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NCR Sues Netscape For Patent Infringement
cswiii writes "C|Net has this story about NCR suing Netscape over nine patents said to be infringed. " NCR is suing over nine patent infringements for "organizing and retrieving information from computer databases". We'll update this story as more details come out.
This is just an incredible probing of the flanks by a coordinated Microsoft-Wall Street-Banker philosophy. Each interlocking player in this coordinated philosophy will instinctively try to outflank the oss movement with their notions of power and "rule-of-law." NCR is just a debt-ridden interlocking player which is doing its pathetic little part.
D.H. Lawrence on open source, freedom and natural law, loosely: Now that the sun, like the lion licks his paws, and goes down the hill, and Now that the moon, rising like a queen, pauses near the crest of that hill, and Watches ... as her lion retreats. Now the sea is the Argonaut's sea, and in the dawn you can hear ... Stop! stop! Get out of here with that wretched pain grille ... Listen, Listen ... and you will hear the calls of Odysseus as he steers his ships past the hoary straights ...
I think you are missing one point. There is a fundamental difference between the development of sofware vs hardware; the economics of developing software simply very different. Point 1: For instance, there are only about 8 countries in the entire world capable of producing microprocessors and other digital ic's; while on the other hand any country with suitible access to any kind of computer can develop software with much lower initial costs. Unlike developing hardware, I can be in say the Sahara dessert with the appropriate hardware and communications and design software to my heart's content. Now if I tried to develop a microprocessor in the Sahara dessert it would most likely be impossible to do. Point 2: The software by its very nature (its construction and dissimination), allows for others to examine how it works within a given system. It is much easier, and economical to debug or reverse engineer a peice of software than reverse engineering an electronic device. Essentially there are no barriers (except education) preventing anyone from looking into your "hard" work and copying it or say geting development ideas from it. In a sense, software operates in a naked state of being. This is not the case for electonic hardware, which requires many more resources, in order to be reverse engineered. As soon as anyone opens their mouth they have already revealed some kind of knowledge to another person. In much the same way as soon as software is made available to the public, anyone with the proper tools & understanding can immediately come to understand and reproduce that software. Perhaps this is an over simplification, but suppose computers were like paper and software like pens. If I were to draw a cube with my pen on my paper using some new cube drawing algroithm, there is nothing that can prevent me from stopping you from recreating that cube on your own pen and paper--because by the very nature of the pen and paper paradigm, anyone is free to draw cubes however they see fit. Not only that, but by the very nature of the pen and paper paradigm it is possible to express almost any kind of "idea". In the same way software is the intangible stuff that allows for the realization another intangible stuff called ideas--which everyone has. Software, like mathematics, can operate on a purely mental level. There is such a thing as pesuo-code. The computer is simply a medium by which software is realized. Now the realization of mathematical concepts, like software, is not limited to any one individual, coroporation, or country. Given software's affinity to mathematics, isn't it absurd to try and patent a algorithm which can and usually is independently arrived at by another person regaurdless of their socio-economic situation???? I think that is why software patents exist. It is not because people really want to protect their algorithm(s), but because they realize their algorithm(s) are not unique and are simply "discovered" not "invented". That is why greedy individuals will take advantage of the legal system to stop others from stepping forward and making use of independently discovered techiques. Did Netwon or Libneizt (excuss spelling) "ivent" Calculus??? NO They "discovered" calculus because the axioms of mathematics already contained calculus. Without those axioms calculus could not exist. In much the same way computers, who owe their existence to these mathematical axioms, also were a natural evolution of a process begun long ago. Their complexity has only increased. Well I'm ranting to much. I just had to say something. Because this whole thing makes my mouth sour. I can not believe things like this are happening. Again if there is one thing that I would like to stress to please examine the economics and philosophy of software vs hardware development and perhaps you'll see what I mean. In much the same way, software patents resemble music copywrites (another totally useless concept). As soon as anything is released into the public you can pretty much forget about any kind of "intellectual" ownership. In a market economy if you want to really protect your ideas, you can be like the Department of Energy say: keep all your secrets in hopefully secure vaults. I don't know what more to say. I appologize that this isn't a very coherent argument against software patents, but I just had to typing something, and perhaps the whole "economics" idea will help someone formulate their own arguments.
Unfortunately for me (I am European) the problem could soon exist over here too. We have lawyers over here who are completely envious of the 'gravy train' that exists in the US and want a piece of the action. Big businesses over here are actually telling governments that a similar patent scenario in Europe will 'encourage innovation'! Every natural technical progression could soon be patented here too. Depressing. I admit that possibly one US patent in perhaps 10000 is a genuinely inspirational idea, the work of a genius who deserves legal protection. But that's no reason to give parasite lawyers 9999 chances to make a killing, effectively taxing hi-tech companies, because the next natural technical progression is simultaneously discovered by dozens of different companies. And real protection doesn't exists for brilliant indivuals - increasingly the only small companies that can afford patent lawsuits are companies of parasite lawyers who have bought hi-tech patents from small companies who couldn't afford to use them.
Here are 2 serious questions for any software or hardware engineers:
1. How long did it take you to complete your last project?
2. How long would it have taken you to check out how many patents you unintentionally infringed.
For me, I guess the factor is normally about 1:4 - it would take about 4 times as long to check unintentional patent infringements than actually do the engineering work in the first place. If we want to make a patent system actually work, than we all need to devote 80% of our time to the legal overheads. Great idea.
Roderick Murgatroid
r_murgatroid@yahoo.co.uk
So if the US Patent Office really is falling down on its mandated job, can they sue it, in the public interest ?
It would be a most useful scalp to hang next to Microsoft's.
Is the time screwed on slashdot or something? Check out the time the story was posted, and the time on the first post...
I'm a scientist as well. I don't have a problem with not being able to patent my findings. I get my kicks from finding and learning new things and hopefully someday seeing them flourish.
Actually, since you say you're a scientist, it's probably the case that you 'get your grocery money' from taxes the rest of us pay, not from the marketplace and businesses who rely on patents to protect the money they invest in development. You live in a subsidised fantasy world that most of us can't afford to live in. Please stop trying to be our priesthood.
(somewhat off-topic rant)
Knowledge is not, and never has been a non-renewable resource. If all outside funding was cut off completely, science would not disappear from the earth. People who claim that science would die without substancial outside (read- tax based) funding apparently have never noticed that children have a natural ability to wonder.
(/end of rant)
What NCR products has Netscape 'driven from the shelves" with it's unlicensed use of these patents?
That's a good question. We will probably find out as the case proceeds.
As opposed to the other things browsers do besides retrieve information?
That'll be news to Richard Stallman:
But what would RMS know about free software anyway?
It is amazing how any time someone stupid posts something about being first, they almost never are. You are second... deal.
So you'd prefer it if instead of becoming usable by the general public after a few years, these things never become usable by the general public?
They are unworkable, and are damaging the community.
One wonders, if there is a relationship, whether it might have, um,
influenced NCR's decision to pursue the suit?
Just wondering...
I wish I could be "formerly powerful" enough to "decline" to a mere six billion dollars in sales, Rob.
If Linus Torvalds infringes any of my patents, the Red Hat will pay me because they have conpired in that infringement. More than that, I will see to it that my attorneys file a lien against the copyright on Linux itself. I'll happily take a piece of it in lieu of a cash settlement. GPL? What GPL? The license only applies to a non-owner; if I own the copyright, the license doesn't bind me.
That's not all. If your company has deployed a Linux server, and you engage in any economic activity using it in any area that recognizes the validity of my patent, then you are liable for damages to me. But I'll be generous: I'll take equity in your company in lieu of a cash settlement.
Oh, yes, and the "5% of the world'd population" thing? Don't buy it; software patents are recognized everywhere that there are algorithms to protect. Finland hasn't produced much software over the years, but don't you fret; that'll change. Look at what's happened in Japan, now that Korea has started stealing their intellectual property.
Enjoy your day in the sun. When somebody sues a third party for deploying a Linux server without paying royalties on a valid patent, you're going to see OSS disappear faster then ice on a hot August day.
I patented "The clicking of [submit] buttons for the purpose of sending data." I'll have my legal staff contact you :)
A great deal of this speculation could be avoided if the idiot report had just included the patent numbers. Then again, NCR may not have included them in the press release the article was probably based on.
Yeah, like Patent #5,918,910. Sounds like every installation/setup/configuration logging system I've ever seen, except that it specifies a multi-part printed lable instead of writing stuff down by hand!
One would think that dinosaurs the likes of NCR would've gotten a clue
from Hayes' futile attempts to preserve its viability by such tactics.
Of course, we all know what the ultimate fate of Hayes was. And well-
deserved was that fate, IMO.
With any luck, NCR, Unisys, and like-minded, feeble old companies
like them will share it.
United States Patent 5,951,643 Shelton , et al. September 14, 1999 Mechanism for dependably organizing and managing information for web synchronization and tracking among multiple browsers Abstract Described is a mechanism for dependably organizing and managing information for web synchronization and tracking among multiple consumer browsers. A session is created for each of one of the consumer browsers when an individual consumer downloads an initial web page from an HTTP server. A unique ID is assigned to that session. After the session has been created for an individual browser, the information about the all activities from that consumer browser will be recorded into the session. Such a mechanism overcomes the difficulty to organize and manage the activities from the multiple consumer browsers that are in stateless nature. --------------------------- This is how Active Server Pages work - the server has a session variable to track each connection to the server. If NCR is suing over this one, they might as well sue Microsoft, since they provide the technology to do this.
Why is the OSS movement so protective of Netscape? It's a monopolist company, with only proprietary products (don't mention Mozilla, it's not free, and has only predatory intentions) that suck.
And they can suck all they want since netscape for unix is a product that has never had any serious competition, and it shows.
Furthermore, netscape has tried (and failed) to proprietarise all the internet/http standards they could get their hands on. The nickname Mozilla is said to have come from 'Mosaic Killer', as it's (the free as in free beer, not free speech) only intention was to usurp mosaic's open standards and proprietarise them, and thus gain a monopoly in the server software market.
Netscape is quite possible the only software company out there that is even more evil than Microsoft.
Then why do I use their product? What alternative is there? Before you yell: 'roll your own', if I was capable of doing that I would have. If that linux port of the Opera browser is even vaguely functional when it's finished, I'll buy it, and remove every trace of netscape from all of my systems.
I enjoyed reading this article.
More vindication for "that wacko", RMS.
But maybe the case law from this battle will put some sanity back into the area of software patents.
From my point of view, patenting software makes about as much sense as patenting music or a book.
Especially when you read the abstracts of the patents -- good god, I write client-server software, and it looks like I'll be violating NCR patents in a few minutes, right after I log off this PC.
There are two dates significant to a patent, the date of original conception and the date of issue. To prove validity, the patentee must show that the claimed date of original concept is earlier than any other and that the concept had not been reduced to practice by any other person before that date. A U. S. patent is valid for seven years (as I recall) from the date of issue, unless defeated. In Britain and other countries the applicant must prove validity before the patent is granted. The U. S. method places less financial burden on inventors, ensuring protection to genuine invention by individuals and small companies at the risk of many patents being issued where there is no real invention or there is prior art the Patent Office did not discover. NCR's strategy is not unusual: Sue a smaller defendant and if you win, the Big Boys will have a harder time defending if they don't want to pay up.
1. It is all in how you tell your story. I am co-author of three patents issued in the late seventies, all of which were implemented in software. The descriptions are of electronic analog computaion processes, but the patents distinctly cover any implementation. 2. A patent is unenforceable if it can be shown that its claims were already known or in use. 3. All patents have numerous claims, starting out broadly in order to cover as much territory as possible. All but one claim may be invalidated in court, but the patent will still be valid as to that one claim. There are cases where the actual "invention" was disallowed, but one or more "thrown-in" claims were upheld!
You're full of it. The laser was a direct follow-on to the maser, and was developed at Bell Labs. See here.
Talk all you want about "some college kid"... it just ain't so...
PS - Charles Townes and the other inventors won the joint 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for their invention.
NCR has been in the tank for some time. They have chosen to spend their resources on patent lawyers and on a strategic relationship with Microsoft (ever heard of 'activeStore'?) So, instead of innovation, they are producing litigation.
Don't many of those patents sound a lot like much of what makes
Bloated Goats do what it does? (By this I mean the way it's supposed
to work. Not the way it actually does [not?] work.)
