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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.
Don't like the sound of that.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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 actually have products
Uniloc too: it's actually one of the oldest software company operating in the security and product activation technology area.
For once, I'm on the side of the patent troll. Anything to kill software activation.
While normally such a case would have been expected to drag on for generations, this one was wrapped up surprisingly quickly. Uniloc filed suit in 2003, received the $388 million jury award by 2009. The judge overruled the award. However, in 2011, the Appeals Court reinstated but with the proviso that a new trial was needed because the basis under which damages were calculated were flawed. Thus far, all very normal. Then, in March 2012, Uniloc and Microsoft agreed a confidential settlement! Personally, I cannot imagine what the lawyers were thinking. The settlement cost them a fortune.
Anyway, the net result is that invalidation of the patent helps Microsoft not one bit. They already capitulated years ago.
This doesn't necessarily mean the original holding was wrong--remember that probably *most* software patents have become invalid in the last fifteen years. The Supreme Court has made software patents much harder to get, so old ones that issued are often shown invalid after review. That doesn't mean you can violate them without being subject to damages (because they are issued and therefore have a presumption of validity)--but it does mean that if you trigger a review or fight them, eventually many of them will be shown invalid.
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.
You make a good point. However, the Supreme Court doesn't make the law. When SCOTUS makes a decision, not based on a new law passed by legislature, they are decreeing what the correct interpretation of the (old) law is. In other words, they ARE saying that any decisions to the contrary were wrong. There just wasn't a clear way to KNOW they were wrong until SCOTUS said so.
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