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Microsoft Loses South Korea Patent Ruling

Posted by Zonk on Tue Nov 28, 2006 08:42 AM
from the shouldn't-a-company-with-that-much-money-be-smarter dept.
Patents Government The Courts Microsoft News Politics
mikesd81 writes "Ars Technica is carrying an article discussing Microsoft's denial for an appeal in a South Korean patent infringement case. The case focused on the automatic translation between English and Korean in Microsoft Office and was brought against the company in 2000. The Supreme Court of South Korea ruled that the patents are effective for technologies switching the input mode between Korean and English." From the article: "Technology firm P&IB, which sued Microsoft on behalf of Professor Lee, wants Microsoft to ante up to the tune of W70 billion ($75 million) in a separate lawsuit covering damages. 'Microsoft adapted our technologies to its Office package without dealing with Prof. Lee and it claimed the patents were not effective in the court,' P&IB President Kim Kil-hae told The Korea Times."
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  • The article says that this could 'prevent Microsoft from selling Microsoft Office in South Korea'... that's how you stop a monopoly: block it from selling a monopoly product. Fines don't really do anything to Microsoft, but anywhere they are prevented from selling even just one piece of their software blanket is a huge blow to their long-term strategy.
    • that's how you stop a monopoly: block it from selling a monopoly product.
      Brilliant! My mother used to refer to this strategy as "cutting off your nose to spite your face". Just imagine back in the days of the railroad barons - all right, nobody can ride trains anymore. Back to horses-and-buggies for you so we can teach that nasty monopoly a lesson they won't soon forget.
      • Just don't allow *their* cars to run on the rails while letting others.

      • Re:busted! from TFA, maybe can't sell office (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Hooya (518216) on Tuesday November 28 2006, @09:14AM (#17015684) Homepage
        > Just imagine back in the days of the railroad barons - all right, nobody can ride trains anymore

        well, that analogy is flawed. it implies that if(MS software == railroads && !MS software == automobiles) then { !MS software == (pollution & !efficiency) /* for one */ }

        which, as most of know, isn't true. the analogy works only so far as to establish that by snubbing railroads (cutting off your nose...) we're managing quite well with automobiles. which means that we'll manage just fine without MS software.

        i have a few korean co-workers and i see them using all kinds of korean software that they claim works better than their rivals (a korean antivirus/spamware removing software comes to mind, tho i don't know the name of it). so maybe, just maybe, they already have software that works better in their market and isn't made by MS. there are others that make software too you know.

        i haven't had to use MS software for over 8 years. and i develop software for a living. horses and buggies? if you say so.

        • ... so maybe, just maybe, they already have software that works better in their market and isn't made by MS. there are others that make software too you know.

          If this were true then there wouldn't be an issue, right? How would MS sell any software there at all? This smacks of circular logic. Microsoft is a monopoly so we demand lots of cash from them. But maybe we should ban Microsoft from selling since there are many better, cheaper, home-grown products that could be used instead ... if the first statement

          • You misunderstand this issue and then apply your "logic". Where is it claimed that this lawsuit was prompted by Microsoft having a monopoly on office software in Korea? It's a patent infringement lawsuit, and would apply equally to Apple had they been the offender. And there are Korean and other Asian office software that compete quite well against MS Office. Hancom Office comes to mind. See http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/tech/200509/kt200 5 091220393512350.htm [hankooki.com]
            • I did not misunderstand the issue at all. You failed to read the poster's comment that I quoted. You are correct that the main thread was about a patent infringement. However, I was addressing the proposal of "how you deal with monopolies" which was made by the parent-poster to my comment. If you want, feel free to jump on him/her for "not understanding this issue."

              BTW, I am glad to hear there are Asian products that compete quite well with Office because competition is healthy and beneficial.
      • There's one little problem with that analogy. If you didn't ride the railroad baron's trains, chances were there literally was no other choice. Can you name one single piece of software that Microsoft sells for which there is no other alternative? Excepting Access (and possibly Excel for certain uses which I am thankfully unfamiliar with), I can't even think of a Microsoft offering that is better than the alternatives. (Note that this does not change the fact that they are a defacto monopoly in many markets
        • Can you name one single piece of software that Microsoft sells for which there is no other alternative?