I was thinking the same thing myself.
Then again, this could be as it seems - some stuffy old lawsuit over some patent infringement concerning broad and vague technology... NAH - too boring - I like the conspiracy theory better. Any other 'noids agree?
> After all, if it was just the browser, wouldn't
> NCR go after Microsoft as well?
Note that this story is about databases and patents pertaining to them while directly below is a story about copywriting database content. Coincidence? BTW Look at the "related stories" links carefully and go hmmmmm.
.. this stuff with NCR, so that IE is 'in compliance'? What NCR products has Netscape 'driven from the shelves" with it's unlicensed use of these patents?
Yeah, well. There's a lot of thing Thomas Jefferson believed in, and wanted the government
framed around, that are not part of the government today.
Personal freedom to distance oneself from the government is one of them.
Growing hemp is another.
Freedom to say or express whatever one feels needs
saying or expressing would be another.
It's all out the window...
Perhaps everyone here has missed the point a little bit. Now if it does not take but a half-wit person to realize the sheer ignorance it would take to think that some of these accusations would hold up in court. (doubleclick, NCR, etc. etc.) You should be saying.. What is the companies OTHER motive?Apparently they arent going to recoup any loses on this venture.. they will probably lose MORE paying for the lawyers to stop netscape.. But thats not the point eithers.. Its all about publicity. Thats it Publicity Slashdot has provided these asanine claims with an excellent engine for publicity to! Everyones talking about NCR, its like free advertisement.. I would take advantage of it to.. :-)
Jeremy Allen
jallen@idminc.com
Sort of like all the money that Unisys lost because of all of the .GIFs posted to the Internet without paying royalties...
No you didn't :)
I just saw a letter at salon.com which mentioned the existence of the Software Patent Institute (www.spi.org). According to the executive director, "We have more than a million pages of old computer manuals, corporate technical reports, articles from academic and professional journals, extensive bibliographies and older textbooks, all in searchable form. The idea is that this material will describe, in a form the patent examiner can find and cite, many of these prior activities."
Check out their web site and help them out if you
want to stomp frivolous software patents.
An alternative is to seal a copy of your work in an envelope and mail it to yourself (Preferably, get the postmark across one of the sealing places). The date on the postmark will be evidence of the date of original discovery/invention
Right now these sorts of frivolous lawsuits appear whenever a software company is acquired by another company with deep pockets
Yes, now there's a point I can definitely agree with. I mean, you only have to look at Caldera, and the way that they purchased DR-DOS solely so they could sue Microsoft.
You are really only thinking about software patents, which I think most people agree, are way out of hand. However, switching over to biomedical patents for a second, how many companies do you think would spend millions upon billions of dollars researching and developing new drugs to cure ailments (AIDS, Cancer, E.D., etc.,etc.), if any company could come, and quickly reverse engineer the drug RIGHT THE NEXT DAY. None!. Software patents have definetely gotten out of hand, however I do think there should still be patents on some algorithms.
A lawsuite on an individual will do shit all. 1. he can leave the country and live in the bahamas or shri lanka. 2. justupload it on the web in 10000 websites. 3. declare backcrupt and what then? poo little billion $ corprates.. HA, the day the market crashes 80% to 2000points, is the day I will CHEER as CEOs commit suicide. (with their lawyers)
we aussies have it on the right side and use a BlowTorch tolight our breads to make TOAST. with vegemite
Why would Microsoft care if 'these formerly relevant computer companies' fool around a bit with Netscape. Netscape is a corpse now, and while it might disturb some of the staff at Microsoft, they're probably profesional enough to overlook a little necrophilia on the part of business partners.
You can't patent the application. What you patent is a new method and apparatus for achieving it.
If NCR have developed new and non-obvious methods for delivering this functionality, these methods should quite legitimately be patentable.
But the important question is just how 'new' and 'non-obvious' the methods really are. The bar should be set high.
I think that you mean that Netscape and Internet Explorer are almost feature-to-feature clones of Mosaic. Incidentally, Mosaic was open source. It's funny nobody ever champions it, and instead shower praise on Netscape, the company that closed the Mosaic source code when Marcey-boy commercialized (stole?) it.
That T Jefferson was obviously a longhair opensource linux freak!! What a communist thing to say! Thats so unamerican (not like microsoft there very good and american), I bet T Jefferson doesn't even know how to play space cadet!
if you longhair communist linux freaks had your way i couldnt even earn my living with my patent "winning at space cadet by shooting things down"
Software patents are a necessity at this point in time. When used appropriately they help the little guy has to protect his work against the big bad corpoaration who want's to steal his idea. You just have to make sure that your patent description is strong enough to defend against all the guys out there with the 2" brushes hanging in their garages.
This is bullshit. "Little Guys" aren't going to spend time and money researching and writing patents for their code, they're going to research and write CODE.
Patents are for companies with legal departments (guys in their basements usually don't have those) and the money to finance them. A small guy in his basement (who's trying to enforce a patent) will STILL have to pay lawyers, and (as you're probably aware) patent lawyers aren't cheap. Unless the patent is blatantly obvious (obvious enough for copyright issues to apply,) it comes down to "whoever has the most money wins."
Actually, something like that did happen in the early years of the American automobile industry. By 1915 the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce was organized to administer cross-licensing of automobile industry patents.
One of the main triggers for this move was the Seldon patent case. George B. Seldon received a patent in 1895 (filed in 1877 and delayed by continually altering his application) covering the use of the internal combustion engine in any road vehicle.
Seldon ended up selling the patent to the Electrical Vehicle Company in 1900 in return for future royalties. EVC created the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers to license the patent.
ALAM refused to license the patent to Henry Ford, stating that he had not proven he could build a suitable vehicle. (Catch-22.) Ford snubbed ALAM, and began competing in the marketplace. ALAM sued Ford and spewed FUD everywhere. In 1911 Ford won the case on appeal, on the grounds that the patent didn't pertain to the engine Ford used.
Henry Ford was a staunch opponent of patents. He had his own portfolio, but allowed anyone to freely use them. If it were not for his tenacity and financial ability to withstand the legal onslaught, the US automobile industry landscape would have turned out quite different.
Incidentally, the US Government made some changes to the patent system following this debacle.
First off, you must ALWAYS look at patents (and copyright) from a semi-solicalistic 'socity benifit' point of view, because these things (patents and cr) at limititaions on our natural rights for the benifit of all.
Next you fall for the idea that these million dollars-of-resarch patents would not be descovered without the $$. This is untrue. In *EVERY* case of OSS patent infringement I've see, the OSS people came up with the solution on their own for free. Whats more value to socity, a corp wasting millions to come up with the same thing a few hackers can do on their own for free?
I find it hard to believe that you are really a researcher. If you were, you would know that there are two types of researchers: Commercial and academic. Seldom do either of them profit from their work (corps take the money from the first, and the later often give it away).
Actually, I think non-US companies have to care about patents in this country. The US still represents a significant part of market share, so companies that produce software products that they are banned from selling in the US are cutting themselves out of an important slice of their potential market.
Mosaic was not open source. Sure, the source was available, but the license is not compatible with the Open Source Definition, because you can't distribute it for a fee. This means it wouldn't be possible to distribute it on CD, for instance. The license also states you can only use it for "internal business use", which means there are a lot of uses for which you need to negotiate a special license.
You could actually look at the patent you refer to. It is for a specific design of *rear*
unloading wheelbarrow with an original pivot. It isn't an attempt to patent the generic wheelbarrow.
If you can't recognise when someone innovates, what right do you have to talk about the process
that administers the exploitation of innovation?
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
These patents were from 1996 to 1999, and Netscape has been around longer than that. In today's retarded patent environment, it seems an unscrupulous company could patent an idea they saw another company invent and then sue them for infringment because the inventing company didn't patent the idea. Most of the lawsuits wouldn't go all the way but a lot of companies would just settle rather than deal with the hassle. I know the 'prior art' thing is supposed to deal with this but I have no faith in the USPTO to actually think their way through this trouble.
In any event, this is just an example of how an important invention (RSA public key encryption) was invented by college professors trying to get tenure, and how it would have been invented even if there was no such thing as a patent. And this is true of most computer software innovations.
I cannot think of one single computer software innovation that would not have happened without software patents. Or are you saying that the spreadsheet would never have been invented? Or the language compiler? Or databases? Guess what, all of those fundamental inventions were created prior to software patents!
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
But: Consider this: None of the three inventors have seen a dime from the patent (other than any consulting money that they've gotten since). The money all went to PKP and MIT, since they gave up their patent rights when they became an employee.
Big Ideas, like the RSA algorithm, are rarely the work of expensive research projects. Ron Rivest and friends were building on the work of previous researchers like Diffie and Hellman (I think it was Hellman who actually said "If we can find a trapdoor function that's hard to reverse, we could do true public key encryption", Rivest et. al' "simply" found such a trapdoor function). It is likely that RSA encryption, arguably the biggest idea in modern cryptography, would have been invented even without patent protection, because at the time it was invented the whole notion of software patents was fairly new (and was being pushed by the NSA primarily to limit the spread of encryption technology). The three primary researchers used a little computer time once they came up with their scheme, but the initial idea itself was the result of a little work with pencil and paper, not the result of a big research project.
Now things have gotten to the ridiculous level that RSADI is patenting mathematical operations "if they're used as part of an encryption routine". Want to patent multiplication as part of a symmetric 128-bit block cipher? Go ahead, the patent office will likely grant it! Pfui. Just as ridiculous as trying to patent human genes...
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
What is it about Slashdot readers and their inability to comprehend patents? This has got to be the 8 billionth time I've read on Slashdot "so-and-so patented foo, even though foo has been around for a long time". Read the freaking patent - it doesn't claim a patent on wheel barrows, it claims a patent on a cam mechanism for lowering the end of the wheel barrow for loading and unloading. In other words, it patents a new invention that applies to wheel barrows.
Given the past performance of Slashdot readers, I now expect some bright spark to say "well, if he can patent the wheel barrow, I'm going to patent the wheel and demand payment from GM".
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
See my earlier post where I predicted somebody would make some moronic remark about "if they can patent foo, then I can patent something else". Looks like I didn't have to wait long.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
> Netscape, the company that closed the > Mosaic source code They didn't close the Mosaic source code, they started over with new source code, which they have since opened up.
Thank God for AOL! (I never thought I would say that!) Thank GOD AOL has a good bankroll to fight this. I just hope they try to fight this. It will be a test case of software patents. I hope they don't see it in their best interest to lose. Maybe they have their own patents as well.
The WAR has started.
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
I think you picked a bad example there. I checked out the Wheel Barrow patent that you referenced, and it looks like this guy has come up with a clever and relatively non-obvious extension to the basic design of a Wheel Barrow, by adding the ability for the Barrow to essentially "kneel" for loading.
This doesn't counter the fact that there are quite a few bad patents being issued for computer software, covering very obvious techniques that have been in use for many years. And above and beyond this abuse of the system in place, there is the argument advanced (persuasively I think) in an LPF white paper, that shows that the economic and social benefits of patents on material invensions completely break down when applied to software because of the completely different ratio between production and design costs in producing a physical artifact and a software artifact.
Yep. That was a truly horrible article. Granted it was blurb, but it basically didn't say anything. It didn't describe at all what product netscape might be infringing on other than saying it had something to do with databases. I hate c|net
You were trying to get first post. First posters are dumbasses. Therefore, you were trying to be a dumbass.
Nyah!
--
A host is a host from coast to coast...
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
Targeting advertising in a home retail banking delivery service
A practical system and method for the remote distribution of financial services (e.g., home banking and bill-paying) involves distributing portable terminals to a user base. The terminals
include a multi-line display, keys "pointing to" lines on the display, and additional keys. Contact is established between the terminals and a central computer operated by a service provider, preferably over a dial-up telephone line and a packet data network. Information exchange between the central computer and the terminal solicits information from the terminal user related to requested financial services (e.g., for billpaying, the user provides payee selection and amount and his bank account PIN number). The central computer then transmits a message over a conventional ATM network debiting the user's bank account in real time, and may pay the specified payees the specified amount electronically or in other ways as appropriate. Payments and transfers may be scheduled in advance or on a periodic basis. Because the central computer interacts with the user's bank as a standard POS or ATM network node, no significant software changes are required at the banks' computers. The terminal interface is extremely user-friendly and incorporates some features of standard ATM user interfaces so as to reduce new user anxiety.
sneaky! if this is what they're claiming, probably some bank set up their online banking to look like an ATM. and "We recommend Netscape 4.0 or better" is on the page. Ha! Netscape would be "violating" the transport/rendering thing.
these patents sure are smoking crack. I wish there was some way to invalidate the invalid ones that didn't take a massive amount of money and time for the organiztion erroneously sued...
