US Gov't Sides Against Microsoft In i4i Patent Case

Julie188 writes "In the ongoing patent infringement case between i4i and Microsoft, i4i has won a powerful ally: the US government itself. The US solicitor general, which represents the federal government in the Supreme Court, on Friday filed an amicus brief in support of i4i, saying that the US Patent and Trademark Office should not be second-guessed by a jury. i4i, which won a $290 million patent judgment against Microsoft, has now accrued 22 amicus briefs in its corner, representing more than 100 companies, organizations and individuals, including venture capitalists, individuals from the military and now, the government. Meanwhile, Microsoft has so far lined up 20 amicus briefs, representing about 60 companies and individuals, including Google, Apple, Cisco, Intel, Red Hat, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and 37 law and economics professors. At issue is how much evidence is required to invalidate a patent."

Comments

Correct me if I'm wrong...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

...which usually means I'm wrong, anyway, but didn't i4i have a specific and very valid claim to a patent here?

Software patents are bad, no doubt, and we're seeing a horrible precedent set, but wasn't the specifics behind their use of XML in documents legitimately infringed by Microsoft?

I'm torn here. First, I really don't like the idea of being sued over code I may write.

HOWEVER, I do like the idea of suing any bastard who's masochistic enough to implement XML the way Microsoft did in their office suite.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[phantomfive]

There is a link to the patent here. It was filed in 1994, and thus predates the existence of XML, but not SGML. Of course, to understand any patent, you have to look at the independent claims, and I think the following is probably the claim that most applies to Microsoft word:

20. A method for producing form a document made up of metacodes and content, a map of metacodes and their addresses of use in association with mapped content of the document and stored in distinct map storage means, the method comprising:
(a)reading the content of the document until a metacode is found;
(b)copying the content and storing the copied content in a mapped content storage;
(c)noting in the map the found metacode and its position in the content; (d)repeating the process of (a)-(c) until the entire document has been processed; and then (e)providing the document as the content of the document separately from the metacode map of the document.

It seems pretty clear that this applies to Microsoft word, and essentially anything else that stores documents as XML. Note that the patent actually uses xml shaped tags in its example section (not sure how they thought they were being original, since they clearly copied it from SGML).

In any case, this is important because it is a clear issue of patents stifling innovation, which means it will take longer to invent cool stuff. If you like cool stuff to be invented, you want this patent to be invalidated (and really, it doesn't hurt Microsoft all that much, they just have to remove the XML from Word).

Re:The most respectable party in those briefs for

[Curunir_wolf]

EFF is a private organization. Right now you respect them. By morning they could be a wholly-owned subsidiary of a holding company owned by Microsoft. And I'm not saying which morning.

You were probably trying to be funny, but the EFF is not a private organization the way you are thinking. You cannot just buy out a 501(c)(3) and start controlling it. It's run by a board of directors and a set of bylaws that must be followed. Unless the directors end up disillusioned with the organization or its mission, there's really not much an outside party can do to influence it.

Re:The most respectable party in those briefs for

[PopeRatzo]

Just because somebody has a different opinion than you does not mean that they are being paid to argue against you. It is something that we are seeing around here more and more these days.

Ah, but if you look at the new breed of astroturfer, it's not about "opinion", it's about misinformation. The comment to which I was responding did not just say "I don't like the EFF" which is an opinion, it was that "the EFF spreads so much FUD" which is simply a lie. You can say a lot of things about the EFF, but "spreading FUD" is not one of them.

And you say "It is something we are seeing around here more and more these days". But besides "playing the man not the ball" how would you suggest addressing it? We are seeing entire stories and comments threads made unreadable by a first section of over 100 comments alternating anonymous cowards cutting and pasting and newly-minted UIDs dropping in to keep the thread expanded. And there is a marked similarity to the stories that attact these trollbombs. If you go to other sites where technology is discussed, you will see the same attacks in the same manner often on the same stories. I used to believe as you do, that claiming "astroturf" was just a way to marginalize disagreement. But as the companies that are engaged in this organized astroturfing grow, they are hiring people who are less skilled (who are probably making minimum wage) and they're starting to get a little obvious about it.

I understand what you're saying, but I'm getting a little worried that by the time we come up with a response, it's going to be way too late.

Re:The most respectable party in those briefs for

[Anonymous Coward]

these new mil-spec astroturfers

You may be more right than you intended.

...For a defense contractor with ties to the federal government, Hunton & Williams, DOD, NSA, and the CIA - whose enemies are labor unions, progressive organizations, journalists, and progressive bloggers, a persona apparently goes far beyond creating a mere sockpuppet. According to an embedded MS Word document found in one of the HBGary emails, it involves creating an army of sockpuppets, with sophisticated "persona management" software that allows a small team of only a few people to appear to be many, while keeping the personas from accidentally cross-contaminating each other.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/16/945768/-UPDATED:-The-HB-Gary-Email-That-Should-Concern-Us-All