          Windows OS and Windows Media Player. What else plays files published by a motion picture studio that believes only in WMV? Or would you stretch so far as to say that one should choose an alternative to Microsoft by choosing an alternative to said motion picture studio?

          • I'm not aware of any content that is available in this format only. Please enlighten. It must be a real niche item to be available as wmv but not DVD or some other format.

            • It must be a real niche item to be available as wmv but not DVD or some other format.

              I don't know of any specific titles yet, but it's likely that a title might get released on DVD in one DVD region but not in another DVD region, but is available on one of the WMV rental services. So if one studio releases in your region only on a format backed by Microsoft (e.g. WMV or HD-DVD), would the existence of other films with the same subject matter constitute a viable alternative to Microsoft products? For insta

            • I'm not aware of any content that is available in [WMV] format only.

              You obviously haven't been looking at much video on the web. There are lots of web sites, including some of the big-name "channels", that provide video clips only in WMV format.

              For example, it used to be that comedycentral.com had clips in both WMV and Real formats; some months ago they dropped Real and went with WMV only.

      • Back to horses-and-buggies for you so we can teach that nasty monopoly a lesson they won't soon forget.

        The difference is that we're not talking about getting rid of all the trains, just the Microsoft line. Sure, it's the one covering the most ground today, but that's only because it behaved anticompetitively, and this is where the metaphor breaks down because it's a lot easier to deploy software than rail lines.

        It's not like we actually need microsoft. This is more like cutting off your nose, and rep

    • The article says that this could 'prevent Microsoft from selling Microsoft Office in South Korea'... that's how you stop a monopoly: block it from selling a monopoly product.

      Monopoly? You can't be serious. Off the top of my head I can think of at least two competitors to Microsoft office: Lotus Smartsuite and OpenOffice. One is a commercial direct competitor to Office and the other a free, open-source alternative which I myself use. One of the companies where I used to work used Lotus Smartsuite exclusively
      • Monopoly? You can't be serious. Off the top of my head I can think of at least two competitors to Microsoft office: Lotus Smartsuite and OpenOffice.

        Now, remembering that one definition of a monopoly is having 90%+ of the market, what's the market share of OpenOffice and SmartSuite?

        I'll give you a hint: SmartSuite's market share is less than 2%.

        The mere existence of a possible alternative does not stop something from being a monopoly.

      • Just because they have the majority of the market share and because you personally don't like the company doesn't make Microsoft a monopoly.

        IIRC, it does for the purposes of U.S. antitrust law. If I remember correctly from the Slashdot discussions from 1999, you're legally a monopoly if you have a significant influence over prices in the market.

        Are you suggesting that Microsoft doesn't substantially influence the pricing of office software?

      • The last time I checked no version of Windows prevents me from installing any competitor's software

        What you say is true as of November 8, 2006. However, it will not be true as of January 30, 2007. Windows Vista 64-bit Edition will prohibit users from installing drivers for input devices made by entities that have not incorporated and obtained a code signing certificate from VeriSign. This excludes a lot of hobbyists working on assistive technologies for people with disabilities, for which the estimated $1

  • Input mode switching (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Taagehornet (984739) on Tuesday November 28 2006, @08:54AM (#17015448)
    Are they going to ban Java as well?

    http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/core/basic /intl/faq.jsp#imf [sun.com]

  • No more: 'let them eat cake'? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by postbigbang (761081) on Tuesday November 28 2006, @09:05AM (#17015578)
    Oh those crazy patents. First Microsoft wants to indemnify those estranged SUSE users, but can't pay a poor Korean prof (are any profs paid well enough?) for his patent.

    The double edged sword of patent protection will continue to bite all of us, but in this particular case, there might be a smidgen of justice. Perhaps there's a nice way to treble the damages....

