Patenting RPC Compression? 121
slantyyz writes "Here's an interesting article in eCompany that talks about a company named TechSearch that buys patents for very common innovations and then chases infringers. One of the patents these guys own involves a remote server compressing and decompressing files. This one is so broad that anyone using a web server/browser is an infringer. Some companies, including United Airlines and Sara Lee have paid the license fees to avoid the legal hassles and costs.
They have even chased a known patent critic for infringing (because he has a web site, which infringes on the patent). This software patent silliness has just got to stop. Only in America..."
So what? There's a reason people pay. (Score:2)
It's important to understand that being in the right, morally or legally, is barely of the least importance here.
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Prior Art (no pun intended) (Score:1)
The defense's lawyers should bring a motion to have TechSearch's lawyers dis-barred for negligent, unethical practices. Hopefully Mr. Aharonian will at least be able to counter-sue on negligence claims and be able to recover attornies' fees.
Obligatory disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, but I do watch Ally McBeal.
What would happen if... (Score:2)
Re:What would happen if... (Score:2)
Scientology's legal harassment is nothing compared to how they invade and destroy your personal life.
If Slashdot attempted to retaliate through litigation, Taco and friends would find that Scientology would pamphleteer the neighbourhood with claims that the geeks are pedophiles, would trick the phone company and ISPs into turning off services, would kill their pets, would harass their parents and friends.
Scientology has done these things in the past. A few minutes research into Scientology will provide you conclusive evidence that their maxim -- "Use *any* means to harass the enemy" -- is ruthless.
They are an altogether evil organization, by any metric you care to use to measure "good."
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Re:The actual patent... (Score:2)
I mean, in most parts of the world, bounty=="bring me the head of ____."
Damn straight I'd donate money to that sort of cause! I want bounties put on the heads of spammers and the asses who are trying to extort businesses through shady patents.
I should think after a few heads have been collected, there'd be a whole new attitude of cooperation and reconciliation!
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Re:My patent (Score:3)
Maybe that's why they call it Andover.net. Because we keep seeing the same damn jokes overAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAndoverAnd
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... but wrong (Score:1)
Re:Only where people are concerned... (Score:2)
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I hope they don't come after Slashdot (Score:1)
It's be tragic to see the former rebel-wannabes shown to be spineless pussies twice in the same week.
Cheers,
Re:flagrant disregard (Score:2)
It's not a good answer, but it would be much less damaging than allowing the current system to remain in place.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Re:On the purpose of patents. (Score:2)
Whatever. The answer is the same. Delete this system and rebuild from scratch. The patent office is so {clumsy|stupid|vile|corrupt} (choose the appropriate categories) that we would be better off without it.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Re:this is why violent revolution was invented (Score:3)
How long do you have food for? I understand from estimates after the last earthquake that the area that I live in has food for about a week without outside deliveries.
Large scale revolution may not be totally impossible, but you have no idea of how difficult it would be, or the amount of suffering it would create. Far better would be to think of another approach. If you want it to be successful, you will probably have to think of one that isn't dramatic. The dramatic choices attract "radicals", so they tend to be discovered quickly and guarded against.
Now for the hard question: How can you guarantee that what you end up with would be any better than what you started with?
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Re:This patenting crap will stop... (Score:1)
Patent # 6,125,324: Use of Chewbacca in Legal Defense.
Whereas the patent applicant has developed a technique involving references to Chewbacca, Chewbacca's homeworld Kashyyyk, and the fact that it makes no sense, as a viable legal defense procedure in both jury and non-jury trials. The references to Chewbacca, et al., are used to confuse the jury / judge, and to render a verdict that favors any and all persons using the "Chewbacca Defense." The fact that it makes no sense makes no sense. The fact that jury trials and judges have existed for centuries in no way constitutes prior art, nor does the existance of the literary and film character Chewbacca since the 1970's. Any and all evidence of the 'South Park' television series episode where the Chewbacca Defense is portrayed are merely figments of your imagination, and do not constitute prior art. Gimme gimme gimme. Sue sue sue.
Re:Will They Hold Up In Court? (Score:1)
Re:Who decides who gets those services. (Score:1)
My point I was trying to make was that is there an arbitrary limit on who gets those services? In other words, to work in the "david vs goliath" style trials, one would definitely have to be the underdog as far as money is concerned.
