Microsoft Nailed by Software Patent 668
An anonymous reader writes "It was just announced that Microsoft lost the case where it was accused of violating Eolas' patent on embedded applications in the Internet Explorer browser. They have been fined $521 million in damages."
Another Reason? (Score:-1, Insightful)
Peanuts (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Another Reason? (Score:4, Insightful)
A Half Billion: (Score:2, Insightful)
amount will be reduced (Score:2, Insightful)
hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let me save everyone some time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hard to know what to feel. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Im so confused!!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Patents = bad
So is this good?
I forget where, but it has been said that two wrongs don't make a right, just even.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Patent whores who just sit around and WAIT for someone to sue.....heaven FORBID they actuall DO anything with their patent.....no, just sit and wait...just like SCO....just like those creeps who screwed EBAY....THIS is the problem with the web today
Before you start bitching about slashdot users... (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not support this ruling, because I do not support patents in any way shape or form. That does not mean the Slashdot community as a whole feels the same.
In fact, it's very hard to determine just what it is the Slashdot community DOES believe, because more often than not it's the negativity that makes it through the ranking system more than anything else.
Some people will call this a great victory for Open Source. I don't. I think it's a travesty, but that's my opinion and mine alone. Other's may or may not agree, but please don't let one person's opinion spoil your view of the entire community.
Bryan
Bad precedent (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to "capture and protect" innovation, companies register more and more patents each year [heise.de], often just to prevent others from suing them. But some companies register patents for the sole purpose of engaging in legal warfare -- a risky gamble with potentially huge prizes.
The biggest danger inherent in software patents is to free software. Megacorporations can easily collect thousands of patents on trivial processes to use against open source programmers who have little means to defend themselves. Wait for Microsoft and others to attack on this front -- that would be nice extra FUD fodder with all the SCO crap going on right now. To ignore software patents as Linus Torvalds does is the wrong approach. They must be eliminated entirely.
And Java applets in Navigator are not prior art? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So Eolas invented COM and ActiveX (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And Java applets in Navigator are not prior art (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's amazing.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Peanuts (Score:5, Insightful)
patent warchests (Score:5, Insightful)
mitomac
Well, then.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Think about that for a while.
Then, moderate this post up as insightful.
Re:It's amazing.. (Score:1, Insightful)
The feds ruled MS a monopoly that broke laws. They imposed no penalties, nor did they impose remedies. This little company just sucked half a billion out of them and were right to do so.
See Microsoft, what goes around comes around. You help SCO fuck linux, and when you're not looking, someone else fucks YOU.
What if this happened to Mozilla and friends? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is a nice target for lawsuits: they're big, visible and have lots of money. However, what if an open source browser had a more significant market share? Wouldn't that same patent-portfolio group come demanding royalties?
This is a more general concern that scares me; it may be tested by the SCO-IBM case(s). Say a company patents some software technology. What if the developers working on that code go home at night and use the same concepts in some open source projects? I emphasize concepts because the developers are smart enough not to copy code, but a patent covers an idea, not a specific implementation.
A lot of this paranoia comes from my co-worker, who is pro-Microsoft and very much anti-open source. He is absolutely convinced that open source is communism, and that it clashes with capitalism. He loves to suggest the above scenario and predict that the GPL will ultimately fail in court...
Finally, back to Microsoft: don't they have over $40 billion in cash? So $500 million is 1/80th of $40 billion. That's like having $400 and being fined $5. Oh, that hurts. Is anyone here an accountant? How much of that gets written off in taxes? It's really a joke, in my mind.
Of course I don't know the details of the case, but $500 million seems weak. Microsoft has said that IE is now a critical part of Windows. Windows and Office are the only two sources of revenue for Microsoft... doesn't that somehow make IE a critical part of their income stream? And they only got fined five bucks for it?
This is very very bad (Score:5, Insightful)
They basically have a patent on any embedded technology in a browser. A lot of people have looked into this, and so far have come up with nothing. The earliest "application" in a browser technology I'm aware of is Vosaic, but I can't get ahold of anything that shows what date that was originally set up.
This screws Flash, Java applets, and all kinds of other things. Watch for more lawsuits in the future.
Re:Another Reason? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:patent warchests (Score:3, Insightful)
None, as far as I know. In a way, that's kind of the point of free software, and it appears to be Linus approach to the whole issue. Having said that, there may well be indivual developers and companies with secret stashes of IP fodder tucked quietly away.
