Microsoft Sues Salesforce.com Over Patents 243
WrongSizeGlass writes "CNET is reporting that Microsoft is suing Salesforce.com in Seattle federal court, claiming it infringes on nine patents. Two of the patents in question are a 'system and method for providing and displaying a Web page having an embedded menu' and a 'method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display.'" Microsoft says it first notified Salesforce more than a year ago about the alleged infringement.
What's the angle? (Score:4, Insightful)
Looking for the MSFT agenda here. Are salesforce.com people going after microsoft sales reps? Has the saleforce.com people brought too much competition to MSFT? What gives?
Re:What's the angle? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, SF continues to win contracts from Dynamics or whatever MS is calling their latest CRM this week.
SF are just WAY too nimble in their catering to companies needs while MS expects companies to buy upgraded hardware, software, consultants, etc to conform data to THEIR system.
SF: Here you go, we figured out how to provide x for no extra charge.
MS: Sorry we can't do that without $100,000 and even then there's no guarantee.
So yeah, SF is kickin MS's a$$ets and putting their attempts at a CRM to shame.
Next up, MS buys SF.com. *sigh*
- Yo Grark
Patent Armageddon? (Score:4, Funny)
First Apple turns patent troll on HTC, now it's MSFT's turn? I thought these two were kinda well behaved and used patents only as a defensive measure, guess I was wrong.
Re:Patent Armageddon? (Score:4, Insightful)
They are using patents as a defensive measure; namely, as a defense against being outcompeted by superior products.
And Microsoft has never been well-behaved, they earned their reputation as the Mordor of computing.
Re:Patent Armageddon? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a good point. Wasn't it only yesterday that we had a half dozen MS apologists stepping forward to explain how Microsoft only ever used Patents defensively [slashdot.org] and would never ever ever use them offensively?
Everyone who made that claim, go stand at the back of the class. You know who you are.
Re:What's the angle? (Score:5, Interesting)
SaleForce.com is winning customers away from Dynamics because Dynamics is an absolute pile of crap. If you managed to wade though the absolutely stupid way to customise Dynamics 3.0 you quickly found out that you needed to start from scratch again with 4.0 because MS changed everything and it's still a pile of crap.
Businesses wont use Dynamics despite MS giving away free licenses with every MAPS and partner subscription.
Oh, and the reasons the parent mentioned.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
As a business grunt, I was just alluding to a string of good sites/companies being gobbled up by bigger fish. Makes me cringe as I've never seen the parent company take the product or service in a better direction.
Yo Grark
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, they say that about IBM (which is even more ludicrous)
Re: (Score:2)
They do tend to say it about Microsoft, because I think this is the fourth exception ever, and I think at least some of the previous exceptions were not software patents (?). Also, salesforce.com isn't exactly a small, scrappy garage business just trying to break into the field. For most of their history (~35 years), it had simply never happened.
Still, this definitely is a great way to lose some of the remaining little drops of sympathy in the vast desert that is slashdot's favour for Microsoft.
I refuse t
Could be stolen code. (Score:2)
Just a vague idea though.
Re:Could be stolen code. (Score:5, Informative)
One angle I could see on this: Sure, everyone might want to make their webpages look this way. But if you rip off the exact code MS is using, change some variables, and get caught, well hey, looky here, we patented that beyotch.
Just a vague idea though.
Nah, that would be copyright infringement.
Re: (Score:2)
Taking the code is infringement. Using it would also violate the patent.
But, Microsoft sued them for patent infringement. If they had taken the code and used it in their products, then Microsoft would have sued them for copyright infringement as the fines can be exhorbitant. Heck, look how much a few infringed 99 cent songs can be?
Re: (Score:2)
How the crud do you patent HTML? I mean seriously.
Re: (Score:2)
They didn't patent the HTML, they patented a method for doing whatever it is they did with that HTML. (You don't patent end results, you patent methods or processes. End results are covered by copyright.)