Secondly, wouldn't it spur a ton of new lawsuits just because "well, now they can defend themselves and they won't just crumble"? Not that just crumbling is right (in fact, that's the key reason for having this...) but my thought is that someone has to pay for the defender/lawyers' time...
??? I just don't see how it can be done. Other than with tax money.
yea, just my contorted input.
Re:Will They Hold Up In Court? (Score:1)
I'd be happy to fing for free. But I guess I shouldn't mention that in a public forum.
Rick
Re:ex post... nah... (Score:1)
Loser pays (Score:2)
A problem that could easily be fixed with a 'loser pays' court system. There is no way a company like this would survive if they had to pay for harassing people with bullshit claims. As it stands, all they have to lose is a little time.
if you want a better and more free life (Score:1)
Re:Damn that's broad (Score:3)
With all due respect, what the hell are you talking about?
If that were true, then Unisys wouldn't have the ability to bully the GIMP and webmasters who create images with a non-licensed program. No one's selling anything. Because Unisys owns the patnent on LZW compression, no one else can USE it, period.
If that were true, then Amazon wouldn't have been able to force Barnes and Noble to eliminate their "one-click shopping" capability on their web site. Barnes and Noble doesn't sell anything but books. Amazon is preventing them from USING the IDEA of one-click shopping.
Make no mistake, when someone files a patent, they're claiming exclusive USE of an idea. From lawguru.com:
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Re:this is why violent revolution was invented (Score:2)
Having said all that a big revolution is not likely to happen here. Instead we will see increased terrorism like Oklahoma City. Right now not enough people are agitated and the Rich and the powerful of this country are very careful to squeeze slowly and constantly bombard the population with the message that everything is cool. The first wave should be to agitate the masses into discomfort. Once you shake them out of their TV stupor then the corpies will might panic and apply overcorrection. Of course this will back fire by agitating even more sheep.
So the next revolution will kick off with mundane stuff like fertilizer, poisoned water supplies, nerve gas released on subways and skyscrapers and of course good old snipers. The west is already agitated beyond belief thanks to Radio Talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh. A huge percentage of the states like nevada, montana, arizona, texas etc are already arming and training. All we gotta do is to nudge them over the edge. Believe me that's easy as these people believe the UN is poised to invade america and that the govt has weather control machines.
"Now for the hard question: How can you guarantee that what you end up with would be any better than what you started with? "
No guarantees. Sometimes you just gotta shake things up and hope for the best. If life is miserable enough then people will tear things down with the hope that what follows can not be worse. The trick is to make life more and more miserable for the sheep. Really your best best to destroy TV receiving satelites or bomb the cable companies. Once you stop the TV the sheep will panic like all hell (man wouldn't that be fun to watch!).
Re:in europe.... (Score:2)
Ironicly (Score:2)
Each of the links, including Slashdot, violate the patent in question.
Re:Will They Hold Up In Court? (Score:1)
A better reform would be the "English rule," where the loser pays both parties' legal fees. If you know that your "fishing expedition" has a good chance of blowing up in your face and leaving you on the hook for big $$$, you would be less likely to bring a frivolous case. Ending the practice of lawyers taking cases on contingency would also put a dent in frivolous suits, though it is admittedly more questionable if such a reform could be implemented.
remote? (Score:2)
Couldn't you do this on old bbs's (Score:1)
Unless I'm reading this wrong isn't this what this is about? Just a thought
Flounder
Re:[XYZ]modem all predate this patent. (Score:2)
Re:Let them kill eachother off (Score:2)
Those who can't, teach.
Those who can't teach, buy patents and sue everyone else.
This patenting crap will stop... (Score:2)
Alternatively, someone might try to defend themselves in court by saying that it is impossible to prove two algorithms are equivalent (because doing so is equivalent to solving the Halting Problem), so you can't really prove infringement. This is of course BS in this context (you can often prove equivalence for a particular pair of algorithms - it's the general case that steps in the Halting Problem), but it might confuse things enough to get you out of court.
No way, man. (Score:1)
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Audio/Video (de)compression via phonelines in 1991 (Score:1)
This may have been theoretically possible at the time, but even RealVideo (TM), today, couldn't do this on a 1991 state-of-the-art '286 over a 9600 bps modem!