  • The patent itself? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Archibald Buttle (536586) <steve_sims7NO@SPAMyahoo.co.uk> on Tuesday November 28 2006, @09:12AM (#17015652)
    It would be nice to have some details of the patent involved here. So far I've seen none.

    The summary is also confusing. In one sentence it talks about automatic translation between English and Korean, the next it's about switching the input mode between Korean and English. These would seem to me to be two entirely different things.

    As it stands if this really is concerned with switching input modes, then the folks at P&IB may wish to take a look at Apple's Mac OS X too. Since I'm married to a Korean, I've got my Mac at home set up to accept input in English and Hangul (the Korean alphabet). All I need to do to switch between the two is press Apple-Space. Mac OS X is smart enough to remember which alphabet you were typing in inside different windows too.
    • i don't remember what software it was and what context i was using it in but it would switch between devrok and qwerty layouts using the following:

      if you typed "asdf", it would switch from qwerty to devrok and
      if you typed "aoeu" it would switch from devrok to qwerty.

      quite slick. altho i don't see that working for switching languages...
      • Apple's thing will let you switch between Dvorak and Qwerty too in the same way as Qwerty to Hangul. You just need to turn on the Dvorak input method. You can switch between all three if you like, or as many others as you want to add.

    • Re:The patent itself? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ksoonson (121812) on Tuesday November 28 2006, @09:25AM (#17015832) Journal
      With this patent, if you type Korean in English input mode, it automatically converts those string into Korean and changes the input mode also to Korean.

      For example, if you type 'eogksalsrnr' by mistake in English input mode, it automatically converts it into Korean.
      • Cool - thanks for explaining this.

        That would indeed seem to be significantly different from Apple's input method switching.

        Whilst when this is explained it seems a pretty obvious thing to do, it is actually a pretty novel idea, and thus if you're allowing software patents this probably get one. MS probably should just cough up the cash for a license on this one.
        • unless you've actually thought about this, and it was obvious. Check on both (Well I did qwerty and dvorak...but same idea)...and I'm an average coumputer scientist, so it shouldn't have a patent.

          For crying out loud my computer has the following code in the .bashrc .
          And the only thing I "stole" was the idea for an alias named asdf and aoeu
          Guess I shouldn't go to korea.

          asd() {
          xmodmap -e "remove Lock = Caps_Lock"
          xmodmap -e "keycode 66 = BackSpace"
          xset r 66 # set "
          • should have proofread a little better

            the asd function should be
            asd() {
            setxkbmap dvorak;
            xmodmap -e "remove Lock = Caps_Lock"
            xmodmap -e "keycode 66 = BackSpace"
            xset r 66 # set "Backspace" to autorepeat
            }

            and just in case you haven't figured it out. u is an alias for ls (which is annoying to type in dvorak, and f is the character that is output if you're in qwerty and you type a dvorak u (left hand index finger), It's aliased to switch to dvorak and t
      • No wait a second.... my computer does that exact thing for Japanese! Is it easy to now put patents out for a given conversion method for every language possible? Hell, I'm ready to fill my patents for Tswana and Uruk-hai conversion.

        Software patents are a joke.
        -m
      • My major gripe is that this is a seemingly obvious and nice GUI feature. Does it warrant a patent?

        Microsoft frequently gets lashed by the Slashdot community and rightly so, but in this case I support them. I'm sure someone thought of this feature years ago but just did not have the resources to put it into their software. If I were Microsoft I'd say screw Korea - we don't need them.
        • Exactly- for once let there be a country with an MSOffice marketshare of zero. Of course, if the Koreans do just fine without Office that would be a big "#### you" to Microsoft.
        • this is a seemingly obvious and nice GUI feature

          It's certainly a nice GUI idea, but the only thing I can think of that might come close to prior art are the "dead keys" on keyboards that are used to type things like accented characters (like C+, or e+` or the like), and those involve you telling the system in advance that you intend for it to read the next few characters and convert them into something else. After that would be the "Input Method" systems that you tell in advance what language you're typing
  • Though I read the article, I could no find any details on the patent. However, the tone of the article seems it is referring to 'automatic input mode switching' method.