Lea
I think Nike had a quote about 2nd place being 1st loser. You you can use that to claim 1st post.
;-)
Seriously though, the lawyers can screw up anything. No legal expert here, but the patents are generally written so vaguely that they simply can't keep up with the rapid change in the 'Net.
I think this idea deserves a little study. Several years ago, a fellow that I worked with developed an algorithm for target detection that was the first and only of its kind, as far as I had seen. I helped to refine it a bit, but basically it was his beastie. On application for patent, we were told that ALGORITHMS were not patentable (this was in the late '80s; things are probably different now). I happen to be in agreement with this. The concept of what constitutes an invention these days is becoming more and more vague. Patents should not be used to squeeze money out of industrious people who happened to solve a fairly well-understood problem in their own way. Now, I don't advocate that all software be free. Software licensing should adequately cover companies like Corel, Microsoft, and Adobe and their software products. Patents on "a spell checker" and the like are frivolous when there are dozens of similar algorithms/applications out there. Selling USES of those is perfectly fine, in my view. Patenting the IDEA of them is idiotic. And a waste of money, paper and the time of the US Patent Office.
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." - Thomas Jefferson
-=Maggie Leber=-
WRONG! Prior art requires PUBLICATION. What you are suggesting has been suggested as a method of establishing copyright, but would NOT help you in a patent case.
If you want to establish original invention, you should put your claim on a web page, date it, and register it with all the search engines.
- John
Remember a year or so ago (?) when Wang sued Netscape for their ludicrously broadly-stated patent? (They actually claimed to own the hyperlink!) Everyone was wondering why they sued Netscape and not Microsoft until people started going to Wang's site and seeing the press release of a recent partnership with MS.
That one was thrown out of court. My gut reaction is to say this one will be, too.
Let's just think about this:
Is Netscape's only product the Navigator browser? Netscape has server-side products as well that may be ripping off NCR's own patents, as NCR has been in the server-client data business for years. Admittedly, I'm biased, since my father's worked for NCR since 1979, but IIRC the NCR Tower (and NCR *did* attempt to patent the word "tower" as pertaining to computer equipment, but failed) was around long before Netscape.
--
in theory this may be of help but the real fact of the matter is that the ppatent office needs to be overhauled entirely. They have these messed up quotas systems that most of the time prevent them from doing good work. There is also a lot of law that is involoved. It is a messed up system that many people who are applying for patents (mainly patent lawyers) often take advantage of. TO be an expert in this one must be both a technological expert and a legal expert which is not something that we see alot of today. This is especially a problem as technology requires a lot of knowlege as does law.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Not so distant future? try not so distant past. This is happening already on a regular basis. Large companies are already trying the extremely effective tactic of frivolously suing tiny companies for the sole purpose of destroying them. As you said, even if the lawsuit would be thrown out of court the instant it went before a judge, the mere act of hiring a lawyer can be enough to take the small company out.
This is primarily happening in cases of emulators-- for example, Nintendo knows that clean-roomed reverse-engineered emulation is legal and not a patent violation, but that isn't important. They've lost every single lawsuit against a creator of an emulator, but that isn't important. What is important is that they are a huge corporation with deep pockets and the emulation people are generally hobbyists who can't pay legal bills. So, nintendo has been suing pretty much everyone. The more you look into emulation the more instances similar to this you see.
The biggest problem i see is that patents were designed as a shield; a defense against unscrupulous people who would simply rip off what you have spent so long inventing. But lately patents have been used more as weapons; to prevent competition, to hurt specific people, or to simply extort money with no basis. Any case of patents being used for offense rather than defense in my eyes proves the system doesn't work..
-mcc-baka
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IS THEFT
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
wonderful idea. After all, they're suing gun companies for abuses of the gun companies' products by consumers that the gun companies have no way of preventing; so obviously what's to stop someone from suing the patent office for abuses of the patent office itself which the patent office could have very easily prevented by policing itself more?
Of course, the only result will be that the entire settlement will go into the pockets of various lawyers, but it would be worth it for the sheer irony value.
heh.. kewl.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
In *EVERY* case of OSS patent infringement I've see, the OSS people came up with the solution on their own for free.
I am not aware of a single piece of OSS that used LZW compression for GIFs that came up with that compression independently. Every one I know of copied the algorithm from someplace else (book, journal, specification, other software, etc). That's not "coming up with the solution". That's translating an algorithm published by someone else.
If concepts are not property then how do copyrights not invade basic personal freedom? Why should I not be allowed to photocopy Steven King's newest book and sell it? I'm not stealing his property.
The idea that the guy who is smarter and more on the ball succeeds is a convenient and comforting Calvinist myth that I have failed to see manifest itself in the real world in anything approaching a consistent manner.
Anyone knows for usage of which technologies, and hence for infrigement of which patents, they have sued Netscape? Links into the IBM patent database would be especially good.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Two possibilities here-first, they wanted to wait for AOL's aquisition of Netscape to be completed so there would be more capital to pay off a settlement. Second, the article notes that patents were awarded as late as this year. It could be they were waiting for the patents to be awarded before they sued.
Actually NCR has had a long line of UNIX systems that they sold for enterprise database systems. I cut my UNIX teeth on a UTower 32/400 MANY years ago. Now they have the terradata servers which are used in a number of enterprise scale solutions.
I think they are sueing for back end products. It could be netscape's livewire product or publishing system. I guess we'll know in a few hours or days.
This is about Web Browsers right? It could probably apply as well to Amazon.com
> If mr Ugh is making money selling is wheels,
> he will be pissed of when mr duh start doing
> the same.
Only if Mr. Ugh happens to be a monopolist would he be "pissed off" when someone starts competing.
If he's not a monopolist, let's say he's a free market capitalist, he'll try to compete with Mr. Duh on the merits of his wheel and his market placement. He'll advertise the new UghWheel-2000, he'll get an OEM agreement with Flintstone Cars, Inc., he'll guarantee his wheels against defects, and include a coupon worth 5 rocks towards your next UW2K purchase, and all the time he'll be developing and manufacturing new UghWheelLight (lighter and stronger!) in his private guarded cave so that when the time comes, he'll have inventory ready to ship before the competition has ever seen it.
If he can patent it, why bother? Let someone else do the work, play throw-the-stone with his lawyer, and just let the royalties flow in... but I don't see that as a "free market". Sounds like a "pay-to-enter market" to me.
In the downward direction.
I had searched the patent database for something simple and ridiculous to have a patent on. I skimmed over the entry that was labeled (quite simply) "Wheel barrow". I skimmed a little too quickly, and I screwed up...
My apologies. I don't wish to be perpetuating the flow of incorrect information, and I was *seriously* out of line with that one-- moderators take note, the information *is not accurate*. I will *definitely* be more careful from now on...
Thanks to the folks who pointed that out!
Hey, that's brilliant!
... JNQOS ... JunkOS!
Joe's New Quantum OS
I love it!
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
Point taken. I was thinking more of mindshare and (at least perceived) growth opportunities. Lots of "dinosaur" firms do just fine on the revenue side, but barring new revenue sources the trend tends to be downward - though it can be a long, long, long decline. How often do you hear of someone setting up a new installation and buying, say, Unisys, DG, or NCR servers? These guys might still be big revenue-wise, and might still make good hardware, but they're not in the running to grow those businesses anymore (without something happening to bump up their mindshare).
Some manage to transform themselves - hasn't Unisys become almost exclusively a service provider?
Or is this something we're going to be stuck with Forever(tm), like "First Post", "Let's make this a Beowulf cluster", and "Slashdot is going downhill"?
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Next time read the patent. It's NOT for a wheel barrow, but a device that allow lowering the bin of the wheel barrow for easier loading. Perfectly legitamate as far as I can tell.
The problem with your theory is that you don't weight the number of people with the per capita income. The US is perhaps 5% of the world poplation, but it represents 25% of the world's economic activity. It is also the technology leader in just about all important aress Thus it is a far larger market than China is likely to be in the forseeable future. A peasant pulling plow through a rice paddy isn't going to care about the internet. Right now the US has a higher percentage of people that finish advanced degrees than China has people that finish the first grade. (Direct quote from Chinese prime minister during recent visit to US).
Your example is WRONG. A patent FUNDAMENTALLY does NOT give you the right to practice your invention, only the right to prevent someone else from practicing it!! Your spray paint patent is only good for preventing the Joe Mega Corp from using a paint sprayer, it does not give you the rights to use his prior patented process to make wedges. Joe Mega may want to license your patent for cash, or may want to cross-license so you can both now make wedges with spray paint, but if you go into the wedge business using the Joe Mega process, you are infringing on their patent.
>Quite frankly, I think that all patents ought to be done away with.
This statement apparently was made without any thought. While the current mess of software patents is not good, the basic idea behind patents was and still is needed. For an example of why they are needed you only need to look at the cotton mill, which was patented, but since the patents weren't easily enforceable back then thousands of copies were made and sold, and the man who invented it wasn't able to get any signifigent return on his investment of time and intellectual thought.
The beauty behind patents is that after the patent expires the idea becomes public domain, and anybody can use it. It may be that the period of time for patents may also need to be adjusted (currently I think it is 17 years, except for medical patents on medicines which is 3 years), but that is another discussion.
-- Error: Cannot find file REALITY.SYS - Universe halted, please reboot!
"But I don't believe you have damaged any of my 3 points."
:-)"
I'm sorry to say your way of tackling my reply is not to convincing either. Here we go again:
"How do you know what it would have been like doing things the way I suggest? As a matter of fact, only in the last 10-20 years have patents (particularly software patents) gotten totally out of control. We didn't try it my way, so there is no basis for an A-B comparison. I see what is, and say, couldn't it be done better. "
I don't know. All i know is that despite the presence of patents development went as fast as it went. So there doesn't seem to be any particular reason to doubt their functioning based on history. Software patents are problematic but just because of the way they are hanled today. I'm all in favor of changing the current practice but abandoning patents just doesn't seem a good solution to me.
"It's not up to me to research what some other guy has done, except in the present warped system of patents. Mr. Ugh, 3 caves down, came up with the concept of the round wheel. So did I, Joe Duh. Ugh, you keep out of my way, and I'll keep out of yours. That's my philosophy. Funny, doing things my way, no one damages anyone else. It's the agora of ideas, man. "
If mr Ugh is making money selling is wheels, he will be pissed of when mr duh start doing the same. A patent would temporarily protect his invention until the novelty wears off.
"Just the obstacle I pointed out already. You could enlist the services of everyone in the world to work for the patent office, and it still couldn't cope. It's out of control. The concept it is promoting can't possibly be implemented rationally and effectively."
Here you go again. Yo do away with it rather easily but I still don't see WHY "The concept it is promoting can't possibly be implemented rationally and effectively"
"P.S. - I'm a libertarian, about as far from a socialist or communist as I think you can get
I'm glad you are open for reasonable arguments. I wouldn't have replied otherwise.
Jilles
"1) It hinders society's progress more than spurring it (because people without the funds to patent things and prosecute "infringers" are not only deterred by lack of incentive, but actually prevented by legal force from innovating, since everything, particularly in software, gets patented by somebody)."
I don't see how it hinders society. In fact scientific and technology progress has never been so good as the past 50 years. All this time patents have been around. They have allowed companies to cash in on their inventions.
"2) It invades basic personal rights, by saying, even if you figure out something yourself, you can't use the fruit of your own thoughts, just because, nyah, nyah, I thought of it first, and I had the money to patent it, and I have the money to prosecute "infringement" (so there!)."
Tough luck if you invent something that has already been patented. Do better research next time because nobody benefits from reinvented wheels. In all other cases it is just plain theft of an idea and protection of it seems a very wanted feature just to protect individual freedom.
"3) No patent office could possibly cope effectively with the volume of applications without making the kind of ludicrous, moronic mistakes and errors of judgement the US Patent Office does, particularly with software."
