BetaNet Sues Everyone For Remote SW Activation 227
eldavojohn writes "Not to be out patent trolled by Eolas, a mystery company named 'BetaNet, LLC' is suing: Adobe Systems, Inc, Apple, Inc., Arial Software, LLC, Autodesk, Inc.,, CARBONITE, INC., Corel Corp., Eastman Kodak Co., International Business Machines Corp., Intuit, Inc., Microsoft Corp., McAfee, Inc., Oracle Corp., Rockwell Automation, Inc., Rosetta Stone, Inc., SAP America, Inc., Siemens Corp. and Sony Creative Software, Inc. for infringement of their patent entitled Secure system for activating personal computer software at remote locations. And of course, this was filed in our favoritest of favorite places: Marshall, TX (Texas Eastern District Court)."
Not the same thing. (Score:4, Informative)
The registration process that was patented involves transferring over new features to the registered user. Most shareware programs simply ship the whole shebang and the registration is just entered in as data. Conditional checks in the application then handle the data.
This patent isn't even relevant.
Patent doesn't apply to a lot of software (Score:3, Informative)
The patent specifically mentions that the registration server has to create and send down a customized app that contains "critical portions" of the software that's being registered - presumably, so that without registration, it's impossible to crack the protection scheme as vital parts of the code are simply missing. Most software today doesn't use activation in this manner. We have trial periods, even with MS Windows, so all critical portions of the software must be present for these full-featured trials to work. Even when the trials are functionally limited, in most cases the extra functionality is still there, but locked out until the software considers itself to be registered.
Re:Marshall, TX (Score:5, Informative)
...that BetaNet is a patent troll... But given the letter of the law, it's not that simple.
Being a patent troll isn't about the letter of the law, it's about taking advantage of the law in such a way that stifles innovation in order to maximize your profit. Specifically, it is about getting patents and never exercising them and, even more so, not suing when infringement becomes obvious but rather waiting until you can get the biggest payday possible. Basically it is being a tech company that profits through the legal system rather than through technology. It is the antithesis of what patent law is suposed to do, patent law is suposed to be a shield, not a sword.
Re:Marshall, TX (Score:4, Informative)
"You take them to court where they do business." At least, that's what my professor said... in the one business law class I took.
So, all these businesses sell to people in Marchall (or at least can)... So they are certainly allowed to do this... Even if it sucks.
Re:RTFP (Score:4, Informative)
That's 4 years before win95 came to the market without a TCP/IP stack. A network-based software activation was certainly a couple years ahead.
Just because Windows is backwards, doesn't mean various UNIXes didn't already have this feature.
Re:RTFP - mod parent up, please (Score:4, Informative)
Thank you for pointing out that computers and software existed before "dub-dub-dub" became a household word.
It seems to be forgotten a lot and not only on Slashdot.
Re:RTFP (Score:4, Informative)
(read the fucking patent)
I did. There are two independent claims (1 and 9) both dealing with the generation of an "overlay" (shades of RT-11) that contains the actual program code based on information the user provides through a "shell" program that they run initially.
On my reading, this is irrelevant to any activation system that deals solely with the data segment, so almost all conventional licence management systems are not covered. Some stuff MS does might be, but I've never used a license manger that does anything remotely similar to what's described in this patent: these days we deliver the full program, and unlock it based on data, whereas the patent covers delivering a partial program and generating a new program based on user-supplied data. That's unrelated to software-as-service implementations because there is no new "overlay"--whatever that might be construed to mean in this context--being generated by the delivery process: when I run something in my browser it isn't a custom copy newly compiled from source incorporating information I've provided. It's a bog-standard copy that may have restricted functionality based on data that is downloaded with it, a totally different thing.
So yeah, there's not that much prior art, but there's not that much "posterior art", either.
Some idiot on the bench in Marshal, Texas may of course disagree with this view, but that's based on how corrupt they are, not on how the patent reads.
Re:Marshall, TX (Score:3, Informative)
You forgot to mention, they change the venue for an advantage. If the court was a few miles from the defendant(s) offices, it would be easy for them to show up. Where they're displacing the hearings from the defendants, it adds a burden on them. It's more likely that they'll weigh the options of settling versus a prolonged legal process.
That's all part of the patent troll game though. What's it worth to the defense to just settle? Is it cheaper to keep the lawyers fighting it for years, at an out of state venue, or just pay $1 million to make it go away? The greedy patent trolls make the news, because they have to go through all the legal hoops. The smart ones just get paid to go away quietly.
Case law & a weak judiciary (Score:5, Informative)
Judges do not make the laws, they simply settle disputes with laws already made.