    Very often, people type Korean while the input mode is in English, and vice versa. What the software does, is that it detects the context of the typing sequence, and figure out whether it needs automatic mode change or not. For example, detecting invalid Korean is simple -- the software simply seeks for invalid typing sequences, since each
  • This would be really annoying every time I fell asleep at the keyboard. Of course it would be just like what happens whenever my thumb brushes the touch pad and switches me into Japanese input in linux.. um.

    Look this is a software patent and I am not going to read TFA. There are already ways to automatically detect languages by statistical patterns and morphology, one example I know of is for example the nkf unix program, I quote the manpage:

    One of the most unique facicility of nkf is the guess

  • I for one welcome the Chaos (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bill_kress (99356) on Tuesday November 28 2006, @11:35AM (#17018152)
    Perhaps it will help put the breaks on globalism and the patent/copyright feeding frenzy. It's obvious that we are going to have legal problems, to not resolve them up-front seems pretty crazy, but since greed got us where we are now, maybe it can get us out too.

    Meh, I'm too optimistic.
    • Agreed. I thought only the US allowed software patents. What other countries, besides South Korea and the US do this?
      • Japan is also dumb enough to allow software to be patented.
      • Not only that but the article states
        The Korean Court ruled that a patent issued in 1997 to Professor Lee Keung-Hae at Hankuk Aviation University covered any technology that switches user input mode between Korean and English.

        Any technology.?The patent doesn't even have to be specific. That is another example of why the patent system with respect of software is broken.

        • Any technology.?The patent doesn't even have to be specific. That is another example of why the patent system with respect of software is broken.

          This isn't even a software issue. if the "any" keyword is indeed in the patent, it could go for anything. Any method of propulsion. Any method of steering. Any method of manufacturing. Any...

          This sounds like an overall problem with SK's patent system, and not necessarily one with just the software part.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by njen (859685)
      South Koreans do not blindly support the actions of the leaders in North Korea, they only hope that their countrymen are able to survive the current state of their leaders oppresive control long enough to see freedom. The South Koreans see North Korea as brothers and sisters that will one day find them reunited with each other. Why is it so bad to hope for reunification? Your comments are flamebait as I have never seen any South Korean in support for what the likes of Kim Jong Il has done.

      And what if Micr

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by pangloss (25315)
      BadAnalogyGuy was so much more charming when he stuck to his forte: bad analogies. The political discourse is akin to McDonald's offering healthy menu items ;)

      Anyway, you took an article about a dispute over a software patent and turned it into it's really no suprise at all that the ultra-nationalistic Koreans have found an American company at fault for anything and everything and a backdoor attack on the "American hegemony". Hmm. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

    • Sounds like home... (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The Koreans have long turned a blind eye to the faults and foibles of their own countrymen, holding up globally disgraced heroes as leaders.

      Wow...I didn't realize they had become so Americanized!
    • There is so much bad blood between South Korea and the U.S. over the current diplomatic situation with North Korea that it's really no suprise at all that the ultra-nationalistic Americans have found an Korean court at fault for anything and everything.

      The Bush administration has empaneled the American courts with like-minded ideologues who have either made a career of following his pronouncements to the letter or seen their careers evaporate in a swarm of controversy.

      The Americans have long turned a blind

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by burnin1965 (535071)

      This latest backdoor attack on the "American hegemony" is nothing to be shocked by

      I can't say I know much about Korean politics but they seem to be a close ally with the United States even if they don't always see eye to eye with US policies. But to assume that Microsoft's loss in a patent lawsuit is somehow a backdoor attack is ludicrous. If the guy has a patent and Microsoft violated it then they should respect his ip as they claim they do and pay him.

      On the other hand this seems more like the sad state o

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