You are right that the current system doesn't work. I pointed that out in my original post. I don't see any obstacles for improvement of this system though (accept for the generally slow speed these things tend to happen in real life)
So this does away with all three of your arguments and several similar ones in other replies to my posting.
"Property is property. Things you can touch. Not God's/Nature's/The Universe's handiwork/tapestry as discovered and interpreted by anyone."
That's a moral position you take here, I and many others don't share it. This is the key issue here. You belief in giving away stuff for free bu that is just not how our society works. In a communist society patents wouldn't make much sense but in our capitalist society where everything (like it or not, personally I don't like it) boils down to money it is an important tool.
Jilles
This discussion is getting a bit silly but I'll stick with the example.
Basically you are denying mr Ugh the right to protect his invention. So what he will probably do is hide the design of the wheel in a very deep cave so that nobody can see it. He'll still sell his products only there won't be any oportunity for science to improve on his design and built something more advanced like a car since the design is locked away. Mr Duh, in the unlikely case that he too comes up with something so brilliant as the wheel independently of mr Ugh will probably follow the same technique in order to prevent that mr Club'em will outcompete the both of them with his harsh business tactics.
Jilles
"But: Consider this: None of the three inventors have seen a dime from the patent (other than any consulting money that they've gotten since). The money all went to PKP and MIT, since they gave up their patent rights when they became an employee."
Good point. But they were only able to do their research because their company funded their research. I think it's not a bad thing that those companies were able to get revenue from their investment.
Several people here seem to claim that it is a bad thing to patent mathematical inventions claiming that even multiplication wouldn't be safe. Those persons are overlooking a few things:
- you can't patent something that is already in use.
- patents expire. No patent lasts for ever
- patents are made public. I.e. you can still improve the invention because you have access to its details. You just can't use these inventions to make money.
In my opinion any original (with stress on this word) invention should be patentable. It is also my opinion that the current system doesn't work as good as it should. Things tend to move a lot faster in the software world than in other research areas. Because of this the period over which a patent is valid should be shorter (otherwise it starts blocking progress as pointed out earlier in this thread). Also a lot of not so original stuff seems to be under patent. This is frustrating.
Jilles
exactly but not the way you think...
In order to prevent all R&D from ending up as a trade secret, the USG gives inventors legal "ownership" over a given invention/concept/etc in return for it being available to all, and eventually entering the public domain...
take the long view, if source is patented, it is (a) available for all to look at, but much more importantly (b) it will enter the public domain soon
the amount of time given is a problem, as 20years is 1/2 the age of the industry, but the concept is not
consider: without this it is very possible such basic ideas as the transistor would have remained trade secrets....
this is a BAD THING
yes somethings can be reverse-engineered, but that _IS_ reinventing the wheel, and in such a climate, the reverse-engineers would keep their new info secret...
high entry-to-market barriers are bad... even the computer industry is getting higher ones, but without patent law, those barriers would be astronomically high...
-RS
Grrr. my nick is "Forward the Light Brigade"...
i figure if you can patent how to do everything else, everyone who owns a car that has the sterring wheel on the left side owes me a royalty of 2.00 a month for as long as your car is registered.
Also, i patented toasters, so if you stick your toast in the toaster and push DOWN on the lil lever, you owe me money too..
don't forget the door.. if you have a door knob that unlocks when you turn it, then you owe me money
also sex, i patented the old in out.. no matter how you stick it in, you owe me.. accessing that nookie is gonna cost you!
gimme a break NCR.
It's not quite that easy to reverse engineer someone else's drug product these days. Certainly not by the next day. The company that does the actual research has a good head start because they already know how to manufacture the drug and have manufactured a fair amount of it already (how else would they get the drug product they use in trials?) This means that they already have their modified E. Coli or CHO (Chinese Hamster Ovary) cells or what have you, and they just have to set up manufacturing suites and grow the stuff (I'm pretty sure the vast majority of drugs are made this way these days). They might have genetically modified cows that produce the drug in their milk instead, but the same principle applies.
In order to copy them, another company is going to have to develop their own modified cells or farm animals or steal them from the first company (which I'm sure happens a lot, but actual theft of physical property is a crime that goes beyond patents).
The other thing you may not have even thought about is why drug companies ever bother to develop drugs to treat diseases or disorders that only affect a small number of people. These are called orphan drugs, they'll never make enough money (before patent protection runs out, anyway) to pay back the research costs involved in developing them. So, why do companies develop them? Is it out of the goodness of their hearts? Obviously not. The reason is that orphan drugs get government subsidies.
Why did I bring that up? I just wanted to point out that the drug industry is _not_ running on free market principles by a long shot. It's regulated and subsidized and monitored.
The point I'd like to make about the drug industry is that the money is there not matter what. Research gets done, money is made manufacturing drugs, people are employed. It's a fairly socialistic concept for this country, but the whole industry could be made into a government operation. Say what you will about government management, that _would_ bring costs down, and you could forget all about patents. Obviously, that's not going to happen, and it's probably not a great idea, but the point is that there are lots of ways the biomedical industry could be rearranged to work better than it does now without patents. The obvious problem is that you can't just say that an entire idustry would work better a different way and change it. That's why kludges like the modern patent system exist.
Hmph, I'm a little tired, so I'm probably not making much sense.
Well, I have to agree. The US has been transitioning itself from a thriving democracy to a corporate fascist state since 1980, if not before. Voter apathy and ignorance have let our leaders get away with this kind of crap. It's time to get out, and the majority of the population in this country deserve to live with what's left.
Ooops, slight problem. Where to go? Global economy == global corporate domination. Ha ha ha! And to think, everyone thought the communists were the ones who would bring us a one world totalitarian government. What a convenient decoy they were.
The hypothetical situation might as well be reversed:
Small company A tries to make a living by making
car-tires. But suddenly BIG company B comes up
with the fantastic idea that we should use
something else instead of tires.
Of course, company A stops producing tires, it
has to adjust or be killed off, but it's not
possible to adjust because huge company B has
patented the idea.
You're right. Besides you will always profit from
a great idea, because you come to the market first.
Patents encourage staying put with you wonderful
patent, producing things nobody else can.
No pantents would encourage trying new inventions
all the time because you need the upperhand at
all times.
Hypothetical situation: Sometimes a small company "A" invent something incredibly useful. Of course "A" deserves to profit from that invention. But because there is no patents, the BIG company "B" just steals my invention, and makes millions, and squeezes A out of business, because it is so much larger. This isn't "society benefit".. the patents exist because the original inventor, person or corporation, deserves to profit from their invention. Of course, it works horrible today. As the original poster pointed out. It needs reforming, but getting rid of it is NOT the answer.
And the scientific control used to support this claim is what? I could have just as easily said "All this time rock 'n roll has been around", and then attributed our progress to rock 'n roll. Or perhaps our advancing knowledge is due to monosodium glutamate, bikini bathing suits, or highly absorbent paper towels. Or maybe knowledge grows exponentially acconding to the differential equation K'=a K. Perhaps in a parallel universe, where there is an identical United States without patents, we would all by flying around in cheap air scooters and carrying wristwatch communicators with terabyte object databases inside. Do you think that people would stop trying to innovate and bring new products to market, and that companies would stop in house research if there were no patent protection? That would be naive thinking.
Tough luck if you invent something that has already been patented. Do better research next time because nobody benefits from reinvented wheels. In all other cases it is just plain theft of an idea and protection of it seems a very wanted feature just to protect individual freedom.
I hardly see how "tough luck" addresses the issues. Why should the rights of an individual to their ideas be removed simply because someone else, who had a similar idea, got to the "patent office" first? Can the "little guy" afford to thoroughly research all potential infringements that his software might make? Can he afford to defend against a suit from the bigger companies that inevitably buy up all the patents and use them to intimidate and litigate upstart competitors out of business?
And why do ideas need to be protected anyway? Protected from what? If I steal your idea, and then try to corrupt or otherwise destroy it, do you not still have the intact idea in your possession, still unhindered by anything that I might have tried to do with the idea?
That's a moral position you take here, I and many others don't share it. This is the key issue here. You belief in giving away stuff for free bu that is just not how our society works.
I believe the poster didn't imply we should give away stuff for free, just ideas.
. In a communist society patents wouldn't make much sense but in our capitalist society where everything (like it or not, personally I don't like it) boils down to money it is an important tool.
In a communist society, you may get your stuff for free, but the ideas are not usually so free. Our capitalist society should be based on free ideas and money for goods and services that you yourself cannot, or do not have the time to, produce or perform for yourself.
You confuse concepts and their implementations. Pirating Steven King's book should, indeed, be illegal. It should not be illegal, however, to write your own scary story with similar characters and similar plot. If the basic "story lines" could be patented, we would not have any new books.
Also, has NCR really seen a loss in sales because people have picked up Netscape instead?
They definately aren't seeing a lack of sales, but if we speculate and say that this "infringement" is in Navigator, then consider the amount of $$$ that Netscape should have paid for licensing...
I think that what you're thinking of is TI's patent on the IC. The patent was awarded in the USA ages ago - but when TI tried to patent it in Japan, the Japanese semiconductor industry fought them. The battle raged so long in Japanese courts that the patent expired everywhere else in the world - only to finally take effect in Japan in the early 90's.
So, basically, the Japanese semiconductor industry deserved what it got.
--
Clear, Dark Skies
Dateline: Sesame Street
The Children's Television Workshop (CTW) filed suit against one inveterate slashdot poster known as "jabber" for confusing them with Henson Productions. CTW spokesman Elmo said "Where can we find out MORE about software patents?"
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
The problem is the PTO pays incredibly low wages. The time I looked, in 1993, they offered $23K for someone with an engineering degree... the going wages at that point were approximately $36K. So how are they going to get clueful people if they're paying 2/3 the going wages?
And there is one method of killing a patent, without going to court. It's called a reexamination, and anyone can request one (for about $2000). Basically, you send to the patent office the new references you found, that they didn't look at, and your analysis of why the patent is obvious. The patent office then reexamines the patent, with the cooperation of the patent office, and generally narrows it. Although most patents are still allowed after a reexamination, they are generally narrower.
As you probably know, the question isn't the summary or title of the patent, but the claims. They claims may be sufficiently restrictive to exclude the examples of prior art you listed.
The other interesting note is that the NCR patents do cite quite a few other patents and relevant articles.
When I began typing the message Slashdot had no posts, we must have posted within a minute of eachother, I apologize, I wasn't trying to be a dumbass. He got 1st post. But this issue about Netscape is extreamly rediculas, I'm so sick of everyone out to get a quick buck and taking down(sometimes) good companies with them. It's sad what our society has come to where a piece of green paper is more important than our greatest personal morals.
What could Cash registers possibly have to do with Netscape? Unless we're talkin online transactions here, I think this is just another BS lawsuit from one company to another.
"Netscape to incorporate Built in Cash Register feature", give me a break.
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
HTH. HAND.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Their patents are broad and ambiguous. As noted in another thread, almost anybody in modern computer could be charged for infringing on these concepts. And, um, don't you have to PROVE that you /use/ your marvelous magical technology to actually enforce the patent?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
You said:
"A single person wanting to romp off with somebody's IP is going to be quickly clobbered by inability to execute his plan, or deliver on his promises of product and distribution."
Perhaps, but what about a big company trying to romp off with an individual's, or and open source group's, IP? Patent law protects both the big guy and the little guy.
Stephen Molitor steve_molitor@yahoo.com
Funny, yes!
But does anyone but me remember when, shortly after Zilog introduced their Z80 microprocessor, they sued a company called "Z-Systems" under the theory that their Z80 trademark gave them the rights to the letter "Z"?
"That's why more and more professionals are finding that at NCR, nothing stands in the way of innovative thinking."
The trouble is with big companies is that their spin doctors are so far removed from the nasty reality their lawyers try to create. Trying to copyright such fundimental concepts seems like a great idea to those who have nothing to do with development; If they did then perhaps they would know how it feels to wonder if whatever you come up with has been patented by some pinstripped shark with dollar signs in his eye. If only the guys in charge weren't so clueless, we would not have these problems.
Tim.
