Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Surfcast Sues Microsoft Over Tile Patent

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday October 31, 2012 @04:32AM from the smells-like-windows-1.0 dept.

An anonymous reader writes with news of a company suing Microsoft for infringing upon a patent for tiles with live content. From the article: "SurfCast, in a complaint filed yesterday in a U.S. District Court in Maine, said Microsoft infringes one of its four patents — No. 6,724,403 — by 'making, using, selling, and offering to sell devices and software products' covered by SurfCast's patent. That includes mobile devices using the Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 operating systems as well as PCs using Windows 8/RT."

3 of 255 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Re:Its not like people havent sued MS b4 by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2012-10-31 04:54 · Score: 5, Funny

Mothafucka's patented the SQUARE
Shit. I'm about to get Platonic on that one, and patent me a CUBE.

--
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Re:Not a troll by ilguido · 2012-10-31 04:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

Dunno, I used dockapps on windowmaker well before they granted the patent to Microsoft.
Re:Not a troll by Baloroth · 2012-10-31 05:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

After reading the article, I really think that SurfCast is right in suing Microsoft. It seems to be the same thing and it's a novel way of doing things.
It doesn't even matter how valid the patent is, really (although given it is software and... well, a tile display is not novel no matter how you dress it up), what really makes a troll a troll is that they have no products. Surfcast has none, and from what I understand, never did. Therefore, they are patent trolls.

--
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton