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How Linus Torvalds Helped Bust a Microsoft Patent
New submitter inhuman_4 passes along this quote from an article at Wired:
"Last December, Microsoft scored a victory when the ITC Administrative Law Judge Theodore R. Essex found that Motorola had violated four Microsoft patents. But the ruling could also eliminate an important Microsoft software patent that has been invoked in lawsuits against Barnes & Noble and car navigation device-maker Tom Tom. According to Linus Torvalds, he was deposed in the case this past fall, and apparently his testimony about a 20-year-old technical discussion — along with a discussion group posting made by an Amiga fan, known only as Natuerlich! — helped convince the Administrative Law Judge that the patent was invalid."
>along with a discussion group posting made by an Amiga fan, known only as Natuerlich!
That'll be the 'Amiga' fan posting in comp.sys.atari.st about the ST's OS options will it?
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Since when do Amiga fans talk about operating systems for Atari hardware?
OK. I admit they did it all the time. Let me rephrase.
Since when do Amiga fans talk about operating systems for Atari hardware without flaming?
Oh, c'mon don't try to start old flamewar. Atari ST is not Amiga...
That's what I would like to know! It was unfortunately upheld in Germany, citing that it takes effort to come up with technical software solutions (i.e. having ideas is hard), that's why there should be software patents. Perhaps I remember incorrectly.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Well if patents are really to reward innovation, and if the patent office was right that this is an innovation, presumably Microsoft will be stripped of the profit it made by stealing his invention and the money given to him?
No?
Ahh, I thought so, patents are just a game. The USPTO believed it could create IP assets by simply issuing more patents and did a huge load of damage in the process to everyone except lawyers.
Linus: (b) do the long filenames by fooling around with several consecutive minix-type directory entries. Depending on how you do it, you can make old binaries see only th first characters of a extended filename, while new binaries see them all. Besides, this means you won't waste a full 64-char direntry for short files, but instead use several entries only when necessary. The downside is that it's a bit more work in the kernel.
Reading about saving bytes and caring about storage... um, gave me a semi...
I can imagine the Laywer vs Torvalds.
Lawyer: Are you sure this alledged discussion happend before the MS patent ...
Linus: Yes, I'm sure, in fact the timestamp is right there: Dec 23 1992, 8:34 am
Lawyer: 20 Years is a long time ago, how can you be so sure?
Linus: the timestamp is right there: Dec 23 1992, 8:34 am
Lawyer: So there is no doubt you might remeber the date wrong.
Linus: No.
Lawyer: Really, So when did this discussion happend?
Linus: Dec 23 1992, 8:34 am
Lawyer: I see, are you sure about the date?
Internet 1, Lawyers 0
Thank you internet news groups for documenting these old discussions.
A major problem with the way courts have analyzed software patents is their low-balling the skill level of a "Person having ordinary skill in the art". This is significant since anything such a person can do given the prior art is considered "obvious" and non-patentable. Basically, judges don't understand software well enough to distinguish true invention from routine solutions to problems.
In the case of software patents, many of them (the long-filename patent, the BCD patent [invalidated by the Supreme Court on other grounds] and so on) are for solutions that a typical developer will propose given the problem. But, because PHOSITA is basically taken to be an idiot the "obviousness" limitation on patentability has no effect unless by some chance an actual person bothered to write down this solution in the past.
Except that in the light of the discussion submitted by Linus Torvalds, the exact way Microsoft is using for long fat names was done BEFORE Microsoft even thought about it...
In case of a retrial in Germany, this will be brought on the table and the patent will also be invalidated there (well, IANAL but it's common sense).
Looks like that stupid patent is dead...
That's what I would like to know!
From TFA: "the ruling could also eliminate an important Microsoft software patent that has been invoked in lawsuits against Barnes & Noble and car navigation device-maker Tom Tom", so yes, that particular extortion racket will be busted.
I sincerely hope all those Android makers who've been bullied into paying are able to sue to get their lunch money back.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Microsoft recently got this patent:
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/09/23/microsoft_contemplates_mobiles_with_interchangeable_accessories/
Now, go to http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/26/how-would-you-change-sony-ericssons-xperia-x1/2#comments and do a find in page for the word "bottom" or "pop out" ... ok read that description .. now if you scroll up to the top of the article you can see a photo of the Xperia X1 which is being talked about .. notice that a combination of the Xperia X1 and the comment exactly fit the patent of microsoft? If you read the actual patent it becomes even clearer they stole the idea from that engadget comment.
