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[Anthony Mouse]

Right, so you would instead use the LGPL, or the BSD license, or the Apache license, which each also allow users to redistribute changes with or without modifications for free. Wait, what was your point?

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[KingMotley]

Oh, I don't know. How about a new one? You don't seem to get the fact that free (the ability to do something) and free (costs nothing) aren't the same thing. It would not be that hard to make a new license that allowed you to re-distribute the code (with or without modifications), but not without cost. Really, is that a difficult concept?

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[Anthony Mouse]

You can't do that with any of the projects already licensed under copyleft licenses without getting permission from all the contributors, which is practically impossible. Additionally, you're now disparaging code reuse -- if I'm Apple or Canonical or the Linux Mint Project and I'm trying to decide what to use as the base of OS X or Ubuntu or Linux Mint, I'm certainly not going to use BSD or Debian or Ubuntu if I have to pay for every copy I produce from there out. If I have to I'm going to write my own, or I'll use whatever alternative is still available under a free-as-in-beer license. And considering that code reuse is something like half the point of open source, that seems like a pretty significant problem.

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[hairyfeet]

Hell you wouldn't even need to do that (although I find it funny as hell I got modded down for daring to suggest FOSS should cost even a penny even though RMS sold Emacs) since you could be selling access to the infrastructure as well as the distro.

I mean you can have the distro code but where does it say I have to run an updated repo to keep you happy? It doesn't. And forums staffed by professionals, with live chats scheduled with the actual developers of the code so you can ask them questions? Answer: it doesn't.

There are plenty of ways that you can get rid of free as in beer without getting rid of free as in freedom, so how sad is it that the FOSS guys here are such cheapskates they can't even stand the thought of paying a cent. But what should I expect when the last I read 1/3rd of the websites are running CentOS even though RH consistently gives more back than anyone else but how dare anybody pay shit, right? Free as in "I won't pay shit" is all that matters, yes?

It shouldn't surprise me as the last time I got into an argument with a Linux admin over software costs he said "If they won't take a FOSS solution I'll just load up pirate Windows rather than give MSFT a dime." You know what? Communism lost, get over it. things cost money, developers have families to feed. it shouldn't be so God damned horrible to even suggest changing to a new design so they can consistently get paid. But I guess all that matters is "free as in beer" no matter what, right?

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[KingMotley]

Let me know your admin's name, so I can contract him to do some work, then stiff him when it's time to get paid. Hell, if I can't get a linux admin to work for me for free, I'll just stiff them rather than give them a dime.

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[mpe]

RAND doesn't work for FLOSS projects because "reasonable" is in terms of "reasonable fee" and non-discriminatory is "same price to all comers" so while it didn't present a barrier to entry when it was dreamed up, it does to FLOSS where a fee is never charged.

Dosn't FLOSS predate RAND by some considerable time, rather than the other way around. Anyway there's no problem so long as the price is zero (in any currency you care to name.)

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

> it does to FLOSS where a fee is never charged.

You appear to be confusing Free and free.

Re:RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[Lorien_the_first_one]

The goal of Microsoft is obvious: use RAND to choke off GPL software and limit the developers to BSD type licenses. Then Microsoft can take that work private and doe what it pleases with it. If developers in India are too expensive, BSD software is free.

Sore losers

[pasv]

Microsoft failed in the mobile market. This isn't surprising that they'd go this far after being so butt hurt and spanked by Blackberry, Apple and Google's quick success in the new markets. My message to M$ is simple: suck it up, try to catch up and get your shit together.

Fuck your intellectual property 'rights'.

[unity100]

im leaving aside all the discussion about microsoft's patent trolling, debauchery, two-faced practice and so on.

fuck your intellectual property 'rights'. i havent given the right to monopolize LOGICAL constructs to you. it was done in my stead, despite me, and is maintained as a 'right', despite me.

noone has the right to ownership of LOGIC processes. i dont recognize any such right, regardless of what party bestowed you with it.

Scare tactics

[Anonymous Coward]

They're doing this to scare companies from using Android. Pretty sleazy.

Re:Ridiculous Redmond strikes again!

[tomhudson]

It was Datasci that was the troll, and one of the companies they sued beat them in court, after several others had already paid the danegeld.

Re:Ridiculous Redmond strikes again!

[tomhudson]

I know it's bad form to reply to myself, but link to more info about the case. It was DataTrak who beat them.

Possible antitrust angle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the patents cover specific stuff in Microsofts protocols. That is for example for anyone to interact with an exchange server or with MS Office. With Microsoft having heavily abused its monopoly this is a really dangerous path for them to take.

Microsoft very much comes through as extremely desperate by using extortion and patent threats to force people to use their platform. I really really hope all the ones being threatened would gang up with Google and invalidate the bulk of the patents and at the same time raise monopoly scrutiny because Microsoft uses patents as a shield against any and all competition at the same time as competitors have to be interoperable with Microsofts products to have a chance on the market. Not because their products are great but because Microsoft has monopoly status in some areas.