The US has really low population density. If you want to live in either a place like Montana or Manhattan it is your choice. Sorry that I don't buy into the overpopulation myths. The population bomb types had the world going to hell when world pop hit 3.8 bill. Oops.
matt
I am an American (read probable bias), but the fact remains that the US has a rosier future for growth. Currently, yes, the US has a pop of 260 ish mill. The Euro Zone has a pop of 300 mill. Sociologically, parents needs to have 2.1 kids to sustain the pop (the .1 to replace kids who don't grow into child bearing years). In the US, the rate is around 1.9, but in Euro land, it is about 1.3. The US also has 1 million immigrants a year. So, by 2050, the US will have 350 mill people or so, while the Euro land will drop drastically to about 175 mill. All this data is from one of the most interesting arguments against the likelihood of success for the Euro currency. I could probably dig up the source under duress.
/. a month or so back as stifling portable mp3 players). Until we see some definitive legal results from software patents lawsuits, it is far too early to claim that the "US governemnt is limited to destorying its own software industry and intellectual base"
Currently we are at a point where some of the OSS crowd views software patents as limiting creativity and competition. However, I have yet to see any real examples of this in practice. This NCR/ Netscape suit is being debated without any real idea as to what the patents are. We also have yet to see any major legal cases as a result of these patents yet, but we do hear tons of bluster (I recall a recordable digital music patent that was feared on
matt
.
This is the old mindless mantra "no one would ever innovate if not for patent protection".
Hornswoggle. Ever heard of trade secrets and copyrights? They are enough, and they don't invade basic personal freedom.
The patent system in its entirety should be done away with. The reasons are simple.
1) It hinders society's progress more than spurring it (because people without the funds to patent things and prosecute "infringers" are not only deterred by lack of incentive, but actually prevented by legal force from innovating, since everything, particularly in software, gets patented by somebody).
2) It invades basic personal rights, by saying, even if you figure out something yourself, you can't use the fruit of your own thoughts, just because, nyah, nyah, I thought of it first, and I had the money to patent it, and I have the money to prosecute "infringement" (so there!).
3) No patent office could possibly cope effectively with the volume of applications without making the kind of ludicrous, moronic mistakes and errors of judgement the US Patent Office does, particularly with software.
The phrase "intellectual property" is itself a product of defective intellect (not singling anyone out here; I don't believe you used the phrase). Concepts are not property! Property is property. Things you can touch. Not God's/Nature's/The Universe's handiwork/tapestry as discovered and interpreted by anyone. I.e., if I build a faster than light spaceship, you better not take it away from me. That is theft of property. If I figure out how to build a faster than light spaceship, and you do the same, more power to you. Whether you buy mine and take it apart to see how I did it, or figure it out for yourself either before I did or after I did, that is your basic personal right.
The point is, I benefit from the sweat and money of doing research by finding things out and then acting upon that insight to implement it physically in an efficient manner so as to compete successfully with others who "find out the same things".
In terms of software, maybe a bunch of us "discover" LZW compression independantly, or maybe some of us just reverse engineer or grab someone else's implementation. Either way, it's not a static world! The guy who is consistently smarter, more active, more on the ball, in terms of evolving the concept and its implementation, will succeed. It's wrong - and unnecessary - to use brute, collective force to intervene in the agora of ideas in this way.
Your scenario as-is, is not a convincing case in favor of patents. Company A has a leg up because it got there first. It might also use trade secrets to deter or slow down Company B and others (that is, if it had something truly innovative :-)
I don't believe patent law protects the little guy. Not only doesn't he have the money to research and obtain the patent in the first place, but more importantly, he doesn't have the resources to prosecute "infringers".
.
:-)
I'm about done, as we have a basic philosphical disagreement, and neither of us is stupid, and we have each spent our life developing our philosophy. But I don't believe you have damaged any of my 3 points.
You say:
"I don't see how it hinders society. In fact scientific and technology progress has never been so good as the past 50 years. All this time patents have been around. They have allowed companies to cash in on their inventions."
How do you know what it would have been like doing things the way I suggest? As a matter of fact, only in the last 10-20 years have patents (particularly software patents) gotten totally out of control. We didn't try it my way, so there is no basis for an A-B comparison. I see what is, and say, couldn't it be done better.
You say:
"Tough luck if you invent something that has already been patented. Do better research next time because nobody benefits from reinvented wheels. In all other cases it is just plain theft of an idea and protection of it seems a very wanted feature just to protect individual freedom."
It's not up to me to research what some other guy has done, except in the present warped system of patents. Mr. Ugh, 3 caves down, came up with the concept of the round wheel. So did I, Joe Duh. Ugh, you keep out of my way, and I'll keep out of yours. That's my philosophy. Funny, doing things my way, no one damages anyone else. It's the agora of ideas, man.
And, looks like we put a different priority on liberty (freedom). "Just" protecting individual liberty is about as close to a fundamental pillar of conduct as I believe one can get.
You say:
"You are right that the current system doesn't work. I pointed that out in my original post. I don't see any obstacles for improvement of this system though (accept for the generally slow speed these things tend to happen in real life)."
Just the obstacle I pointed out already. You could enlist the services of everyone in the world to work for the patent office, and it still couldn't cope. It's out of control. The concept it is promoting can't possibly be implemented rationally and effectively.
P.S. - I'm a libertarian, about as far from a socialist or communist as I think you can get
Interestingly enough, Intel owns the rights to the letter 'i' when used in lower-case for computer-related things. Actually, Intel owns patents to all kinds of wierd things (including names for unreleased processors we can suppose).
... but I am unable to find them now.
X86.ORG at one time had a full list of them
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
You mention Europe and Asia as if they were paradises of freedom. But what do you think will happen if a small software company in Korea displeases a big conglomerate?
Businessmen are pigs everywhere, and when there's big money to be made the big pigs will win.
- they sue you in court
- they threaten to withheld other services from your clients
- they buy way your best workers
- they use their government relations to obstruct you
Money corrupts, and big money corrupts absolutely.
Interesting how NCR decided now would be a good time to pursue this now that Netscape is owned by AOL and has scads of cash. Hopefully, AOL will fight to the death on principle. But that is probably too much to expect from Steve Case. Instead, we'll probably see lots of huffing and pufing in the press for a few months, then a quiet settlement in which nobody admits to anything.
I remember a few years back that somebody had successfully patented the concept of an integrated circuit (IE using silicon to make semi-conductor circuits). This was something like the LZW thing, but in this case the guy was just somebody who had apparently done some electronics research in the 50's and 60's and somehow got the patent in.
What he wanted to so was sue all manufacturers of electronic equipment that used integrated circuit technology (just about everybody) and charge a royalty on the technology.
I'm kinda curious about what happened to this lawsuit. If my memory serves me correctly, a number of people said that his patent was invalid because it didn't cover the details of manufacturing an IC sufficiently to actually make them. That and he was suing people who could afford to tie him up with lawyers for years just to shut him up.
Oh, really. Since software patents aren't allowed here I could take any idea and steal it and the companies couldn't do anything. The US market is not the only one and still companies do research. Why do you automatically assume that IP is needed for companies to do research ? It may feel obvious but it isn't. No patents or shorter duration patents would mean that the competition would focus on implementation. This is not a bad thing. Now, the speed IT is moving, the ideas in patents are obsolete before the patent expires and while the patent is valid the companies get away with a bad implementation.
If we must have software patents, then at least limit their scope to 3-5 years instead of what they have now. IMO patents are slowing down progress. Currently patents are the companies' way to do battle. They're too expensive for individuals and smaller companies so they are actually slowing down small innovative companies. I've done some compression research and almost every method I've run into has been patented, so anything I build on top of those would actually be unusable in the US. Why do you think mp3 uses Huffman instead of the more efficient arithmetic coding ? Simple, arithmetic coding is patented. So we ended up with a suboptimal standard, because of patents. nice.
Algorithm patents are ridiculous, you might as well patent mathematics. Clearly algorithms are mathematics and therefore should be unpatentable. Otherwise we would end up with patents like "a method for computing the area of a square". Where do you draw the line of obvious ? Given the ignorance IP lawyers in companies, they will probably try to patent algorithms that have been known for a long time and given the ignorance of the USPTO they will get the patent. Then they will go to court and waste a lot of time and money and the lawyers will get rich.
Software patents will kill innovative free software. A free software author can not defend himself in court against a company and he has no resources to check if he has used something that is patented. Given any idea scientific article, it's quite possible that if you refine the idea, it has already been done and patented, or the original idea has a patent that covers your refinement. A free software author will hear the voices of companies saying: "Do ya feel lucky, punk ?", every time he releases new software. Maybe they should make non-profit software an exception ? It's only fair that the inventor gets his share of the _profits_, which are $0 for free software. BTW, I equate the right to release source with free speech.
I'm a scientist as well. I don't have a problem with not being able to patent my findings. I get my kicks from finding and learning new things and hopefully someday seeing them flourish.
Due to changes in society, people have needed to redefine what is valuable and what's not. 10 years ago, objects that did complecated calculations needed dedicated hardware are systems back then weren't powerful enough to implement it. These days however, complex calculations have moved from the physical world of dedicated circuitry to software for doing it. So, instead of patenting a board, you patent an idea, as there is no physical attribute to software. Software patents were just the next logical step in the world of patents, as they are a more efficient and cost effective way of developing new systems.
10 years ago, ATMs had dedicated processors and other assorted hardware for the interface. Now, they're just Windoze boxes with a difference. You still need to patent these systems to keep them profitable.
- Damnit, I'm dead Jim
I'm wondering if any of you actually know what kind of company NCR is. If you've actually read the article you will see that they make ATM machines, cash-registers and datawarehouses. Now I don't know, but I seriously doubt that any of these products use Microsoft software at all. (At least, I hope that the scanners or the ATMs or the Terrabyte-large datawarehouse servers aren't running windowsNT, or something.)
Now they've sued netscape for violating patents on "organizing and retrieving information from computer databases". This has nothing to do with html, or the mail-client or whatever.
And as for wanting to make a few quick bucks, do you really think a company that earned 6.5 billion dollars in sales, would sue a company that didn't even make 10 percent that much?
I don't know, but I think that maybe people are generalizing too much again (as usual too).
(PS, where did this 'trying to better their position with Microsoft' shit come from?)
It is really amazing what some of these patents claim to have invented!
NCR == Teradata
Teradata is used to run Amazon.com's web site, Wall Mart's inventory database, and many others including the CIA.
They seem to file a new patent on a daily bases. Random poorly worded patents can be good income.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
If you just read the abstract it's going to appear that the patent covers some obvious technology. I suggest you actually read the claims and description to find out what the patent really covers.
Read the Claims and Description sections of those patents and you'll see that the patents aren't overly broad. The Abstract just tells you the type of technology that's being patented. VanL's post is extremely misleading. If you don't believe me try reading on of the patents yourself.
P TO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bo ol.html&r=14&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=curr&s1=NCR&s2=dat abase&OS=NCR+AND+database&RS=NCR+AND+dat abase
http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=
NCR invests huge amounts of money in research and development. They patent the results of their labors to protect their investments. Before you claim that they are enforcing frivilous patents you should find out what the patented material is, and how they claim it's being violated.
Agreed, thanks for the research. However, this is not so clearly a case against all software patents. There are good, new ideas in software, and those must be protected. This is a clear case of poor performance by the patent office--but that doesn't mean software patents are clearly unallowable.
To put it in perspective consider that for many years, chemical coorporations have had to use process patents to patent various chemicals they made. Because processes were patentable, it made little sense for the patent office to exclude software algorithms. It was irritating that every software patent became "a machine with a means of..." which invariably described a CPU. So, software patents were allowed, and I think that is a good thing, if they are held to good standards. And that is the problem--no one in teh patent office knows what to do or where to look up information. Obviously, there is little prior art in the patent database, but no one in the patent offices does a good literature search (INSPEC would be a real boon to the office). So, bad patents get through. That needs to be changed, but new and good ideas should be protected, or at least protectable. There are changes proposed, too, though all the important changes were axed by our friendly H.O.R. (house of representatives). Look up the new omnibus patent bill and write to your senator/congressman/woman. It's worth an attempt
Consider what the world woul be like if we all had infinitely reconfigurable (hardware) machines. The machines could turn into hammers, lightbulbs--you name it. If someone invented the first lightbulb, or first hammer---why wouldn't they deserve some form or patent protection?