I thought the patent office required that the idea be producible?
[XYZ]modem all predate this patent. (Score:2)
They were specifically designed for compressing data across a slow communications link.
In Unix, ftp sites would use "compress" (.Z files)... long before '91.
Digital Cable and WebTV better watch out... (Score:2)
This patent [164.195.100.11] seems to cover Digital Cable and WebTV.
>"Secondly, the remote query and data retrieval system can be connected to the remote host via an auxiliary digital I/O line 37. An example of such a line is derived from a commercial FM broadcast station and uses one of its two sidebands to transmit digital data (so called "silent radio"). This is a low bandwidth (under 2400 baud) channel of the type used to provide announcements on "Times Square" like displays."
The Atvef-A data, used by Microsoft's WebTV gets data from TV broadcasts in just this manner, and that data is used to retrieve AV data.
>"Third, as noted above, the EUS 10 can interface the host 11 via a video input line 26a. This type of signal is derived, for example, from the Cable TV (CATV) Adapter's (i.e. Sprucer) 22 identified above. In an operational example, a remote query could be initiated via the adapter remote control 24 which would then be transmitted to the local cable service center 26 which, by prearrangement, will forward it to the server 11. The query, and its associated response, may be preformulated and prestored at the server 11 or even at an EUS requiring only periodic updates via a packeted query answer (i.e. PQA; a Prestored Query Answer). After being cleared via an appropriate security check (e.g. subscriber password), the server 11 may initiate an AV (Audio-Visual) response to the EUS 10. The channel through which the specified AV response is sent to the EUS 10, and as also designated by pre-arrangement, is tuned via the CATV adapter."
This is how Digital Cable works -- which all cable companies are migrating to.
Re:So what? There's a reason people pay. (Score:2)
The patent office is reviewing this patent, and it's expected to be thrown out upon review (which is why TechSearch has offered web sites to pay "just" $10K now, and $60K after the completed review doesn't reject the patent, to save web sites the huge license fee they're going to charge if the patent isn't overturned). Even the thugs at TechSearch know they've lost this one, and they're just trying to squeeze a few more dollars before the end.
During review, 64% of patents have their claims changed -- this patent is expected to be completely overturned by prior art that goes back to the 50's.
class-action lawsuit (Score:1)
If everybody (within the jurisdiction of the alleged patent) was a plaintiff, surely the cumulative damages would cause TechSearch to go under.
Maybe sue them under anti-trust laws. That'd be a switch, using anti-trust for the common good!
OTOH, even if you accept this absurd "patent" at face value, why would owning a website violate patent law?
If somebody patents an improved wheelbarrow, and a competitor copies (or independently re-develops) the design, and somebody buys one for their personal use, who violated patent law? Was it the buyer, or the seller, or both?
Re:Wonder if they'll sue MS (Score:1)
clarification (Score:1)
Cheap Defense Lawyer (Score:2)
"I could have bought a Harley for the money I've blown on it," he said."
Only a Harley? His lawyer is working pro bono...
Novelty? (Score:3)
Do you recall the old Hayes modem trick of using one second of inactivity before and after the +++ to distinguish it from three plus signs occurring in data so that file transfers wouldn't throw the modem into command mode?
Some coworkers and I invented that.
Not for Hayes, and not that exact procedure, but we did come up with the same general idea, before Hayes patented it. Had the company we did this for not gone under, we probably would have had a legal battle on our hands. We would have won it (IMO, IANAL) on prior art, provided we weren't bankrupted by legal fees (and Hayes was the 800lb gorilla in those days).
The problem here is that we didn't do anything special. Any competent engineer given the same problem would have come up with a similar solution. To me, that fails the novelty test. If you need to challenge a patent, it should be legal to put some random engineer (or even an undergrad) on the stand and tell him or her to solve the particular problem the patent addresses. If their solution is similar enough to the patent, the patent is thrown out.
Re:Only where people are concerned... (Score:1)
The process is slow, but I genuinely think that it works.
Slow, it's almost geological!
The first (and last and only) revolution was in 1649 and the new regime was just as despotic as it's predecessor, as have been all revolutions not very soon after. It is a necessary function of government to opress.
You talk of liberation and when the people rule,
But aint it people who rule right now,
What difference would it be?
