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Patent That Cost Microsoft Millions Gets Invalidated (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader links to a report on Ars Technica: One of the oldest and most profitable patent trolls, Uniloc, has been shot down. Its US Patent No. 5,490,216, which claims to own the concept of "product activation" in software, had all claims ruled invalid by the Patent Trademark and Appeals Board (PTAB). The process through which PTAB eliminated the patent is called an "inter partes review," or IPR. The IPR process, created by the America Invents Act, is an increasingly popular and effective way for defendants to challenge patents outside federal courts. It was Uniloc's lawsuit against Microsoft that provided the company with its original headlines. Uniloc said that Microsoft's system of checking software licenses -- in other words, type in a key number and have your software validated violated -- the patent. That case led to a $388 million jury verdict against Microsoft.
Shouldn't:
One of the oldest and most profitable patent trolls, Uniloc...
read:
One of the oldest and most profitable patent trolls, Microsoft...
Uniloc must look in envy at the revenues from Microsoft's Android patent shake down. It's clear from this case who has the better legal team, and we all know you need a good legal team if you want to use bullshit patents to extract billions from legitimate companies.
Microsoft's patent trolling legal team probably walking out the court room saying, "Pfft, amateurs!"
Microsoft doesn't even have the guts to say which patents Linux, Android, whatever violate. They operate on pure FUD. That's worse than a patent trolls.
Their stated reason being that the patents might be challenged and invalidated. They are patent trolls IMO.
A century or more from now, people are going to look back at software patents the way we do at indulgences, serfdom and other medieval stupidity.
Rule 35 of the internet: "If it can be hacked, it will be". - Charles Stross