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IBM Locking Up Lots of Cloud Computing Patents
dkatana writes: In an article for InformationWeek Charles Babcock notes that IBM has been hoarding patents on every aspect of cloud computing. They've secured about 1,200 in the past 18 months, including ~400 so far this year. "For those who conceive of the cloud as an environment based on public standards with many shared elements, the grant of these patents isn't entirely reassuring." Babcock says, and he adds: "Whatever the intent, these patents illustrate how the cloud, even though it's conceived of as a shared environment following public standards, may be subject to some of the same intellectual property disputes and patent trolling as earlier, more directly proprietary environments."
Become SCO!
...will eventually crash and burn. Sure it's convenient, powerful and cheap, but inherent with major security risks. If I were a company, there is no way in hell I would ever deliberately host or put anything on the cloud. I don't care how 'secure' things are, there are way to many attack vectors and unknown vulnerabilities. It's only going to get worse before people start to see if for what it truly is - dangerous!
and it's not yours.
They offer, or at least offered, pretty decent incentives to file patents. Of course, the only guy I knew in the company who ever actually wrote one was the most useless software developer I'd ever met, and his patent was for some basically trivial file parsing we'd implemented with methods known since the 70's. So the quality might not always be there, but you can bet they'll make it up in volume!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Fuck you, pay me!
Exactly right. Add just a smidgen of shortsightedness and some pressure from the board, and you have the perfect storm of next-quarter-itis.
After a few quarters like that, the CEO takes off for the next company, as the company tries to put out the fires they left behind them -- fired experts, cheapened and crippled products, new hires that don't know much about the domain, insufficiently-tested but out-the-door-anyway products...
Yeah, responsibility to the shareholders. Which means: Short term thinking and cannibalistic profiteering. That's the US corporate mantra, right there.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Now you know why it's not a "reform" (replacing the traditional First to Invent), but rather a Xmas wish list item pushed by the likes of IBM, Microsoft and Qualcomm.
When I was at IBM, I remember that patents were front in center for employee reviews. They kept emphasizing, that's a big part of your job, along with customer escalations and L3 support.
since when the hell is "the cloud" based around "public standards"!?!?!? Each and every major vendor's offerings are pretty much unique and proprietary. vSphere isnt EC2 isnt SmartOS isnt KVM isnt HyperV isnt OpenCompute. Some of these are more open than others while some are entirely closed systems.
This will test how IBM's intentions are aligned with well being of the cloud industry.
First reaction may be to label them as patent trolls and assume they will attempt to lock down the market preventing anyone else using the concepts of cloud computing and suing other projects out of existence. Alternatively, however, IBM may be acquiring these patents to protect developers against other companies taking opportunity at becoming trolls by taking advantage of this green field. Imagine if Oracle or similar got these patents. Once approved, they will immediately they will go after all other vendors in order to become monopoly in the market and try to make money based on damage lawsuits.
I hope this is a good natured move where IBM will just get them for the sake of own safety, and therefore indirectly for other developers' safety, and will not actively use them for unfair profit gain.
How many of these boil down to "a system and methodology for doing something we already do all the time but in the cloud"?
So many computer patents these day are pretty much garbage.
I hope these actually have some merit instead of just having "in the cloud" tacked onto existing stuff. So many patents which get issues represent nothing new or novel, just "but on a cell phone" (which is a special case of computer), or "but with a network".
Part of me suspects a good chunk is neither new nor novel.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
..this AC's knee jerk reaction to the headline.
and they are patent nazi's
Fuck IBM
Collecting patents does not protect you from trolls and IBM is the biggest troll of them all. The article shows just how troll like the patents are, and once again we're puzzled at how the patent office issues patents to inventions in common use!
e.g.
"Patent 8,949,415, which allows a cloud service to provide a virtual machine with fewer resources after it is determined to have fallen "below a threshold of high priority network traffic."
i.e. exactly as every content delivery service does it. We've never had the reform of the patent office that's needed.
"Patent no. 8,984,132: "System and Method for Supporting Secure Application Deployment in a Cloud." Parts of the invention "identify aspects of a software application that use secure data and deploy the secured data to one or more secure servers.""
Oh FFS, is this a joke to you patent office?
They grab as many patents as possible. Have been doing so for a while. I don't know but suspect that it may be next to impossible to get a raise or promotion if you work there and don't add to their patent portfolio.
So far they haven't been evil about it. Just holding on to them. Some they can make money on. Some protect them against patent trolls getting there first. Some just sit there.
This is not new behavior on their part. This time someone notices that a lot of the patents have to do with "The cloud". Which makes sense, if I wanted a quick patent to bolster my credentials in the company that seems like a topical/"sexy" area of research. Probably easier to get permission and budget to research current buzzwordy things. Or could just be that out of the thousands of patents, the article hand picks cloud ones and highlights them.
Either way, nothing new.
(Wish I could post non-anon but I'm not creating a new account and the old one tied to an email account long dead so I can't resurrect it)
Well the owners of the _Concept of Mainframe_ basically own all the founding patents of "the cloud" (which name ridiculousness makes me puke daily and graveyard-donate my illbegotteness).
Not only IBM, but perhaps mainly, owns the Mainframe. They invented it. "The Cloud" is pirate cosmetics, but still evil piracy, and still a mainframe
I'll be pleased if they start demanding their fees. It'll shake up the too well fed digestive systems.
so they have a valid point.
Do these patents actually cover 'cloud computing' or do they refer to the abortion that has become the next great marketing term/buzzword following green ??
Cloud computing used to refer to a developing technology that allowed a virtual work environments to be cobbled together from varied technologies and hardware platforms. Then suddenly storing data in someone else's server farm or data center was putting your stuff in "the cloud" and any true meaning was lost under the avalanche of marketing and salesmanship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
IBM has been for many, many years using their patent portfolio offensively to generate revenue. Their favorite targets are mid-sized companies with enough money to make it worth their while but not enough resources to fight them in a prolonged court case nor the will to risk their business on the result of that. The terms of the contract are never released, so it doesn't make the news, but they are VERY well-known for doing this, and if you search the Internet, you will find many articles from solid sources that talk about it. Their success is the reason Microsoft has joined the fray in litigating their patents, so don't be surprised if you start hearing more about MS legal too.
If you are a mid-sized cloud company, beware!
That's 2-3 patents per day for a year and a half straight!?! How in the world do you generate 2-3 patents a day every day for 1-1/2 years (and still going)? I can't seriously believe that every one (even the vast majority) of these patents are 'novel, useful, and non-obvious'.
I wonder why the USPTO is overworked and understaffed?
Yet another instance of why the patent system really has to go - can't be fixed, just needs to be chucked.
The 'cloud' hasn't been formed using public standards, they have been formed using standards that have been commercially available for many decades (as 'cloud' is nothing new, just a new hip term), and is now available on the cheap.. Also public standards doesn't mean they are patent free..
Apparently the PTO does not learn.
Doing something old on a Computer is a patent? Yes then no.
On a Network? Same.
On the Internet? Same
On a Cloud? Should be no out of the gate, but it is not.
Combining two ideas in an unexpected way might be unique.
Combining almost anything with something as new, useful, and well known as a Cloud should be likely not.
Does this remind you of Lucy and the football promising to hold it still this time?
How many times do they get to say 'Yes, we screwed up and we will do better next time'?