Everything gets a bit weird in an age of Turing machines, but they there still are new ideas, and we should protect the inventor.
No. That is completely wrong.
Obviousness IS a limitation. If anyone "knowledgeable in the art" would have been able to figure out the idea, then it is not patentable, and should be summarily dismissed with an office action from the examiner.
This "Prior-art-o-matic" could then be put online so that every company sued for patent infringements could search it before doing anything else. It would be an interesting project.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"...NCR sells hardware, including cash registers and scanners, and software for the retail and financial services industries..."
and
NCR's claim that "NCR has suffered and will continue to suffer irreparable injury from Netscape's infringement"
Don't seem to add up to me.... For one, Netscape's been around for quite a while now, it doesn't seem as though they just woke up and noticed that the technology was similar.
Also, has NCR really seen a loss in sales because people have picked up Netscape instead?
-Denor
>Abstract >Described is a mechanism for dependably >organizing and managing information for web >synchronization and tracking among multiple >consumer browsers. A session is created for each >of one of the consumer browsers This is crap, We wrote a session manager in February of 1997. And we got most of the logic out of a O'Rielly Nutshell book that was written in 1996. What are those losers at NCR doing? Maybe they get compensated by the number of patents they get.
Patent was filed on Oct. 6, 1997. Looking at the patent (http://patent.womplex.ibm.com/cgi-bin/viewpat.cmd /US05951643__) it's a fairly bizarre collection of browser applets (3!) to server applet communication over a proprietiary socket connection. Wonder if they ever got it going in production?
WILMINGTON, Del, Sept 20 (Reuters) - NCR Corp. (NYSE:NCR - news) filed a patent
infringement lawsuit late Friday against Netscape Communications Corp., an affiliate of AOL
(NYSE:AOL - news) since AOL bought the Internet browser earlier this year for $10 billion.
In papers filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, NCR listed nine patents whose eight
inventors had assigned the patent rights to NCR from 1994 through 1997. NCR is based in Dayton, Ohio.
The patents include methods for blocking unauthorized users from gaining access to networks, for identifying users, for the symbolic display of a network model and for the management of networks.
A Netscape/AOL spokeswoman, reached at Netscape's headquarters in Mountain View, California, said, "The suit is without merit and we plan to fight it vigorously."
NCR has nearly 2000 patents in the USPTO database, and if you scan through them, you'll see lots of entries that will make you go 'What the...?'
They've got patents from an 'ornamental design for a computer' (which I unfortunately can't see the pictures of) to this: 'Blocking a "reply to all" option in an electronic mail system'. The abstract for the latter one says "A "Reply to All" command may be selectively blocked by a sender in an electronic mail system. The "Reply to All" command may be disabled in response to selection and enablement of a "Block Reply to All" option when the message is composed by the sender. After the sender transmits the message, the message is displayed in a window on a computer operated by a receiver. If the "Block Reply to All" option has been enabled, then the "Reply to All" command is disabled at the computer operated by the receiver. The disabling of the "Reply to All" command may be visually represented by a change in the display. "
I can't believe they can patents things like that.
Actually, Wang was in financial trouble and was using their patent hoard to sue several parties, including Microsoft and Kodak/Eastman.
Now Wang has been acquired by Kodak, who have subsumed it into "Eastman Software", and they are very cosy with Microsoft. Their TIFF viewer ships with every copy of Windows 9x since 95B, and the offer a line of imaging software that integrates with MS-Exchange, which appears to be intended to help Exchange compete with Lotus Notes.
The attack on Netscape came a few years later, and it's not hard to imagine that it was done in collusion with MS.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Somehow, all the patents ends up being owned by companies large enough to afford their own patent lawyers, or companies specializing in patent portfolious. Patents basically allow a few large companies to control an industry with cross-licensing agreements, keeping everybody else out.
Patents doesn't exists because the inventer "deserves" anything, at least not in the US. They exists as an incentive for the inventor to share the invention with others, thus promoting science and art. The US constitution is quite clear about that.
Patents is a violation of peoples freedom (much more so than copyrights, since it also covers independent inventions), and can only be excused if the benefits to science and art are larger than its cost in individual freedom.
For some patents, this might be the case, allthough the period may be too long. But there were plenty of innovation in software before patents, so there are no excuse for those.
NCR produce large scale machines used for datawarehouses. Essentially they have the database engine (Teradata) implemented in hardware.
While they have sold a number of these the market is small, and the likes of Oracle on Solaris are just as good and cheaper.
I suspect that it is the "patents" on this that Netscape has supposedly infringed, rather than the ATM systems (sales of which are also going downhill, since NCR insist that you buy both hardware and software from them).
What makes this really funny is that www.thelettern.com is registered to the Sesame Street folks.
Registrant:
Children's Television Workshop (THELETTERN-DOM)
1 Lincoln Plaza
New York, NY 10023
US
Domain Name: THELETTERN.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Peterkin, Arden (AP3118) arden.peterkin@CTW.ORG
212 875 6297 (FAX) 212 875 6089
Billing Contact:
Arena, Louis (LA1410) louis.arena@CTW.ORG
212 875-6387 (FAX) 212 875-6089
Record last updated on 09-Apr-98.
Record created on 09-Apr-98.
Database last updated on 19-Sep-99 07:43:34 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
AUTH02.NS.UU.NET 198.6.1.82
AUTH60.NS.UU.NET 198.6.1.181
LetterJ
Writing Geek/Pixel Pusher
jwynia@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~jwynia
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
I seriously hope these don't hold up in court. Hopefully those AOL lawyers will actually do something good for a change...
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
despite the recent (somewhat) sucess of companies going after Microsoft in the legal arena, going after Microsoft for something as specious as this sounds (so far) is just asking them to jump on you. And while they have their own branded unix, how much do you want to bet that they have some MS Office around in there... to me, anyways, Netscape looks like a better initial target, if it's about browser technology.
/else/ has done that! :)
I didn't see anything offhand in that article you reference that might explain patent infringement. the only thing that it looks like NCR brought to the table was another brand of unix to port the browser to, and an agreement so that Netscape would port the SuiteSpot server. looks like they paid Netscape so that they'd have an application on their OS. I'm sure no one
so far, anyways, I haven't seen anything resembling a valid patent that NCR held that Netscape violated. bring on the lawyers!
Lea
It's as bogus as a blue bear, but it still costs massive bucks to defend against frivolous suits. This is where the legal system needs reform: you lose, you pay.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Didn't Wang sue Netscape before, claiming that they had patents that basically covered what the World Wide Web does? IIRC, these patents were applied for in the 1980s. I seem to recall the suit being thrown out.
I have a hunch this is just another case of some company patenting the obvious, or the already in use, and trying to make a quick buck off of it.
Quite frankly, I think that all patents ought to be done away with.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Wait a minute? Wasn't it just yesterday that there was a news story having a blurb that companies sued Microsoft because of their inability to compete in the market? Now we have a comment that companies trying to better their positions with Microsoft by suing Netscape.
Neither accusation is true, though. Especially the accusation that the Anti-trust trial is a way for Netscape to make up for their failings. In this case, I think NCR is looking for an easy buck. Netscape has less lawyers then Microsoft, so that's who they hit. I can't imagine Microsoft IE *not* doing anything that Netscape does.
-Brent--
Maybe the patent office could be privatized and both the patent office and patent applicants could be found liable and assessed penalties if patents are overturned. The problem right now is that the risk and cost of applying for a frivolous patent is tiny compared to the benefit of getting away with it occasionally.
It might be possible that a lawyer could argue that a company that has obtained an invalid patent has greatly harmed its competitors and should pay fines and penalties. But in the current environment, it's already so hard even to establish that patents with obvious prior art are invalid that I wouldn't hold my breath for that to happen.
ha ha! how humorous! let me try to come up with a joke like that. Alright, how's this:
..oh, wait a minute. i forgot. that actually happened. www.appleinsider.com has been talking about it for weeks. Damn. OK, let me try again.
A company called "microware" has recently filed suit against Apple Computer for naming their new update of the Mac OS "Mac OS 9". Microware has an existing product named "OS 9" for mostly PPC-based mostly embedded applications. Since it's clear that the apple could not possibly have come up with any other source for the name "Mac OS 9" (which comes after Mac OS 8.6, Mac OS 8.5, Mac OS 8, and Mac OS 7.6) other than purposefully copying microware, Microware has come to the defense of its intellectual property to keep apple from defaming its reputation.
Ha ha! How was that?
Garth Brooks and the rapper "Warren G" have both sued each other over usage of a lower-case "g" as a logo. Both artists recently began using a huge lower-case "g" in their stage sets during live shows. It is uncertain who came up with the idea of a letter named "g", but since it is so creative and unobvious it is certain between Garth and Warrren, one is attempting to copy the other, and they didn't just come up with it independantly.
Err, wait a minute-- That happened too. i saw it on MTV news earlier this year. Dammit, i give up!! this satire stuff is too hard.
-mcc
[this post brought to you by the letters B and S, and the number 9]
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Because the idea has been around longer than the patent. For example, the wheel barrow has been patented as recently as 1990 (see http://patent.womplex.ibm.com/details?pn=US0492130 5__ ). Can the gentleman who patented it go to all the companies who manufacture wheel barrows and tell them that the wheel barrow is his intellectual property? No-- the wheel barrow has been in use for hundreds of years. It would never hold up in court.
The same situation applies for "retrieval and organization" of data from a database. Hell, that would mean that ATM's are older than terminals-- technically, using vi to view a textfile via a telnet session is retrieving an organized piece of information from a database.
This *is* slightly different, however, from the LZW/gif compression thing. The patent existed *before* it was used for gifs-- so the company (even though they sat on the patent) can still enforce it. Just one of the idiosynchrasies (sp?) of patents...
But, then again, IHNLE (I have no legal experience).
Thanks VanL for an AWESOME post and some excellent research.
Can anyone see where their isn't a TON of prior art for each one of the patents listed here?
This single post is probably the strongest case against software patents that I have seen in sometime.
It is proof positive that there are companies out there patenting algorithms that have existed for decades and longer and the US patent office just blindly rubber stamps them so as to let the court system establish the actual validity of the patent through litigation.
Why on earth else would a company patent something that appears a generic description of client-server computing, or one that essentially describes generic load balancing if not to have them available to pull out of their pocket one day to throw in the face of some other wealthy corporation as a means of extorting money from them.
I cannot believe that NCR actually would expect one of these patents to hold up in court if challenged, but they may plan to use them to extort a settlement out of a company (like AOL/Netscape) who's legal department decides that the issue is "not worth" taking to court.
Perversion of the Legal system and the patent system like this has GOT TO STOP, or, as an earlier post suggested, all information technology will flee the US in favor of operating under governments who are not so stupid and do not pander so obviously to unscrupulous wealthy corporate special interests.
The patent office needs to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves also. They are supposed to screen patent applications, and not issue patents on ideas for which there is prior art. What they actually do is just pass everything (at least in the area of software or algorithmic patents) and just let the court system sort the mess out. It was never intended to be that way.
Whoa thats scary. They own every single letter :) HAAH
But I noticed that none of
thenumber#.com's are owned anyone want to buy #1-12 and give them to CTW could be a tax writeoff
Maby it is just me, but I have yet to see a patent as of late that wasn't reverse engineerable (atleast to the extend of what would be covered in the patent). Now adays if someone invented the transistor, they would process the "Making of an electronic gate by which through the flow or lack there of, of electrons into a container causes the opening or closing of such gate to allow a free flow of electrons." Or something like that, never quite describing how the hell you did it, but keeping other people from doing the same thing unless they took apart your transistor and figured it out themselves.
"I know you got me on this silly monopoly thing, and that other Java thing but we'll get you yet you.. you.. you mean person!"
--Microsoft to Netscape re: NCR patent infringement suit.
D. Keith Higgs
CWRU. Kelvin Smith Library
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
I hope the USPTO web site database doesn't violate any NCR patents...
...
This looks like a general patent on client-server computing. Considering that this patent is dated April 2, 1997 (Granted July 13, 1999), Isn't there a lot of prior art?
It looks more like a more specific patent on a system to allow an application being run on one system to be seen and operated by one or more remote systems. There's a ton of prior art on that.