It would be very cool if MS stomps this company on appeal, and hopefully the whole software patent concept with it. But I don't think they will do that - it's probably worth more to them to lose this battle, and have their own "IP" portfolio's worth validated. If that's the way it goes, look out world because there's gonna be one huge bun fight with every opportunistic company pulling out their dodgy patent claims.
This is no victory (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another Reason? (Score:3, Insightful)
If they violate the patent, then no.
Cringely mentioned this case about a year ago... (Score:5, Insightful)
One interesting thing not mentioned in the Rueter's report but expounded upon in detail in the pre-decision Cringely article is that winning this lawsuit may allow Eolas to prevent Microsoft fom any infringing behavior through a court injunction -- ie. they can't use the technology covered under the patent upheld by the court at any price if Eolas decides to do that (since by holding the patent they are not required to license the right to use it to anyone). And they may decide to sell to someone other than Microsoft exclusively the rights to develop software including the patented methods.
This is one of the places software patents are really bad (though in Microsoft's case its a bit of being hoist by their own petard), the exclusivity without compulsory licensing allows Eolas (or any other company with a patented process/method/device) to use their patent as a club to force Microsoft (or anyone else) to do whatever Eolas wants if they need/want to license the patented technology.
This is wrong - forget who (Score:5, Insightful)
like Dennis Miller said, "Why hate someone (for something irrelevant) when, if you take the time to get to know them
be upset and angry at Microsoft for the things they do, not for those things that are not fair.
One can only dream... (Score:5, Insightful)
That being the case, and given the fact that they lost this lawsuit, there are a number of things that could happen:
The interesting question is: which of the above would represent the best thing for the free software community, and how likely is it to happen?
Things obviously don't get any better initially if they cave, though the long-term consequences might be of benefit (if they cave and just pay, then other patent-holding companies will be very much encouraged by that and we'll probably end up seeing many more such suits by such companies, and eventually the big corps will Do Something about the problem, though I suspect the end result will benefit only them and not us).
If Microsoft appeals to the Supreme Court, they can only do so if they have some sort of Constitutional argument. That's not as far-fetched as it sounds, because they can very legitimately question whether or not the patent in question and others like it meets the intent of the clause in the Constitution upon which patent law itself is based. If it weren't for the fact that Microsoft hates to lose and generally tries to win at all costs, I would totally dismiss this as a possibility.
If Microsoft pushes for some sort of legislation, the natural question is what that legislation would look like. My cynical outlook forces me to think that the resulting legislation would somehow raise the barrier of entry for either acquiring a patent or prosecuting a patent so high that only megacorps like Microsoft would be able to participate. Problem solved, along with the problems of these pesky little IP companies and free software types.
Finally, Microsoft could buy the company in question out, but that might be the same thing as IBM buying SCO out as far as end results go, with the end result being that every little upstart IP company will be suing the likes of Microsoft in order to get bought out. If Microsoft has a big enough patent portfolio, then they really don't need to do this and thus probably won't.
I'll bet Eolas is going to get lots of visits from the BSA from now on...
Re:Great News (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they'll just pay to help put caps on jury-awards. That way they can still use the patent laws to bankrupt/stifle small companies/open source advocates who might be competition, but not worry about being put out of business because they ran roughshod over someone else's patent.
So is this good, or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course Microsoft fully deserves to go down for their illegal actions over the last two decades, but I think they need to go down for the right reasons.
Not because some schmuck wants to collect royalties he doesn't deserve.
Re:So Eolas invented COM and ActiveX (Score:5, Insightful)
It's really sad -- the PTO appears to be set up to reward idiots who patent a really simple (but hard to implement) idea and then demand royalties from whoever does actually implement it. There needs to be a big overhaul.
Software patents are vile. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is as stupid a patent as they come: what's a plugin or an applet? Fundamentally it is all in the same family of idea as of linked libraries-- bloody fundamental to every piece of software out there -- except that in this case the software is dynamically downloaded by a browser and then executed within the security context of the browser.
521 million? I'm all for roasting Microsoft when they deserve it, but this is nothing they should have to pay for. Next thing you know Mozilla will get into trouble for having downloadable theme plugins.
Re:Software patents are vile. (Score:3, Insightful)
Patents = Small developers locked out (Score:2, Insightful)
This is yet another victory for the software giants. Heck, even when Mickeysoft loses, it wins.
The problem with the patent office - as most readers will well know - is that they award software patents for methods that are intuitive, obvious (to practitioners of the art), a logical outgrowth of an existing system or something that clearly has prior art.
The effect of all this is that large entities with extensive patent portfolios cross-licence to avoid patent infringement.