Just another set of bigots, their rifle sights on me.
Crass - Bloody Revolutions
How do you define works anyway? Are $10 crack whores a sign of success in a society?
Re:... but wrong (Score:2)
Re:Novelty? (Score:1)
Also, if you would hve relied on your work, and that work had not been made "public", then that, alone,would not be effective to establish obviousness..you would need to show that the technique was generally known to those of "ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention (by the patent applicant) was made"
While IANAL reliance on testamony from engineers would be subject to attack interms remembering what was going on at a date likely many years in the past. Better to have real documents and then argue their applicability to the patent claim at issue.
ex post... nah... (Score:1)
I think it's time to sway our national judiciary attention a little...
Re:ex post... nah... (Score:1)
Date of that "web" patent (Score:1)
FoxPro Home Page [microsoft.com]
Re:hmm, interesting quote (Score:1)
Here's the patent... (Score:5)
Interesting points. The origin appears to be Bell Labs. The patent was originally filed, but according to the legal status link, it looks like the maintenance fees weren't paid, and the patent was allowed to lapse. Apparently AT&T didn't think that it was worth keeping. And then something funny happened. A year and a half later, TechSearch found the patent, paid the deliquent fees and started enforcing it.
Hmmm.....
Re:this is why violent revolution was invented (Score:1)
Re:this is why violent revolution was invented (Score:1)
My patent (Score:2)
I now own a patent for "encoding english language characters for transmission over a network". Muhawhaw, everyone on the Internet is an infringer!
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Re:flagrant disregard (Score:2)
It couldn't be anything to do with...oh let's see...too much ridiculous litigation/sueing/countersueing/patenting blocking real innovation now could it ???
Nah...
Re:Only where people are concerned... (Score:1)
Nice theory but a little reality now.
America is a capitalist country. Which means; those with capital rule and those without are stuck holding the bag and are covered in shit. Case in point. Congress just passed legislation that will totally revamp the bankruptcy laws. Now ask yourself, how many people do you know were demanding this new law? Not many I would guess. This law was purchased by the banks and credit card company's. The same could be said of NAFTA.
My point here is that the way our capitalist society is working seems to be at odds with a democratic society. Now, all you people who are jumping up and down about how this is a republic can just sit down. Either way, democracy or republic, the ability of a small group to purchase laws that benefit them to the detriment of all others seems not to be what the founding fathers had in mind.
Re:if you want a better and more free life (Score:2)
Re:if you want a better and more free life (Score:2)
category (Score:1)
The actual patent... (Score:2)
uh... (Score:1)
why not just say 10.5 years? Why make your readers do math?
Re:Will They Hold Up In Court? (Score:2)
TechSearch is totally reprehensible for doing this... even if it's legal.
As an aside, we need some major alterations to the way lawsuits are handled in this country. When a company can choose to attack an innocent individual and ruin them financially, something is clearly wrong with the system.
I've said it before, I'll say it again -- we need the equivalent of a "public defender's office" for civil suits. If someone files a frivolous lawsuit against you you should be able to defend yourself without going bankrupt. A public defender would see to it that you had legal representation, and hopefully they could get the frivolous suits thrown out of court for you, without you paying a gazillion dollars. If you are hit with a NON-frivolous lawsuit, take your chances with the PD or pay for a high-powered team of lawyers.
Re:Who decides who gets those services. (Score:2)
And yes, it would take tax money. It would work exactly like a criminal defense -- if you get hauled into court, the state will provide you a lawyer. Normally I am not in favor of more government programs, but I'm down with this idea.
Re:Will They Hold Up In Court? (Score:2)
An "English rule" system would probably be great. Man, anything will help at this point.
I have a great respect for the law, and I think people should be able to protect their rights or use the system to get at people who are in the wrong -- but somewhere along the way "the system" went berzerk!
Re:My patent (Score:2)
Then find some congressmen with webpages and sue them. See how fast they try and make the PTO to get their act together.
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Re:The actual patent... (Score:2)
Do I get $10,000 now?
Re:Only in America... (Score:2)
Actually, I did respond. Sent a nice email which answered the questions given. Got a thank you back, and, surprisingly, my name was on the list of contributers on the recommendation.