From 1988 to 1990, I did university research that led to software the does just this. The first system replicated full-screen dumb terminal sessions. The second, called XTV , did it for any X11 application. We published the following paper on it:
XTV: A Framework for Sharing X Window Clients in Remote Synchronous Collaboration
Proceedings of IEEE TriComm '91, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, pp. 159-167, April 1991.
Similar projects had previously been done elsewhere, but ours was the first that didn't require a special X server or client libraries.
I'm not sure how NCR thinks Netscape infringed on this patent, but I'm sure some judge will get to hear their lawyer's explanation. This ought to be interesting.
So at one point during my software engineering course all those years ago, they brought in a Patent Lawyer who just happened to have a PhD in CS (apparently it is very common to be a patent lawyer and to also have at *least* a masters in your patent field of expertise.) And here's what I remember him saying about patents.
1) You can patent almost anything.
2) If your process is the same as another patented process, but has one aspect which is different, then it does not fall under the other patent.
What what?
Say JOe Mega Corp down the street has a patented process for making wedges. And their patented process uses a 1/2" brush to paint their wedges. You realize that you could make better wedges faster if you use a 2" brush. Bam. New process. New patent. It's called innovation. Then again, if the patented process uses a brush of un-described size, then you are in violation of the patent. So you change your process to use spray paint. So you open up a competing wedge business, and the other guy can't do squat about it.
How was this point illustrated to the class? Microsoft has a 4 step patent on spell checking documents. Why haven't they sued anyone? Because every other spell checking process is more evolved, with multiple differences in process.
Software patents are a necessity at this point in time. When used appropriately they help the little guy has to protect his work against the big bad corpoaration who want's to steal his idea. You just have to make sure that your patent description is strong enough to defend against all the guys out there with the 2" brushes hanging in their garages.
And maybe the NCR/Netscape battle is about netscapes enterprise servers? They do have more products than just a web browser...
If you do think you have a patent, first get your description/plans notorized. get a lawyer to help you out with the submittal. It may cost a little more, but your patent proposal will be that musch stronger when its done. Why the notary? There was this college kid to invented this thing called the laser within weeks of a college professor. The professor got his big corporate friends to help with the patent, so it was submitted and approved first. And so begins the lawsuits. The college kid eventually won becuase a) this process was better and b) the date his notes were notarized was a week before the the professor got his notarized.
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
I'm sorry, but I can see absoulutly no reason that NCR can claim 'irreperable harm', nor even 'harm'! NCR, a largish manufacturer of cash registers, ATMs and the like, and Netscape, a web browser/portal, have virtually no business overlap!
Has NCR lost sales of their ATMs because Navigator uses the same data cache mechanism? No.
Has NCR lost POS customers because Netscape incorporates a low-level feature that they have a bogus patent on? Nope.
Is Netscape a threat to their dying PC division because of patent infringement? Not likely.
I think it a little more likely that NCR has an outstanding patent infringement claim with a company in direct competition, and that they are using this attack on Netscape as some sort of sick leverage.
'Golly, they can hit up a BIG company like AOL! We'd better cave!' Pshaw. I hope this goes to court and NCR gets crushed.
.sig: Now legally binding!
In any case, NCR is a huge company with a legacy name. It shouldn't be surprising that NCR has patents that have bearing on Netscape. They obviously don't "just make cash registers".
"I don't agree with you on that. Why would a company invest millions of dollars in research if anything they discover can be taken by some open source hippy who gives it away for free."
This is in error. Since when is an 'open source hippy' going to be able to market and distribute his product as effectively as a company with millions of dollars for research? It's a ridiculous suggestion. Something like, say, Linux, took _years_ to get into the mainstream, with thousands, _millions_ of 'open source hippies' pushing. A single person wanting to romp off with somebody's IP is going to be quickly clobbered by inability to execute his plan, or deliver on his promises of product and distribution.
Since it isn't going to substantially affect the big companies anyhow, why _shouldn't_ patents be abolished?
A lot of people have noted that the patent system appears to be broken, with respect to software (or algorithms, processes, orbits, et al.)
Some have suggested tossing out the whole system and not permitting software patents at all. But I'm wondering if there might be some good to patents after all, and that this would throw the baby out with the bathwater. Ignoring how patents are used _now_ and whether they are operating according to plan or not, here is what it seems like the intent behind them is:
The patent office serves as a watchdog organization principly to assure that the item is not something that has already been done. It also registers the method of creating the invention so that others can save the work of recreating it later.
I think that the problems that we're having with software patents are not so much that software patents are wrong, but that they aren't properly following the patent system's intent. Here is I think it could be corrected to work as it was intended (with a couple additions for added safety, just 'cause we can):
Rather than registering a "concept" for a piece of software, you register the implementation of the software itself. I.e., the source code. For a period of time you are permitted exclusive use of that particular implementation of the concepts in the code, and can take legal action against those who copy it, with the full backing of the government. However, at the expiration of your patent, the source code becomes public domain (or perhaps GPL?) I suspect the life of the patent should be reduced to, say, 3 years - enough time to allow you to implement and market your idea, and build a brand name, but short enough so that the public can make use of your ideas themselves, later.
The current difficulty for the patent office to verify that the patent application is new art is greatly simplified; they can "diff" the code (figuratively, if not literally) against existing code. Checking for infringement is also much simplified - one need only compare the patented code against that of the accused infringer - if the patent office's computers determine a sufficiently high level of correlation between the software, it infringes, else it's kicked out.
One of the reasons I think the above process is better than the current patent process is that the whole procedure can be computerized and automated. You'd only need humans to take care of appeals and cases that the computer can't figure out.
I think this might result in *more* software patent grants than currently, but the breadth of those patents would be less; someone might get a patent for a program that uses a particular kind of genetic algorithm to create machine code for teaching Furbies to wash dishes, but not on "use of algorithms to create source code for embedded applications". The use of the same process for making Furbies read books to children would be a different patent.
An individual inventor could then come up with a unique new idea and have it protected while he builds a company around it and IPO's. A large company with deep pockets would have to do a lot of software development in order to get really broad patents (and then give all that code away to the software community after a few years).
Anyway, assuming that software patents are indeed necessary, I wonder if the above concept would be a lot better than the current one.
Bryce
Does anyone think it's odd that these formerly relevant computer companies (who are trying to better their position with Microsoft) are suing Netscape?
...
Of course, this also points out how useless patents for software are, but that's a different topic
James
Fortunately, the US is becoming less and less important as other, more populous countries, enter the information age. 260 million people are allot, but pale in comparison to China's or India's billion, or even Europe's 340 million. Losing the American market would hurt now, but in five years time it will hurt considerably less, and in fifteen years it will hardly be relevant.
As I argued in another (much longer) post, the ability of the US government is limited to destroying its own software industry and intellectual base -- the government's foolish policy of allowing software patents could put a dent in the Open Source movement here in the US, but it will not be able to stop the movement from thriving elsewhere. They will only be able to impotently look on, while the rest of the world, unfettered, catches and surpasses us.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Lots of these formerly powerful dinosaur-era computer makers have been taking this approach - countering their own declining profitability (and all that that drives, such as their ability to attract capital and talent) by using whatever resources they still have - mainly "intellectual capital" - to take whatever they can get.
The Wang lawsuit has already been mentioned. Another is Datapoint, which has pretty much dropped off the scope in computing these days, but used to be a very innovative company (first real LAN [ARC]; influenced the development of the first mass-market microprocessor; had real desktop computers in the '70s [the 2200 series, and later the 1500 and 1800]; kept Ted Nelson of Xanadu (in)fame around for a while; etc.). I learned programming on Datapoints in the early '80s; back then they had a pretty impressive, albiet proprietary, environment. (though their proprietary DATABUS language sucked jagged rocks).
Like most of the other proprietary vendors they lost bigtime as Unix and killer micros took over in the late 80s. Datapoint refocused on video conferencing technology, and picked up a number of patents on video compression technologies (that's not my field so I can't provide details). As their revenues from their old-line areas declined, and as they haven't become a force of consequence themselves in the video market, these patents have become their chief revenue earners through licensing. And they've become very litigious in enforcing them.
Does anyone have more information on the patents? I hope this is at least some really cool indexing scheme or something, cause otherwise this sounds just plain ignorant. I have several web-based data apps, am I in trouble?
Software patents strike again!
*SIGH*
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
It seems that one of the things that all Slashdot readers agree on is that software patents are not evaluated properly before they're given out, leading to frivolous lawsuits that cost innocent organizations gobs of money. How do we wake the patent office up?
How about this: why don't all of the organizations that have been hit by frivolous lawsuits file a class-action suit against the patent office for damages? The only ones that could file for damages are those where the court ruled in their favour and effectively nullified the patent.
Nothing motivates an organization to change its ways like being slapped with a lawsuit to avoid such things in the future!
---
-- Will quantum computers run imaginary-time operating systems?
The more I reflect on the situation of software patents, the more scared I become. The large number of bogus patents is not only a threat to the open software movement, but to the US as a whole (sorry non-US readers). You think that non-US companies give a damn about our patent mess. No Sir! But coast to coast, US companies are scared of infringing in some bogus patent and having to defend itself in court. The system desperately needs reform - and quickly.
[Sig: The box reads "Requires Microsoft Windows NT or better," so it must run on Linux.]
Right now these sorts of frivolous lawsuits appear whenever a software company is acquired by another company with deep pockets. I say frivolous, because that is what the patents are which are being granted so irresponsibly by the USPO. The hope is to get some extortion cash out of those deep pockets in a settlement, not in a trial where they might actually have to defend (and have overturned) the patents themselves. Ironic that the lawyers and politicians have managed to distort our democracy into a society where legalized extortion and legalized bribery has become an institution, but I digress.
In the not so distant future, as Free Software and Open Source begins to make a real impact, we can probably expect this phenominon to shift, where lawsuites are aimed at entities (and probably individuals) without deep pockets. Not for the purpose of getting a settlement and some easy cash, but for purposes of disrupting and even destroying (financially) the entity in question, who presumably cannot afford to defend themselves in court. Countless opponents of software patents have been warning us of this ugly scenerio for quite some time.
Fortunately, I do not think things are as grim as that. In the worst case, where a government of lawyers, by lawyers, and for lawyers refuses to correct the software patent absurdities and such frivolous abuses of the legal system stymie and even crush the Open Source ventures, all that will happen is that progress moves overseas (where governments have been much more intelligent with respect to patenting in general). So Red Hat moves their headquarters to Europe. So Linus Torvalds telecommutes from Helsinki. Linux and Open Source will continue to thrive outside of the US, while progress in this country stagnates beneath a horde of litigation.
The best minds in the industry will undoubtably follow suit, reluctantly at first, but then in greater numbers, moving to places where they can practice their art unhindered by such foolishness. In this scenerio one of two things will happen -- either legislation will be passed to correct the situation, or the United States will experience a brain drain with respect to information technology and eventually become a backwater to the rest of the world. Of course, then the politicians will be blaming some kind of "unfair trading practice" when they discover that all the high paying and expertise have gone overseas, all the while ignoring their own complicity in devastating the American software industry. It has already happened with cryptography, and none of those responsible show any sign of recognizing their own rather obvious roles in what has happened.
Of course, this won't matter to us much. Free Software and Open Source, be it Linux, FreeBSD, or Joes New Quantum OS, will thrive and grow, just as Open Source always have. What will it matter, that a nation of 260 million people with their heads up their collective ass will have complacently watched their government drive yet another prosperous industry overseas?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Don't jump to conclusions and assume that it has to do with their browser product. It's quite possible that they are being sued over some server database app that does data mining, using techniques that NCR 'owns.' That's only a guess, though. Too bad the CNET article wasn't a little more detailed.
_______
2B1ASK1
"Quite frankly, I think that all patents ought to be done away with."
I don't agree with you on that. Why would a company invest millions of dollars in research if anything they discover can be taken by some open source hippy who gives it away for free. I think the basic notion of protecting new inventions from being stolen is not a bad idea.
Of course the situation has gotten out of control when software is considered. The solution is not to throw away the concept of patents but rather to enhance it.
Such enhancements could be:
- better selection at the patent office. Clearly these guys don't have a clue about what they are doing. A suggestion could be to involve experts from the field in the selection process.
- restrict patterns to algoritms rather than vague methods for fro instance retrieving information from databases. Algoritms usually are the result of real research. While retrieving information from a database is a goal rather than a technique. To be patentable, a technique should be sufficiently concrete.