What are small developers supposed to do?
Why, we're not supposed to play. Patents are the mechanism by which big business is locking out competition from smaller more nimble startups.
The US patent office is criminally liable for egregiously granting the most bizarre series of competition-stifling patents in history.
Would you like to put a cursor on your screen sir? Patented. Use hypertext links? Patented. Embed access to applications into your browser? Patented.
You think open source is safe? Think again. The list of absurd software patents is so extensive, it's impossible for anyone to develop anything of reasonable utility without infringing someone's patent somewhere.
The fact that there exist companies whose sole mode of business is to scan patents in other jurisdictions and then lodge those same patents in the US is testament to the sheer corruption of the system.
Where I come from we call that theft. Theft of intellectual property. The fact that this can be done in the USA is damning evidence that the Patent Office's intention is not to support the small inventor, but to aid US companies in claiming inventors rights for inventions which are clearly not theirs.
None of the large companies will ever fight this battle in court. They have two much to gain by locking out their smaller competition. Essentially the existing scheme of software patents provides a stunning barrier to entry whose sole purpose is to prevent upstarts from upsetting the main players.
Re:No, but Viola probably is. (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's what's obvious to me in this case: Assume you went back to 1994 and gathered up a random group of 50 competent software developers. Give them the problem of having a server present interactive content to users of hypertext clients. I guarantee that 80% of them would have independently come up with plug-in based architectures very similar to what we see in all browsers today.
We need some way to incorporate such common sense notions of obviousness into the patent screening process.
Amazing grace indeed.. (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes this a rather ironical and humorous case though, is the target - behemot Microsoft. It'll probably be overruled in the next run, but nobody is safe with such laws. Who's going to risk developing stuff when you're sued left and right before you even know somebody filed a patent for it while you RDed? This can potentially kill off alot of inventing. Without somebody with lots of money backing you up, it's a risky business.. Which is what the big corporations want anyways, so maybe Microsoft will settle this one in the end..
It's not amazing at all really, it's Astounding.
Now I understand why they did pay SCO (Score:2, Insightful)
Well check last months MS submissions in Slashdot:
Microsoft's Patent Problem July 23rd 712 comments
Microsoft Settles With Immersion over Haptic Patent July 29th only 28 comments
Microsoft nailed by Software Patent August 11th
So their ass has been kicked, of course they like that the competition will be kicked as well and if paying SCO saved potentially their money plus allowed competitions ass kicked as well it was really brilliant deal.
Re:It's amazing.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, if the administration didn't change so significantly in 2000 (think: complete reversal), im sure M$ would have had a much more tough "justice" department to fend off.
Re:MBA on Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Bill's head, in my opinion has already left. He is looking for greener pastures. He had 651,749,300 shares of MSFT stock on or around November 1st, 2001. He currently has 172,612,893 shares as of 8/5/03. He knows that if he sells any faster, the media will catch on, as they did when Mr. Balmer unloaded around 12 million shares around the 5/30/03.
Follow the money. The smart money is leaving Microsoft.
link [quicken.com]
Re:hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
So I propose to file a patent on a two-click process, so we can go after B&N and Borders who are avoiding Amazon's patent. Then we should file a 3-click, and 4-click, and 42-click patent...
Glad the editors sat on the story to let it cook.. (Score:3, Insightful)
David v. Goliath (Score:4, Insightful)
The two best ways to profit from a bogus patent is to either go for small amounts from small companies that will settle before defending, or to go after the largest companies that jealous lawyers will perceive as having too much money. The courts are desparate to show that they are "for the people" and that bogus patents defend the people.
This is the problem with the current patch work of patent laws, they tend to be more about politics than any thing else.
This ruling is just like the case against eBay that hit last week. The courts want the world to think that patents are helping the little guy, when in fact they are just feeding the legal beast.
Re:Bad precedent (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet, Apple/Microsoft/Sun has done excactly as the Free Software community - copied technology. If you understand programming economics, it's the most economical thing to do: Copy and Extend/Innovate. To build from scratch is very, very, Very hard. And alot of work on top of that. You should try it. People will hate your software because it is "unusual". Most projects fail horribly.. What one needs then is a very strong theoretical foundation, coupled together with commercial ingenuity and a bunch of luck. Frankly, very few on this planet have all that. Programming's still a very new technology, and hardly a science yet. To make it science, you need to share innovation - catch 22. You don't have proprietary bridges by corporation XXX YYY, you have standards and companies doing real service.