Judges don't make statutory laws [wikipedia.org] but they do make case law [wikipedia.org] which is just as important. Even the best statutory laws need interpretation. Our judicial system provides that interpretation. Occasionally judges (usually the State & Federal Supreme Courts) strike down laws that are incompatible with the existing legal system or interpret them in ways that change the legal system - hopefully for the better. With apologies to Martha Stewart, this is a Good Thing (tm).
It would be a gross violation of their judicial power were they to legislate from the bench ( which many attempt anyway ).
So you would prefer that Jim Crow laws had remained constitutional? Without judicial interpretation they would have remained the law of the land for much longer than they actually did. Laws are not always fair and the interpretation of them matters. Judges having the ability to interpret laws and occasionally striking them down is something you should be grateful to have - at least in the long run. Saying that judges shouldn't interpret laws belies an immense ignorance of how our legal system actually works. What you are really arguing for is a weak judiciary and a strong legislature. I prefer they be relatively balanced in power.
Regardless, if you want to know why this particular area houses so many of these types of disputes, follow the money. They wouldn't do it if they weren't benefiting financially somehow.
The cases are housed there because the US District Court [wikipedia.org] in that location have the judicial experience and infrastructure to handle these cases better than almost anywhere else except maybe Central California [wikipedia.org] and the Texas court has a reputation for plaintiff friendly juries and rules for fast trial proceedings.
Re:Marshall, TX (Score:3, Informative)
The CAFC (Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) is apparantly getting a bit fed up with the EDTX Court. In In Re Hoffman-Laroche (http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/09-M911.pdf), they slapped them around for not transferring the case to a District (EDNC) which actually had a "meaningful local interest" in the dispute. Here's a quote which hints at their annoyance (plus the fact that it's kind of a slap in the face to highlight a spelling/grammar error when quoting from a lower Court's opinion).
The Eastern District of North Carolina's interest in this matter is self-evident. Meanwhile, it is undisputed that this case has no relevant factual connection to the Eastern District of Texas. The district court ignored this significant contrast, reasoning that "where a number of private interest factors weigh heavily in one direction, that venue has a slightly greater local interest," but "[w]here, however, the factors do not weigh heavily in one direction of [sic] the other, no one venue has more or less a meaningful connection to the case than any other." By relying exclusively on how other forum non conveniens factors weigh, rather than assessing the locale's connection to the cause of action, the district court essentially rendered this factor meaningless. Therefore, because the Eastern District of North Carolina has a meaningful local interest in adjudicating the dispute and no meaningful connection exists with the Eastern District of Texas, this factor also favors transfer.
and this one
Meanwhile, there appears to be no connection between this case and the Eastern District of Texas except that in anticipation of this litigation, Novartis' counsel in California converted into electronic format 75,000 pages of documents demonstrating conception and reduction to practice and transferred them to the offices of its litigation counsel in Texas. But, if not for this litigation, it appears that the documents would have remained a source of proof in California. Thus, the assertion that these documents are "Texas" documents is a fiction which appears to be have been created to manipulate the propriety of venue.
This type of tactic was clearly counseled against in Van Dusen v. Barrack, 376 U.S. 612 (1964). There, the Supreme Court explained that Section 1404(a) "should be construed to prevent parties who are opposed to a change of venue from defeating a transfer which, but for their own deliberate acts or omissions, would be proper, convenient and just." Id. at 625. A plaintiff's attempts to manipulate venue in anticipation of litigation or a motion to transfer falls squarely within these prohibited activities. The district court's contrary position here has no legally rational basis and prevents 1404(a) from carrying "out its design to protect litigants, witnesses and the public against unnecessary inconvenience and expense.
Add to this decision (handed down 12/2), the even more recent decision H-P v. Acceleron (12/4, Fed. Cir.) which makes it easier to file for a declaratory judgment of non-infringement (in your choice of Court) if you are -ahem- "threatened" by a patent troll, and it seems that the Fed Circuit it trying rein in what may be considered a rogue court. Note that these decisions don't really concern EDTX's disposition of the cases, but the question "WTF is this case doing in Marshall, Texas?"
Re:RTFP (Score:3, Informative)
Prior Art.... BBS Software (Score:2, Informative)
Long before the commercial internet the network of places of interests were held together by *gasp* modem and phone line. Then ... all ran over the same copper.
came ISDN , then DSL
MUSTANG SOFTWARE wrote a BBS package called Wildcat, which interestingly is still a viable product. Product is now supported by Santronics.
They used dialup (network) registration along with an auto-patching and updating for new features. The software would not run unless you registered it via dial up (later the internet) as critical components to running were uploaded at the time of registration. This system ran on DOS and little later Windows NT 3, which I believe predates the 1991"patent". The Wildcat BBS was started in 1986.
tw
Re:Marshall, TX (Score:3, Informative)