Microsoft may have gotten the idea from the comment, but in principle a patent should require actually putting the idea to practice -- to actually make it work. Patenting the implementation (how do the connectors work? how do you make parts fit together snugly?) is not so absurd.
If the patent really is for the idea "mobile phone with interchangable parts" then it's wrong, but if it's merely for "this particular design of a mobile phone with these particular interchangable parts, with this particular method of fitting them together and connecting them" then there's nothing wrong with it. In fact, the Engadget commenter could still also patent his idea as long as his method for connecting the pieces and so on was different from Microsoft's.
This shows how important it is that mail list (& similar) archives of very old discussions are kept on-line. They are not just a matter of academic/historic interest, they can have real benefits.
So: if you do host something like this and are thinking of removing it because it is old, out of date, ... please think again. Thanks.
So ... does this mean that the infamous "long file name patents" are now officially busted?
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Its clearly an Atari thread that was discussed in court. If the attorneys were incorrect, they jeopardized their case out of ignorance, if it was the guy who wrote the story, he should be taken out back and shot.
I don't care if its been decades since both camps lost the fight with IBM/Microsoft, but they deserve to be represented properly.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
let me dict.org that for you!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Nothing saying that he couldn't have been an Atari ST owner who is an 'Amiga fan' - Not mutually exclusive ;)
Ahh good old days....
You forget git! :)
I suspect that Android vendors like HTC and Samsung were sued over patents other than just the FAT patent.
of course, now that usenet is gone....such a thing can never happen again. email is simply not as persistent as usenet discussions.
I think the scenario went " Here's the TomTom result and you have a Windows licence to protect". I also presume as they waived the TomTom scenario in front of them , they didn't have to show any more patents.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
the patent will also be invalidated there (well, IANAL but it's common sense).
Yeah, do you honestly believe common sense factors in anywhere when it comes to this kind of blatant patent garbage?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
But, since those publicly available patents were so important to Microsoft's business they required an NDA. So, we will never know.
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
The odd thing is, I don't really see how these discussion relate to the patent in question. You see, the real beauty of MS's solution was having two separate filenames associated with a file, allowing for a great deal of backwards compatibility. The solutions offered by Linus and others amounted to effectively showing LFN-unaware programs only the first n characters of a long filename; the obvious problem with this is filename collision. It also does nothing to support things like UTF-8 or other encoding schemes--and for Windows, just having more common characters as valid. At least thankfully for *nix, their solution doesn't run into the likely main reason MS went the path they used: filename extensions have to be known for DOS/Windows executables.
Of course, the real point of issue is that what MS's solution amounts to is using a limit version of hard links with a clever association and backtracking scheme in the case of renaming/moving, but that's not fundamentally different than the intent of Mac's alias files. To that end, I'd argue that MS's solution might be patentable as a novel, clever hack, but then that'd seem to hold to the extent of any other self-created problem that one finds a work around too, which seems ridiculous.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Do I have to get my copy of the book out and cite page numbers?
Not everybody on /. is a douche, ya know. :-) I think when I read it, I didn't even know what a septic tank was, so wouldn't have been able to differentiate between the two if I'd tried.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
An Atari ST fan. Calling them an Amiga fan is just about the most egregious trolling you could do! ...IIRC, Linus was an Amiga hacker before he got his 386 to work on Linux. The Atari community had TOS (GEM gui, GEMDOS disk/filesystem, and other syscalls).
o/~ Join us now and share the software
No. The ITC is an administrative body that only rules on trade issues. It does not have the authority to invalidate a patent. That is a job for the district court.
Microsoft sued at the ITC because they want to block imports. If the ITC believes the patent to be valid and infringed, then it will block imports of the accused devices. If it believes the patent to be invalid or not infringed, then it will allow importation of the accused devices. In either case, the parties will then go to the district court to get an actual decision on validity/invalidity and infringement/non-infringement.
Microsoft started at the ITC because it works much more quickly than the district courts. A favorable decision at the ITC is almost as good as winning in court.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
An ITC finding of invalidity does not "bust a patent," it merely prevents relief through the ITC. An Article III court, e.g., a federal district court, does not have to give any weight to the ITC's validity finding, meaning the patent is still valid for "normal" law suit purposes.
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Well done. Now, what about the other 200 patents that cover that exact same algorithm?