There is alot of innovation going on in Free Software/Open Source. You're just looking at all the big glossy projects, which have had some catching up to do. There are myriads of small projects. Some very innovative, others just another editor. It's the way inventing always has been, and it's vibrant community.
Anyways, innovation is in the human creativity. To argue about creativity-differences in commercial/Free Software is pointless. All creativity comes from humans, and we should do everything we can to stop big corporations to highjack that and take the fun out of life.
Patent license still required? (Score:1, Insightful)
If a license is still required it seems like they have Microsoft by the balls. This is a major function of the browser, and can't easily be removed. Couldn't they charge them just about anything to continue using the patent in future products?
Re:Another Reason? (Score:4, Insightful)
No it is not - it is integrated with one of the OS'es. And to get IE you have to buy that OS.
Re:What if this happened to Mozilla and friends? (Score:3, Insightful)
Truth be it told, $5 is better than $0. It's time Microsoft learned a lesson, but this is a crude and unusal way of getting a lesson across. Hopefully Eolas will be honest to it's intentions and not attack netscape/mozilla. They said in the article that they only sued Microsoft because of the way IE seemed to take over the internet, and I'm holding them to their word on this one. Eolas gives me no reason to believe they are bad people.. they are good people with good intentions.. but power corrupts, and I hope they don't get corrupted by the hordes of cash they just raked in...
I truthfully stand behind Eolas on this one, but I'm weary of the double edged sword they wield...
Re:It's amazing.. (Score:0, Insightful)
Second: I hear a lot of whining about patent portfolio companies. If you are in R&D and see, how large corporations continue to slash R&D funds because they don't generate revenue (share holder value) right away you'll understand why IP law suits are not necessarily a bad thing. These companies might not generate a final product but they do produce something of value. R&D is hard work, for those who don't know.
Patent Ignorance (Score:2, Insightful)
what if this were YOUR invention?
should Microsoft be allowed to make profits from the unlicensed and unauthorized use of your inventions?
how is it fair that Bill Gates become richer from your invention while you receive nothing?
remember Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, the Apple II? all of these were groundbreaking products stolen from their inventors (first by Lotus, Corel, and Apple) and then by Microsoft.
where are they now? the technology is dominated by Xcel, Word, and XP.
why? because copyright law was too weak to prevent MS from squashing little people who threaten them - which is what giants do.
software patents are the only tools which exist which enable you to protect YOUR inventions against the giants.
it is irrational that programmers see software patents as a threat and completely fail to see them for the opportunity that they present.
"burn her, she's a witch."
MS lost because they were arrogant. they - like open source developers - refuse to pay for the technology they use and prefer just to take it from the good people who created it.
good for Eolas - like Stac Electronics who sued Microsoft for infringing their stacker technology - it's nice to see the little guy win once and a while.
one day, the little guy may be YOU.
Re:It's amazing.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's amazing.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Peanuts (Score:2, Insightful)
I only ask, because sometimes, things are described by accounting in such a way that it leads people to think one way rather than another.
Same Old Story (Score:4, Insightful)
MS Appeals
Case drags on
MS Settles for $100M
Everyone forgets
Indeed (Score:4, Insightful)
Just you wait 'till companies like IBM with lots of IP starts sinking. The litigations-wars would leave a dry and barren wasteland of a formerly healthy IT-sector. Or they get bought up by somebody without scrouples. Then the former "intentions" are worth nothing.
Corporations are too big and have been given too much power.
Even when it's against someone "evil", like Microsoft. Which I don't believe for a second. Evilness doesn't exist, only ignorance.
I do however, also agree with you. I could have a different tone in my post. It's a way to get a message across I guess. Sorry. You're right, in a way, intentions are everything. If it goes wrong anyhow, it's usually because of bad luck or ignorance. However, don't take their word for their unproven "intentions". The Iraqi Information minister proved once and for all what people will say for the right incentive or beliefs. Believe me, all spokespersons have a little Iraqi Information Minister in them..
Do not give power to people with so-called "good intentions". Look at what they DO instead. Do they live what they preach? Most people don't, really. Then their word is worth nothing, because there is no experience behind it. It's empty without the experience and wisdom behind it.
It's an interesting paradox: Intention is everything, but don't count on it, it's also nothing.
Re:One can only dream... (Score:2, Insightful)
Uh, no. The Supremes can take any damn case they want (and it only takes four votes to do so). They get to decide what the "compelling reasons" [cornell.edu] are. Granted, most cases people know about (and that have a big impact) are constitutional in nature, but you can easily find examples of cases that are not, such as United States v. Cleveland Indians Baseball Co. [oyez.org]
Re:It's amazing.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I know because I own a software company and we have had many patent issues come up in the past. They are insidious evil and retarted. Using defensive patents is the preferred action.
