Justices Question Microsoft's Vision of Patent Law

angry tapir writes "US Supreme Court justices on Monday questioned whether they should side with Microsoft and weaken the legal standard needed to invalidate a patent, with some justices suggesting there are alternatives to changing established law. The issue arose as part of the case involving Redmond and i4i."

Comments

Re:I'm confused

[Samantha Wright]

I guess that, in Microsoft's world, you can't patent something after releasing it. i4i isn't so impressed by that idea:

Microsoft's assertions that i4i included the XML editor in a product before applying for the patent and that it destroyed source code are "utter nonsense," Owen added.

Still, this is all just a bucket of dren. No one should be able to patent anything involving XML, and the reasoning is simple: the kind of cruft that accumulates in XML files (and, by extension, application-specific XML parsers) is analogous to biological evolution, and therefore XML is a phenomenon outside of human control. It would be like patenting natural genes or something! And we all know that would never be legalized.

... and Microsoft will pay for its own success

[Taco Cowboy]

While M$ may prevail in this case, the case itself ironically can be used to invalid many of M$'s own patents.

Don't cry foul when what you wish for come back to take a big bite at your ass, Micro$oft !

Re:... and Microsoft will pay for its own success

[ozmanjusri]

Microsoft don't generally have a habit of being a Patent troll

Microsoft claims that free software like Linux, which runs a big chunk of corporate America, violates 235 of its patents.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100033867/index.htm

Why Did Microsoft Sell Off 22 'Linux-Related' Patents?

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Why-Did-Microsoft-Sell-Off-22-LinuxRelated-Patents-618335/

TomTom gets allies in Microsoft Linux patent lawsuit fight

http://blogs.computerworld.com/tomtom_gets_allies_in_microsoft_linux_patent_lawsuit_fight

Microsoft's Linux patent bingo hits Google's Android

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/29/microsoft_htc_linux_patents/

Re:... and Microsoft will pay for its own success

[Gadget_Guy]

Microsoft claims that free software like Linux, which runs a big chunk of corporate America, violates 235 of its patents.

And yet it has never done anything about that. It hasn't sued all the distros to stop the operating system. They did use the claim for a bit of FUDdery, but that is not being a patent troll.

Why Did Microsoft Sell Off 22 'Linux-Related' Patents?

That question was posed two years ago. Has there been an answer? Does posing a question that ultimately proved to be a big pile of nothing have any point other than being a bit of FUD back in the other direction?

TomTom gets allies in Microsoft Linux patent lawsuit fight

Microsoft licenses FAT32 to others. It is one of their products. TomTom used and refused to abide by the terms of the license. If they did a similar thing to the GPL license then nobody would think it wrong to go after them. And since this case, has Microsoft gone after any distros that include the file system?

My rule of thumb is that patent trolls don't have products, they just wait in the wings with their patent portfolio. I recently stated that I don't consider i4i to be a patent troll either, because they actively use their patents in a product of their own. I don't think that it is a good patent, but they got it so they might as well protect their IP.

Microsoft's Linux patent bingo hits Google's Android

To be fair, the phone industry seems to thrive on cross patent agreements and lawsuits. Who isn't suing everyone else? For example, Microsoft may have done a deal with HTC but Apple did actually sue them. Why does nobody claim that Apple is going after Linux when they do this just as they do about Microsoft?

Re:I'm confused

[Arguendo]

Yup. You don't get to release a product to the public and then 20 years later try and go patent it. You've got one year from the release of the product to file for a patent. If not, you are out of luck.

Re:Ah,

[Anonymous Coward]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Patents are government issued monopolies, which completely fail at their primary goal of fostering innovation.

Not only do patents discourage the patent holder from continuing to innovate by shifting their opportunity cost analysis away from innovating and towards monopoly maintaining, but they prevent other prospective innovators from engaging in progressive collaboration, building off of what those before them have done. --And the real salt in the wound, they even prevent the innovations, that DO get developed, from helping society as much as they could, since the monopoly creates an inefficient level of production.

I honestly don't know how they are still seen in such a favorable light. Democrats should be against them, since patents tend to favor big business. Republicans should be against them, since republicans should be capitalists and believe in a free market; free from government intervention and monopolies. People who don't affiliate with either party should just straight-up be smart enough to figure this out on their own...