The sad part is, here I am in the U.S. and I feel like a country 4000 miles away is more likely to take an interest in how I feel about an important issue than my own government. Have you ever heard of Lott, Daschell, Armey, etc.. asking for comments from the general population?
Perhaps a parlementary democracy is the first step towards better representation here in the U.S..
shutting down your opponents (Score:2)
These days the way you do it stopping your opponents is by law suits. Or if you are a small time nobody, you call up your local script kiddy and arrange a DDOS of their website. Or if you have a lot of friends, or people in hire, you spread FUD. Later on, you can go ahead and hire the mafia.
After all, how DARE these guys not believe you, go along with your plan, or whatever.
One of the early books that I read long ago that shaped my thinking on this matter is called Faces of the Enemy, by Sam Keen. Long out of print, it even was a PBS one hour show. It is all about demonizing your opponents
However, I think that these guys are not even up to the level of suing someone over principle.
It is over a plain simple buck.
These people sound familiar (Score:1)
If you replace "purchase patents" with "purchase bad debt" and "TechSearch" with "Bob's Credit Collections" the story plays exactly the same.
My next question is this: if the patent is found invalid, who gets nailed for the defense costs and the consequences?
(I might add that I believe there is ample prior art examples out there that this patent wouldn't survive. Start with AP WirePhoto...)
Re:Wonder if they'll sue MS (Score:2)
Bull-shit. Humm. I wonder if I can pattent the use of the word bull-shit in conjunction with a verb to signify lack of worth.... I'll make millons suing people for infrigning on my pattent!!
Wow, and I thought... (Score:2)
They'd better get on this right away before they lose their rights to it.
Re:Charity (Score:2)
yeah, we'll kill you! but we'll send you bottled water when there is a drought.
or: Yeah we'll kill you! But we allow our employees to volunteer their spare time for community service.
"just connect this to..."
BZZT.
UH OH (Score:4)
"just connect this to..."
BZZT.
Only in America... (Score:2)
Several months ago, I posted comments here asking people to help make their views known to the UK patent office, which was running a consultation exercise.
I remember replies to that comment which basically said "Don't bother, it's all about money, you're wasting your time" - and these were modded up quite highly.
Well the war may not be over, but a battle has been won. Perhaps if a few more of the doom-spreaders got off their a[rs]ses and did something (even ten minutes effort from the very seat you're sitting in now) perhaps laws like the DMCA and UCITA in the US would not have been passed (this comment is, of course, addressed to those Americans who don't support those laws).
Re:Damn that's broad (Score:1)
If TechSearch had such a compelling case, it would have been super easy for them to go after and beat the likes of a Microsoft, AOL or Sun.
Re:Only where people are concerned... (Score:1)
That right folks, save up your pennies and eventually you might be able to compete with the lobbiests and buy your own laws too.
patent slashdot effect (Score:1)
The Unobvious Patent (Score:1)
Now, I know a lot of the engineers here won't subscribe to my notion that ideas should be free and only implementation should be worth something, but shouldn't patents only be for a max of 2 or 3 years in this field? The government grants these mini-monopolies on ideas to encourage innovation, not supress it.
Um... Patents have a tendency to be over used... (Score:1)
Re:if you want a better and more free life (Score:1)
The standard of living is also quite low in the UK, lower than in most other EU-countries and MUCH lower than in the US.
The amount of violence varies a lot across the Europe. UK is quite violent, but I happen to live in the most violent country in western Europe measured in the number homicides and other violent crimes. I live in Finland.
A perfect country doesn't exist. Dispite the lack of "total" freedom and some other foolishnesses, the USA is pretty much the best bang for the buck we (the Earthlings) got.
Janne
Re:if you want a better and more free life (Score:1)
They DO take 22% of the price every time I buy milk and cookies, 70% when I buy gasoline, and about 50% when I buy a new car (or to put it another way: they add 100% taxes to the net price of a new car).
This is how it works here in Finland. Pretty much the same everywhere in Europe, except that the cars and food aren't as heavily taxed in most (if not all) member countries.
Re:if you want a better and more free life (Score:1)
You are right saying that the social system is probably better in Europe than in the US. How well the social system actually works is another thing. Sick people often have to wait a long time to get a surgery, many times too long. Hospitals have too few nurses and doctors.
It's also very, very difficult to get wealthy here. Everyone gets enough cash to get by - but changes of a wealthier life are minimal.
