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)."
Marshall, TX (Score:5, Interesting)
Surely at some point the judge/judges in that small corner of Texas should, if they're not idiots or in league with these trolls, realize that the reason they're getting so many patent lawsuits filed in their jurisdiction is because they're considered to be overly in favor of the people who are suing?
But maybe I'm just living in some sort of dreamworld where judges aren't incompetent or evil..
/Mikael
Re:Marshall, TX (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder... why is it that companies are allowed to cherrypick the court to hear their case anyways?
I think it's an unfair advantage in favor of the prosecution that they somehow get to pick which court will be reviewing their case.
They should have to prove that the "selected court" is the closest one to where their company was headquartered at the time of the alleged abuse.
Or better yet... determine the court that is closest to an equal distance away from the place the defendant and the place the prosecutor were headquartered at.
Qualification to be on Jury for patent case (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Marshall, TX (Score:5, Interesting)
Or is it a revenue stream for them?
You can bet that Bumfuck, TX would have a lot fewer judges, clerks, and lawyers if there weren't so many patent lawsuits filed there. For that reason alone, they are unlikely to crack down.
Much as some states (Delaware, for example) have a nice side business iin providing corporation-friendly incorporation laws, this district generates considerable (for them) local revenue in patent suits by providing friendly jurisdiction.
I wonder how much it would cost for technology corporations to simply buy up all the land in the district and effectively evict the entire population.
Of course (Score:3, Interesting)
That's always what goes on with these kinds of patents, and it is how you know they are bullshit.
Personally I think a "Use it or lose it," provision needs to be added to the patent system, and would fix a large number of the problems we have. Basically I'd have it work as such:
If you have a patent, and a product comes out on to the market that uses its technology, you have one year from the time you should reasonably be aware it is for sale (more or less meaning when it is on the mass market) to contact the company about licensing. Failure to do so means your patent is invalidated. This does not apply if you sell a product that makes use of your patented technology, or if you license it to others that do. However if the patent was previously unused in any product, you've got 12 months to contact them about licensing, or it is assumed that you do not wish to collect fees and your patent is now null.
In this way, patent holders still have their rights protected for legit patents. If you have a patent and sell a product that uses it, you can stop others from doing so as long as your patent is in force. Likewise if you license your tech out, you can make sure that only those you wish to license it to can use it. However, if you aren't currently using the patent and someone starts to, well then you either have to start actively using it, or you lose it.
That would make it so companies couldn't sit on patents until the technology is very popular and widespread and then try to use the patent as a weapon to extort people, because it is too late to go back. Someone rolls out a product, you have to contact them for licensing. If they don't like your terms, then ok they have to stop selling the product that infringes but it is still in the early stages. They and others can make sure to develop products that don't infringe on your IP without massive financial harm. If you tried to sit quietly on the patent and jump on people years later, all they'd have to do is show that their product was widely available more than a year ago and you never contacted them.
I think patents are necessary, for a number of reasons, and I think this would be a good balance between them protecting rights and not being abused.
RTFP (Score:5, Interesting)
(read the fucking patent)
Actually, it's not that straightforward, and I'm not certain there will be much prior art. The patent doesn't just say "call here to verify your registration number".
First, it's from 1991. Remember that year? 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.
Two, it isn't your "set a flag in config.ini" type of activation, either. The patent speaks about the construction of a tamperproof overlay program containing core parts of the actual application. In other words, you actually bought a car without a steering wheel and activation not only gives you a wheel, but also in a way that you can't mess around with it and they can take it away again after, say, your subscription period ends.
That's pretty advanced for 1991, "software as a service" didn't become a buzzword until 10 years later.
Disclaimer: Doesn't mean I like software patents. I don't. But some are more obviously trivial nonsense than others.
Re:Not the same thing. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yea i noticed that too in the abstract
" a tamperproof overlay program is constructed at the registration computer and transferred to the personal computer. The tamperproof overlay includes critical portions of the main program, without which the main program would not operate and also contains licensee identification and license control data."
while someone could say that the activation code COULD be the tamper proof critical portion - the fact that they broke that out into an overlay of the mail program and licensee identification and control means it is not.
So while the activation code would be the control data there wouldn't be any "overlay" so this patent is only half passable at current activation schemes.
i doubt this will make it that far other than where they filed it.
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Just to be difficult, I'd like to point out that you'd see the same correlation of voting records to contributions if the system were working exactly as intended. That is, companies are more likely to support politicians whose views are in line with their business interests. People often assume that the correlation automatically implies causation the other way, that contributions buy votes, but that isn't *necessarily* the case. I'm not saying that it never is the case, just that the correlation can lead to more than one conclusion which are both equally valid. The exception to this argument is when a new issue comes up and companies dump money into campaign funds and the congress-critters suddenly see the other side of the issue. It's that kind of behavior that we should be watching for and it;s shocking to me that it isn't pointed out during the campaigns (probably because 'everyone' does it, so don't rock the boat).
As for your plan of getting rid of corporate and union contributions, they are already significantly limited. These limitations are worked around by setting up Political Action Committees, which employees/members are 'encouraged' to donate money to. And in theory it makes sense, a person often wants to support politicians that will help the company they work for succeed, but in reality it ends up being the same old system that was in place before they had limitations on corporate contributions.
Re:Marshall, TX (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Marshall, TX (Score:3, Interesting)
>What disappoints me most about Eastern Texas' Courts is that they don't say, "What the hell is this doing in my courtroom?
Err, these judges know exactly why they are there and the judges are happy to push their pro-business conservative mentality by legislating from the bench. Its pretty obvious that this district is proudly pro-IP law to the point of absurdity. To a lot of people, strong IP is an ideology that trumps common sense, especially in GOP heavy conservative districts (Hello Texas!). Everything else stinks of sharing, socialism, and communism. Its pretty much a Tea Bagger for a judge.
Re:Of course (Score:2, Interesting)
How would you stop the Dutch auction problem? That's to say that if potential licensees know there's a deadline at which they can get it for nothing, they can simply wait out the patent holder.
Re:Marshall, TX (Score:2, Interesting)
The other factor, is that the judges tend to fast track the patent dockets so from start to finish the average time spend on trial is much shorter in the E.D. of Tex. than in other districts (though there are faster places, but not many).
Re:Marshall, TX (Score:3, Interesting)
I had the opportunity to be an EW on a patent case (not software) filed in Marshall awhile back and asked the lawyers why the location was so popular.
The main reason for its popularity was since they see so many patent cases, the judges have more experience than in many other districts AND the court system is very streamlined and efficient at handling all the pre-trial arguments. This helps keep costs down, which in turn made it popular with those paying the bills.
Not every district has the experience to effectively handle every type of case, which is partly why you get these "specializations." If it was only about east Texas jurors, you would see these cases popping up in most small-town districts in the southeast.
Re:prior art (Score:3, Interesting)
Per some other comments, from folks who damaged their brains by actually reading the entire patent, it appears that it covers the process of withholding part of the software itself until it's registered, then providing a program to install the rest.
This was tried with a few DOS-era apps (only ones I can think of offhand were BBS-related software) and there were so many full-featured no-bullshit competitors, that it didn't go over well in the userland market (dunno about commercial apps). I can't recall having seen it since then.
Anyway, it appears what they really need is a time machine, to go back and sue a few minor companies that are long-gone from the software landscape. Lacking that, they've decided to attack the next nearest thing, straight-up activation, before their patent runs out in a few months. I assume they're hoping that someone will pay them a go-away-and-stop-bothering-us settlement, since the patent itself doesn't appear relevant.