- a way to terminate a pattern if somebody shows that what has been patented was in fact invented and used elsewhere before it was patented. Right now the only way to get this done is being sued by the patent holder and winning your case. This would be an ideal way to kill the thousends of pointless patents in use right now.
Under the above restrictions I think software patents are not a bad thing. They encourage research and thus stimulate advances in technology. Being a researcher I like the idea of not working for nothing. It would really piss me off if I would invent something useful and somebody else would make loads of money with it, leaving me without a legal foot to stand on. Maybe I would give it away. But it would be my choice to do so. Maybe I would try to make some money from the invention either by selling it or by creating a product based on the idea. In either case the protection of a patent is a good thing.
Somehow I don't think copyright is sufficient to provide this protection. With software this would mean that
- you need a piece of code implementing your idea
- only the code not the actual idea is protected. I.e. a clean room implementation of the idea is not covered by the copyright. Example: a particular photo of a sunset is covered by copyright but that does not mean that a similar photo infringes on this copyright.
Jilles
Remote collaboration among host computer running host program and remote computers each running application program
The invention concerns using multiple computers to hold a conference. Under the invention, an application program can run on a single computer, yet remote participants can issue commands to the program. Remote participants can watch the program operate, because the invention replicates the display window of the running program onto the displays of the remote computers. Any participant can make annotations on the participant's own computer display. The invention copies the annotations to the displays of the other participants.
This looks like a general patent on client-server computing. Considering that this patent is dated April 2, 1997 (Granted July 13, 1999), Isn't there a lot of prior art?
Method and apparatus for providing shared data to a requesting client
A method and apparatus for providing object data stored in a database management system to a receiving client. The method comprises the steps of receiving a database query from the client on a first communication path, transforming the database query into database management system commands, transmitting the database management system commands to the database management system, receiving a response from the database management system, the response comprising an object locator identifying data responsive to the database query, compiling an answer set comprising the database management system response, transmitting the answer set to the client on the first communications path, receiving a data request from the client comprising the media object locator, establishing a transport session with the client on a second communication path, and transmitting data identified by the media object locator to the client on the second communication path.
This sounds like any site with a database powered back-end infringes.
Method and apparatus for extending a database management system to operate with diverse object servers
A method and apparatus for extending a database management system to operate with diverse object servers. The apparatus comprises a federated coordinator for accepting client commands and translating client commands into relational database commands and object server commands, a plurality of object servers coupled to the federated coordinator, each object server for storing and retrieving data objects identified by object data surrogates in response to the object server commands from the federated coordinator, and a relational database management system coupled to the federated coordinator for storing and retrieving object data surrogates and for transforming relational database commands into an answer set comprising an answer set data surrogate.
Not sure, but this sounds like load-balancing on the aforementioned database-driven web site.
Method and apparatus for extending existing database management system for new data types
A method and apparatus for extending a relational database management system performed by a computer to manage object data stored in an object server having a processor and a data storage device. The method comprises the steps of receiving a database command including a store command and object data from a client at a federated coordinator, generating a data surrogate unique to the object data, associating the data surrogate with the object data, and storing the data surrogate and the object data in the data storage device in the object server.
MIME types?
Annotation of computer video displays
A system in which multiple computers engage in a collaborative video conference. One computer generates a common image which is distributed to the other computers. The invention allows the users of the other computers to annotate (that is, mark up, bydrawings and text) the image at their respective computers. The invention replicates the annotations at the other computers. One type of annotation allowed is "highlighting," wherein a user drags a cursor across a display, and the invention leaves a colored trail behind the cursor, which is transparent, and does not obscure the underlying images.
Document Sharing? "Whiteboard" technology? Heck, it even sounds like VNC might violate this one.
Targeting advertising in a home retail banking delivery service
A practical system and method for the remote distribution of financial services (e.g., home banking and bill-paying) involves distributing portable terminals to a user base. The terminals include a multi-line display, keys "pointing to" lines on the display, and additional keys. Contact is established between the terminals and a central computer operated by a service provider, preferably over a dial-up telephone line and a packet data network. Information exchange between the central computer and the terminal solicits information from the terminal user related to requested financial services (e.g., for billpaying, the user provides payee selection and amount and his bank account PIN number). The central computer then transmits a message over a conventional ATM network debiting the user's bank account in real time, and may pay the specified payees the specified amount electronically or in other ways as appropriate. Payments and transfers may be scheduled in advance or on a periodic basis. Because the central computer interacts with the user's bank as a standard POS or ATM network node, no significant software changes are required at the banks' computers. The terminal interface is extremely user-friendly and incorporates some features of standard ATM user interfaces so as to reduce new user anxiety.
If netscape has anny "virtual ATM" deals that they have set up with banks, then this might infringe. but wouldn't IE infringe also?
Just my own comment: These were all granted within the past three months. The certainly didn't waste much time. I wonder if AOL's new arrangement with Netscape encouraged this little venture.
But if this patent is related to other Netscape products, what else could it be? Everything Netscape makes that I can think of has been done already - from web servers to commerce products. I don't understand why they're being singled out.
(hopefully this post won't get lost :)
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Henson Productions has recently announced their intention to bring suit against Netscape for using the letter N as a logo. Henson lawyers have stated that the letter N has repeatedly been used to promote Sesame Street, and is therefore considered a trademark.
Henson lawyers went on to announce their ongoing partnership with Microsoft, regarding their innovative usage of the letter E to promote Internet Explorer. While the letter E has been used to promote Sesame Street as well, Henson Productions legal staff claims no intention of seeking damages from Microsoft, citing that E is a vowel and as such is more easily licensed to other parties. When questioned if this decision had anything to do with the $1billion donation from Bill Gates to the Henson Foundation, the lawyers replied with "no comment".
In other news, the head executives of A.O.L. have resigned for undisclosed reasons.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Seven of the nine (yes, I get it) patents could be:
United States Patent 5,748,188
Hu , et al. May 5, 1998
Hypertext markup language (HTML) extensions for graphical reporting over an internet
Abstract
A hypertext data processing system wherein graphical data is sent from a server to a client computer using extensions to the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). The client computer parses the graphical data and formulates an object representative of the graph to display. The object is passed to a graph server which displays the graph.
By the wording, it seems that any browser which accepts a graphic which represents a graph is in violation of the patent. If my memory serves, graphics were being used prior to May 5, 1998
United States Patent 5,951,652
Ingrassia, Jr. , et al. September 14, 1999
Dependable data element synchronization mechanism
Abstract
Described is a mechanism for dependably synchronizing data element activities on web pages among a group of browsers. The web browsers retrieve web pages from an HTTP server. Each of the web pages contains at least one data element and embeds a Master Applet and at least one DTS Applet (DTS stands for data tracking and synchronization). In response the data element activities (such as entering data into a data field) performed at a browser, the DTS Applet passes the activities to the Master Applet, which in turn reports the activities (together with the URL of the web page on which the data element activities have occurred) to a tracking server. The tracking server sends the activity report (together with the URL of the web page on which the data element activities have occurred) to the Master Applets at all participant browsers. The participant Master Applets then instruct their respective DTS Applets to display the data element activities on the web page identified by the URL.
This one mentions http and the word applet so I'm sure they are suing for violation of this one. Netscape uses Last-modified for "element syncronization" but I don't think that this patent would cover that. I'm not sure how broad "Master Applet" can be.
United States Patent 5,951,643
Shelton , et al. September 14, 1999
Mechanism for dependably organizing and managing information for web synchronization and tracking among multiple browsers
Abstract
Described is a mechanism for dependably organizing and managing information for web synchronization and tracking among multiple consumer browsers. A session is created for each of one of the consumer browsers when an individual consumer downloads an initial web page from an HTTP server. A unique ID is assigned to that session. After the session has been created for an individual browser, the information about the all activities from that consumer browser will be recorded into the session. Such a mechanism overcomes the difficulty to organize and manage the activities from the multiple consumer browsers that are in stateless nature.
Any server which sends a cookie to the browser to track the browser's activity is in violation of this. I'm sure this has been done prior to September 14, 1999
United States Patent 5,941,957
Ingrassia, Jr. , et al. August 24, 1999
Dependable web page synchronization mechanism (As opposed to undependable web page synchronization?)
Abstract Described is a mechanism for dependably synchronizing web pages among a group of browsers. Each of the web page embeds an applet. In response the activities (such as loading or unloading of a web page) performed at a browser, the applet reports activities (together with the URL of the web page) to a page synchronizing server, which in turn relays the activities (together with the URL) to all participant browsers. The participant browsers can load and unload the web page according to the report of the activities.
Any browser that is capable of running an IRC applet would seem to be in violation of this patent since the IRC server relays the activities to all browsers running the applet. Again, IRC applets have been in use prior to August 24, 1999.
United States Patent 5,870,746
Knutson , et al. February 9, 1999
System and method for segmenting a database based upon data attributes
Abstract
A system and method for allowing a user to segment and partition a database based upon attributes associated with the data in the database. Also, a system and method for generating a report for a user which allows the user to make decisions, without requiring the user to understand or interpret data itself. A database computer includes a database containing the data. The data includes a collection of information about an enterprise of the user. A server computer is coupled to the database computer and executes a database management program. A client computer is coupled to the server and executes an application program. The application program allows a user to define predetermined data types, to define relationships between the data types, to define parameters for the report, to define a method of analysis for the report, and to create the report. The report summarizes the data in terms of the data types, the data relationships, and the method of analysis.
Several things strike me as potential infringements. First, my netscape cache directory is partitioned into a bunch of directories (00, 01, etc.), depending on the definition of database, this could be a partitioning of a database. Second, a user can click on a link to have a browser create a "report" based on the html that it receives, the user need not understand html himself.
United States Patent 5,721,903
Anand , et al. February 24, 1998
System and method for generating reports from a computer database
Abstract
A system and method for generating a report for a user which allows the user to make decisions, without requiring the user to understand or interpret data itself. A database management program executed by a server within a system for generating the report for the user includes a first subsystem for translating user requests for data, for generating dimensional queries for retrieving data from a database, and for processing user modifications to data types used in generating the report. A second subsystem coupled to the first subsystem reads data from the database, creates the data types, creates a mapping of the data types to the data, uses the mapping to translate user-initiated dimensional queries received from the first subsystem into Structured Query Language (SQL), and returns query results to the first subsystem. A third subsystem creates the report at a predetermined time.
A browser allows users to make decisions without understanding the data by allowing users to click a link without understanding html
United States Patent 5,710,900
Anand , et al. January 20, 1998
System and method for generating reports from a computer database (Hmmm, this looks familiar)
Abstract
A system and method for generating a report for a user which allows the user to make decisions, without requiring the user to understand or interpret data itself. An application within the system includes a graphical user interface (GUI) which allows the user to select and specify the parameters for the report, display the report, print the report, and save the report. A folder management subsystem allows the user to create a folder object for storing the report within the database, store the report within the folder object, and retrieve the report from the folder object using the GUI. A business information setup subsystem allows the user to create data types and create and constrain relationships between the data types. An analyst definition subsystem allows the user to select an analyst representing a method of analysis to use in generating the report using the GUI. Finally, a viewer module displays the report.
This seems the same as the last one, but the application neeeds a GUI to infringe on this one. Lynx is safe, rejoice!
I work for NCR and I think that I can shed some light on the thought process behind the lawsuit and NCR's position in all of this.
Before I begin, let me say that I am not speaking for my employer in any way. These comments are merely those of one who is familiar with the company and it's goals.
NCR is a 100+ year old company, and started out making cash registers (National Cash Register). NCR moved into making electronic cash registers, then ATM's and point of sale equipment, with NCR servers providing back end support. NCR realized that services and software were the most profitable sections of the company, and is now positioning themselves to be a solutions company, with Data Warehousing being emphasized above everything else. NCR currently outsources most hardware manufacturing to other companies.
NCR is counting on their Teradata product line to move the company ahead into the year 2000. Databases and solutions to make those databases work with other systems (ATM's, point of sale equipment, etc) are now the focus of the business. The patent infringement was probably with a Netscape server product that accesses some sort of back end database. NCR could care less about the browser. Since NCR's database products are the key to the business, NCR is trying to protect them as much as possible.
After all, if it was just the browser, wouldn't NCR go after Microsoft as well?