America, on the other hand, is a land of an opportunity. Someone living there can at least dream of a better future.
Re:if you want a better and more free life (Score:1)
Czech Republic probably has many opportunities - but not necessarily for working-class people. If I was a middle-class Czech, I would move out of there as soon as Czech Republic becomes a member of the EU.
Re:My patent (Score:1)
Oh yeah? Try telling that to all the Chinese, Japanese and Russian internet surfers out there! And now, to be half-infringing on that patent...
"Ña ña, ña ña!"
We should use this to our advantage (Score:2)
Yes this is true, however, we should use the current patent system to our advantage. Open Source folks should start patenting the most ludicrous things as well and making the patent "GPL" if you will. Let's make it ridiculously difficult for them to patent anything that they could use to sue people. Since the implementation would include a GPL type clause, this would definately make them think twice.
Stuff like the "one-click" and this stupid "rpc" patent would not exist if we had gotten to it first. I say, we get into the drivers seat and start patenting. Anyone would be free to implement the idea in our patent as long as they released their blueprints for implementation to the public. Let's give these bastards a taste of their own medicine.
Re:And (Score:1)
this is why violent revolution was invented (Score:4)
And (Score:4)
As a (a: long time computer programmer b: fortune 500 consultant c: linux user since 1994) I feel I must speak my mind here. Normally I sit quietly on the sidelines but my voice must be heard. As most professionals in the field I'm sure will agree, I can safely say that as a technology (a: java b: c++ c: OOP d: Visual Basic) has been a complete and total failure. While fans of (same as last selection) have reached the rabid state of a (a: amiga user b: Apple Mac user c:Debian/GNU/Linux user) that cannot detract from that fact that (same as selection 2) is a (a: bloated convoluted mess b: terrible crime against humanity c: the most braindead idea since (a: Betamax b: freeBSD c: Python))
For (a: God's sake b: Buddha's sake c: fuck's sake) how in the hell can they expect us to (a: use a mouse with only one button b: remember to free all the mallocs c: fight for our freedoms when we can't carry a handgun in public)
I have in fact seen benchmarks which (a: show IIS cruching Apache b: even a scientologist couldn't deny c: Linus Torvalds advocates) when compared with (a: the efficiency of the Nazi regime b: OS/2 c: Fortran 77) Why this data is not readily made available to the public is beyond me. I shudder to think that (a: Microsoft is paying to stop the documents from being published b: the one click patent is not valid c: Debian/GNU/Linux is impossible to install) but that is the only conclusion I can come to. Please post information to the contrary if you posses it. Until then I will maintain my position. If you think I am over-reacting let me assure you that I (a: have written a patch which adds multi-threading to the BSD kernel b: have installed Gnome hundreds of times with no problems c: think KDE r0x hard) and my reputation is un-impeachable.
I would like to (a: thank slahsdot for giving me this forum to express myself b: drink potato vodka and have sex with my cousin c: know if these pants make my butt look big)
Yours,
Will They Hold Up In Court? (Score:2)
Charity (Score:3)
Also aparently owning the patent on webservers also means you don't have to label the title of the page. Unless it's supposed to be "untitled document"
Wonder if they'll sue MS (Score:2)
hmm, interesting quote (Score:5)
I was going to post a pithy quip about how these guys are just like the old mob bosses. But then I read this quote:
That's real inspirational. Al Capone.
Too bad this doesnt apply anymore... (Score:5)
--U.S. Supreme Court, Atlantic Works vs. Brady, 1882
(from the article--not bad btw)
Re:Novelty? (Score:2)
I could see it now ...
At the PTO, a random undergrad student, is being selected from a hat:
Meanwhile... on the sidelines:
Corporation Stooge1: "I hope we get Charlie -isn't he failing thermo dynamics.
Corporate Stooge2: "What about Stacy?"
Corporate Stooge1: "Oh no... Stacy has been taking her classes much more seriously after Slashdot mocked her so bitterly about the new OIL formula she botched giving GM that silly patent."
Corporate Stooge2: "Well lets just hope we don't get Alex-
Corporate Stooge1: "Even Good patents get busted by him!"
Corporate Stooge2: "Alright we got CHARLIE- tell the CEO, we can tell the lawyers that it is A GO"
Corporate Stooge1: Starts dialing cell phone.