Take a look at Redhat's stance on software patents [redhat.com]. Redhat has a considerable number of patents; all of them used for defensive (i.e. Cross licensing) purposes.
Oh, wonderful... (Score:1, Insightful)
Why, oh why can't people understand that thought isn't a device to be patented? Copyrights are sufficient to protect any proprietary software (plus they're cheaper and last longer) without the side effect of allowing companies to run roughshod over any competition in any way other than honest, you know, competing
Re:How, exactly, does it show silliness? (Score:3, Insightful)
To the contrary, the case shows the seriousness of these law and their claims when properly applied.
It shows silliness because of the content of the patent. This isn't something non-obvious or hard to research. It's plugins! It's like patenting vulcanization and then suing every tire manufacturer after they've been doing it for years. That is the silliness.
Everybody. The patent system has driven R&D in the United States for more than two hundred years.
Nobody said all patents were a bad idea, please pay attention. This is a software patent. There has been every indication [reason.com] that software patents have actually hurt the computing industry in this country and slowed innovation. Then, of course, the fact that we are talking about a specific class of frivolous patents that have prior art but were granted anyway.
There is lots of evidence to the contrary. What do you have to support your proposition.
Again, we are talking about a specific set of frivolous patents, so yes there is alot of evidence that they hurt innovation.
If you say so. Odd how many inidividual inventors seem to make the biggest political push for stronger patent laws, with large companies tending to push for more relaxed "patent harmonization" approaches.
Talk about presenting evidence to backup your claims
Re:Software patents are bad, even if MS has to pay (Score:3, Insightful)
If people created physical laws, then yes, that would follow.
I really don't see why the Slashdot party line seems to be that "software patents are bad." Yes, software is just algorithmic expression, but certainly it is creative algorthmic expression -- and unique software inventions should be patentable.
All sorts of metal clothes fasteners existed before the zipper, yet it was clearly a unique invention.
If "Acme Clothing Connectors" had used the same method, after it had been patented, then they would have infringed.
All sorts of plugin technologies existed before Eolas created a unique method for allowing plugins/applets to run inside IE.
If MS used the same method (which appears to be the case), after it had been patented, then it infringed.
Why is this "idiocy?"
not everything that is creative should be patented (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How, exactly, does it show silliness? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is lots of evidence to the contrary. What do you have to support your proposition.
Hmmh. You call his 'bluff' ("back it up with facts"), while doing exactly the same: claiming patents do benefit society as whole via R'n D, without any pointers to anything to back it up. Just your opinion (and vaguely implying others agree). Gee, that's convincing argument there.
Notice that just because there has been lots of innovation in computers and related things is not a proof; without parallel universe to check, it's impossible to say how alternative would have worked out. Personally I think things would have been quite similar, actually; meaning that although I do consider patents in general (and as implemented in particular) harmful, I think there effect has fortunately been limited. But there's a possibility that may change, mostly because:
Finally, claiming big companies want relaxed patent (copyright, trademark) laws is patently absurd. Tbere are die-hard patent-loving propel-hat inventors, too; but the mix of opinions at individual level is MUCH wider than with corporations. Corporations arae pretty unified in their standing favouring strictly enforced patent laws. These are their weapons of choice, especially when things get tough. PHBs and their ilk like the idea of "new frontier" that "intellectual property" represents. There are just those pesky induhvidualist indians (actual inventors) to get rid of, and then the gold is theirs.
Re:How, exactly, does it show silliness? (Score:3, Insightful)
Excuse me, but the patent system has always been used with real objects and not abstract concepts. It makes sense in that light.
Patents have not been used with "intellectual properties" over the past 200 years. The analog would be an author who patents the idea of a murder mystery, and then sues anyone who actually writes anything that even remotely has anything to do with a 'murder' or a 'mystery'. The same idea, more often than not, is upheld in the software arena for some reason ("1-click checkout", "Embedding code in a browser").
Unless, of course, you're one of those who think we should be paying Einstien's estate for the privilege to talk about the theory of relativity in a magazine article.
Odd how many inidividual inventors seem to make the biggest political push for stronger patent laws, with large companies tending to push for more relaxed "patent harmonization" approaches.
That is a lie. "Patent harmonization" always refers to making patent law as strong as copyright; in other words, patents should last for 100 years. The "inventor" of the murder mystery's great-grand-children would just love you.