Ehrm, have they missed suing someone?

[miffo.swe]

Microsoft has sued most it seems, or extorted them into cross licensing "agreements". -"Would be sad if your little hardware store would burn down, sign this paper and it goes away"

I dont know, but i think the mono idiots should take note and take a long hard rethinking of their stance on Microsoft and open source being able to work together.

The only possible long term solution to this crap is, avoid Microsoft stuff like its the black plague. Never ever aim for interoperability with anything Microsoft. Build a completely separate ecosystem where everything from server to client is based on making OSS work good with OSS, Windows be damned.

Research and Development

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft spent tens of millions of dollars on the R and D end of these patents. The ideas and innovations they developed should be protected. If the goverment does not support a companies intelectual property then companies have little insentive for developing new ideas.

Timing? First to file?

[Rob Y.]

Could this be the beginning of a new wave of patent suits following on the recent 'patent reform' that changes to a 'first to file' system. Because these 'innovations' don't seem innovative at all - in fact they don't seem particularly Microsoft'y. But I don't doubt that Microsoft is out there filing patents on every common software trick in the book. And now with the 'first to file' rule bought and paid for, they can actually get 'em.

Seriously, if the US is going to accept garbage patents like this, we've got to at least provide a non-bankrupting way to have them challenged as obvious. Is even that too 'anti-business' for the supposed free marketers in this government to tolerate?

By the way, I'd bet HTC's licensing cost them exactly nothing, and was probably more than counterbalanced by payments from Microsoft for building WP7 phones. Not sure what Amazon has that Microsoft wants, but I doubt they're paying serious cash to license these patents either. In any case, the Kindle is a seriously stripped down device that couldn't run WP7 even if they wanted too. The Nook, on the other hand, is shaping up to be the cheap tablet of choice for a lot of people. Good luck getting WP7 tabs to compete with a $200 Nook 3 color when that shows up.

Not so sure this was a wise punch to throw...

[Erich]

Do you think that Google has no patents that might apply to you? Do you think that they might have anything that reads on, oh, Bing or your Cloud services? Do you really want to start this battle?

nuff said

[Anonymous Coward]

what a bunch of childish twerps Android is crippling their phone OS so the next best thing is to try and close down the ones that are making life un tennable for them .
 

Re:Android owners suck cocks

[Opportunist]

Now, now, now... that's uncalled for. He's far more witty than MS is innovative. To match MS's innovativeness, he'd have to have posted "this".

Re:Ridiculous Redmond strikes again!

[theBully]

My point remains valid. PhaseForward and DataLabs settled without even trying to go to court and payed the troll a big bucket of money. DataTrak (just like Canonical with Microsoft) refused to settle and won in court. These sort of claims are good for nothing but intimidation. I can understand PhaseForward though. They are a huge company and can easily dispose of the amount. They probably payed what they make in 3 clinical trials.

Re:Ridiculous Redmond strikes again!

[tomhudson]

Your point is definitely valid - that there are companies who are "enablers" - they just pay the money as part of the "cost of doing business."

I wouldn't be surprised if it sometimes happens that there's a quid pro quo along the lines of "if you buy this protection and let us use you as an example of someone who settled, we'll make a strategic investment in your business" or some other not-so-honest practice.

MSFT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, I love the sound of a soft, fat short in the morning...

Your 1st sentence says it all

[Anonymous Coward]

Your reply is the best & most succinct one on this article's page:

"Ideas are easy, implementation is hard." - by oGMo (379) on Monday March 21, @04:42PM (#35564304)

Nice work, & I agree, 110%.

APK

P.S.=> Now, someone correct me IF I am off/wrong here, but... on patents:

Aren't you, as the applicant for patent, SUPPOSED to have a "working implementation" of an idea you are attempting to patent, alongside your patenting of it?

I mean, hey - If not, then, the entire patent system's a crock of shit... because, as the poster I quoted stated so well?

ANYONE can "think of an idea", it's making it HAPPEN that matters! apk

Nope, not what we need.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Oh please! Isn't this what the FOSS community has been wanting for years? Haven't all the FOSS guys said 'if MSFT has patents lets see them"? Well here you go, now it is up to the courts to ultimately decide.

Even if that was what the FOSS community had been asking for, this isn't going to produce it.

There's no reason Microsoft needs to produce ALL the patents they might try to apply. They can just select a handful and throw them at the court to see if any of them stick. Ten years later, even if none have, they can just pick another handfull and try again.

Repeat for as long as they hold software patents - which will be as long as they exist and software is patentable.

Re:Android owners suck cocks

[Dutchmang]

Now, now, now... that's uncalled for. He's far more witty than MS is innovative. To match MS's innovativeness, he'd have to have posted "this".