Nice Business Model (Score:2)
Pr0n (Score:2)
$man microsoft
flagrant disregard (Score:4)
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: [uspto.gov]
Software Patent Institute [spi.org]
Bustpatents.com [bustpatents.com]
invalid/withdrawn/pathetic software patents [bustpatents.com].
"Software Patents Tangle the Web," [technologyreview.com]
Chaotic Internet isn't the word. Congress should enact a law that states all judges must know the fruits and details of a technology based case before trying the case in a court of law. If this was the case (judges knowing and understanding whats going on,) there would be an extremely low amount of mockery of broad laws, and companies would suffer severe penalties for attempting to manipulate the justice system.Amazon.com 5,960,411 one-click purchasing
Amazon.com has used its patent to force changes to Barnes & Noble's Web site.
CyberGold 5,794,210 attention brokerage
Patent covers rewarding Web surfers for paying attention to online advertisements.
E-Data 4,528,643 download-based sales
A judge blocked E-data's attempts to enforce this pre-Internet era patent.
Netcentives 5,774,870 online incentives
One of several recently issued patents covering reward systems for Internet purchasing.
Open Market 5,715,314 electronic shopping carts
This patent may be infringed by many e-commerce sites on the Internet.
Priceline.com
5,794,207 buyer-driven sales
Priceline has sued Microsoft and its Expedia travel site for copying its patented business method.
Sightsound.com 5,191,573 music downloads
Sightsound is demanding a 1% royalty from all online music sellers, and has sued Time Warner's CDNow.com music site for infringing its patent.
And the winner is.... Sightsound who can now sue the entire Internet and 95% of students on campuses worldwide for patent infringement.
An OpenSource company should teach one of these companies a lesson and misconstrue the GPL just to piss these abusers off.
more Patent infringments [antioffline.com]
Re:Will They Hold Up In Court? (Score:2)
The only thing worse than the extortionists are the companies that quietly accept the extortion. In fact-- while it probably isn't the case with this particular patent-- many companies come to cross-licensing agreements (or agreements in which a nominal licensing fee is paid) in order to help each other shore up their own patent claims. This is the sort of anti-competitive behavior that pure capitalists are supposed to abhor, as it involves banding together to convince the gov't to do your work, rather than competing to better meet the needs of the market. But I'm sure you don't see too many investment bankers complaining (as libertarian as they become when deregulation or income tax cuts are at issue.) Sorry if that last bit got a little rantish.
It's Not libel, it's flattery (Score:2)
The company's counsel of choice, a tough-talking trial attorney named Ray Niro, insists that he prefers not to sue, but that sometimes companies leave him with no alternative. "It's unfortunate that you have to litigate," he says. "But as Al Capone said, 'You go a long way in this world with a bouquet of roses. You go farther with a bouquet of roses and a gun.' "
(Meanwhile, TechSearch is suing Intel for libel and slander because an Intel spokesman remarked to the Wall Street Journal that "[TechSearch] exists solely for the purpose of purchasing patents and extorting funds from another company.")
>/i>
TechSearch = Internet Ambulance Chaser (Score:2)
First, we should kill all the lawyers - Shakespere
Re:Will They Hold Up In Court? (Score:2)
Often times it is far cheaper to settle out of court than pay a legal team $1000/hour (or more) to fing a suit like this.
Don't play the lottery. Threaten to sue.
Damn that's broad (Score:3)
Anyone USING a web server/browser? No. Patents don't keep anyone from USING something, they keep someone from SELLING it (as their own).
I was going to explain who it really WOULD hurt, but it brings up a question for the lawyers: Let's say someone patented a system for something like "server-based calculations that are sent in an OS-agnostic and standardized format which is then interpreted and displayed on a client PC". Then Adam Aadvark comes along, starts a company called Association A that makes software S1 that runs on a server and can spit out any data you want. Bob Bankroll starts Business B that sells a standardized format F that works with Assoc A's software S. And Charlie Cookie starts Company C whose software S2 displays the data transported by Business B's format F.
There is no collusion between the companies and the founders don't know each other. The system just evolves by natural market forces. Who is infringing on the patent?
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in europe.... (Score:2)
Only where people are concerned... (Score:2)