This

MS invented the "index" !?

[walterbyrd]

Ripped from a post on investor's village:

Microsoft holds a patent on the idea of an 'index'.

Why stop with the Nook? Every paper non-fiction book since Gutenberg has to be infringing had not Microsoft come up with the 'original' idea that one could use an index with an electronic device and stored files. Honestly, given the problem of 'how do I connect 2 pieces of information when I can only modify at most one of them' would anybody 'skilled in the art' fail to come up with some sort of mapping scheme?

http://www.geekwire.com/2011/microsoft-cites-new-patents-vs-android

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/
srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,957,233.PN.&OS=PN/6,957,233&RS=PN/6,957,233

Which patents

[plazman30]

I'm going to guess the exact patents that are being violated are yet to be disclosed.. Kind of funny they won't sue Google directly.

Microsoft innovation in the courtoom

[Sheik Yerbouti]

If you can't innovate litigate it's the Microsoft way. It's just more proof of how quickly they are losing relevance in the markets where the actual growth is.

Business 2011

[Anonymous Coward]

Business in 2011 in the US: if your products suck, sue whoever is winning in the market you are trying to squeeze. Android is based on the Linux kernel. Microsoft tried this stunt when they backstopped SCO half a dozen years ago. They failed miserably. Worse, if they try to start patent wars, they will look at a million patent suits against them (and a cease and desist on open source means we stop distribution, a cease and desist against them means cash flow goes to zero). I'm willing to stop for 5 years. 5 years without cash flow will bleed microsoft (no matter how much money they are sitting on). Their market share dies. I'm quite certain their patent assertions are baseless. If this is what kills them, well, then its time for them to die, finally.

MS in the corner, sweating

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always thought that google only wrote android to throw more ball bearings under ms feet by offering a free phone os. Keeps them wobbling. This just shows it's hurting
J

bye bye Microsoft

[Douglas Goodall]

As I remember, the first product by the "two guys" was a Basic interpreter. Then they extended it, and began the long march towards owning BASIC. Then they bought Seattle Computer Products 86DOS, enhanced it, and began asserting they had a trademark on "DOS". Then they bought Lattice C, and began asserting they were an operating system and compiler company when both these products were bought elsewhere. I am old enough to remember step-by-step how this company continued to acquire and absorb anything that they could afford that looked like people were interested in buying it. Including the Berkeley TCP/IP stack and putting the independent protocol stack vendors out of business was a cheap shot. And the non-standard enhancements they have attempted to make to Internet protocols are obviously the fist step in an attempt to own the protocols of the Internet, something that must not be allowed to happen. They already seem to own both ends of the desktop, web-server at the cloud and web browser on the desktop. Then they bend the HTML spec out of shape and want to own that as well. I really don't like these people or the way this is going. I had great hope for the microcomputer revolution. Then after Mac OS X arrived, I switched from Windows to the Mac, and have been joyously happy since. Except for a few nauseous moments now and then when I cannot avoid a quick dip into Windows because of some short sighted company only building tool that work there. I was so disgusted by Microsofts Windows CE versions, that I paid no attention when Microsoft entered the smartphone marketplace. I don't plan on giving Microsoft any more money in this lifetime. That will have my best effort, anyway!!

Open letter to Microsoft

[octogen]

I just tried to post that to MS' TechNet article, but it seems that the comment function has been disabled. So I am posting it here as an open letter to MS.

Two ot the most ridiculous so-called patents:

"Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received"
"Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection"

How is that a patent-worthy innovation? Just about EVERY application that has ever been created works like that, and any programmer that writes code different from what has been described in these patents should really look for a new job.

If Microsoft thinks that this is not "standard practice", but patent-worthy innovation, then this only proves that Microsoft's software designers and programmers must have below-average abilities.

I request that you folks stop trolling the rest of the world with such ridiculous claims immediately. If you want to compete, then work on increasing your skills instead of trying to forbid other people to make use of theirs.

Corporate Lawyers

[ThatsNotPudding]

I wonder how they sleep at night. Coffins must be more comfy than they look.

Dear Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Sirs,

I don't agree with your chosen course of action.

I do however defend, to the death, your right to go fuck yourselves.

Sincerely, Mr. Human, Upset

This still won't make anyone want Windows Phone 7

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft are behaving like parasites.

Dirty pinko commie!

[Benfea]

Corporations are people, and money counts as speech, not bribery! [/rightist]

Microsoft to SCO in a couple of months

[bipedstites]

Lesson not learned from SCO

the wisdom of van halen

[Anonymous Coward]

This brings to mind a quote I once heard from (former Van Halen frontman) David Lee Roth: When asked how you know when you've "made it," Roth responded: "When you can spell 'subpoena' without thinking about it." The abundance of copyright and patent litigation volleyed against Android is testimony to its success. Time will tell whether or not it will be able to survive the onslaught.