(Please don't construe this comment as support for MS's actions... I think software patents are completely stupid.)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Theoretically yes, look up "work product." Depending on how rigid the old company is you can just write it into the contract that you retain copyright of your scripts and they have perpetual and derivative use in any context, or vice-versa, or however you want to structure it.
As a practical matter, it's probably unlikely to come up due to the cost of a lawsuit. (Unless they're really valuable scripts or there's a lot of personal animosity.) Plus they have to find out about it.
There are also issues as to
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Typically employers make their employees sign an agreement when they are hired that any intellectual property they create while performing their job becomes the intellectual property of the employer and the employee loses the rights to it.
Some agreements are even as strict as to say that anything you create while you are employed becomes the IP of your employer. So if you wrote something at home while you are "off the clock" it would still technically be the property of your employer. Booo!
I truly do love the terms of my current employment. I'm employed as a programmer, and I retain "dual copyright" over all of my own creations. Essentially, while I work here, I am also contractually bound to not compete with them, but should I ever leave I can take all of my own code with me and fork it (any images, product names, documentation, or whatever may need to be scrubbed/changed though, since they're not my work). In return for this, they got all of the code I had written before I started here,
If you cant beat them...your Microsoft. (Score:5, Funny)
The're just pissed that SalesForce is using FireFox in all there screen shots.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Fragment (Consider Reversing)
- Brought to you by the kind people at Microsoft. While you're here let me tell you about our CRM offerings.
Rage inducing (Score:5, Funny)
I consider myself a pretty calm person. I don't get riled up about much. I've never been one to throw a game controller, to punch a pillow to vent frustration. I see stupid things and I don't like them, I talk about how stupid they are, but that's as far as it goes. I'm about as easy going as they come.
And yet every time I see a story about the activities supported by the US Patent and Trade Office, I want to lift the nearest piece of electronics and dash it against a distant wall.
Re: (Score:2)
I consider myself a pretty impulsive person. I get riled up often. I've always been one to throw a game controller, to punch a pillow to vent frustration. I see stupid things and I don't like them, I rant about how stupid they are, but that's not only as far as it goes. I'm far from easy going as they come.
And yet every time I see a story about the activities supported by the US Patent and Trade Office, I want to cuddle a nearby puppy and take it out for walkies. I don't even own a dog, go figure.
Re: (Score:2)
I totally agree.
While I haven't read the specifics of the patents themselves, I have read the entire suit MS is pulling.
"hey, they're using a networked service, we have patent for that".
"hey, they're using cookies, we have a patent for that".
"hey, they're using a browser based manu system, we have a patent for that"
And it just goes on like that. And two of the infringing patents are even identical, presumably just a version update seeing as how it's MS.
I dont care if it's MS or anyone else. This type of bla
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ummm...
Me :4
Keyboards: 0
Re:Rage inducing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
When the world ends, the only thing left will be cockroaches scurrying across Model Ms.
Re: (Score:2)
In all seriousness.... Logitech. I have seen somebody literally hit one down the middle so hard (javascript rage) and chuck it against the wall, that every key but TWO exploded from it. Along with the battery cover and all 4 double A's.
Took me about 15 minutes to find the keys. One was actually embedded in the ceiling tile. Another 5 minutes pushing keys into the keyboard, batteries back in... and completely working keyboard.
To this day we all use the saying, "as tough as a Logitech keyboard" around the
Leader AND innovator? (Score:2)
"Microsoft has been a leader and innovator in the software industry for decades and continues to invest billions of dollars each year in bringing great software products and services to market," deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said in a statement.
I wonder, if like many other companies do, they included that statement in the court documents? While they have been a leader in various software segments, there isnt a single one they've been an innovator in. Would that obvious bit of perjury in such a document get them in trouble? ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
Yup... they went that far...
Microsoft has a long history of technical innovation in the software and hardware products it develops and distributes.
Re:Leader AND innovator? (Score:4, Insightful)
Laugh all you want, but office has had a number of innovative ideas, whether you like them or not. Assistants (ie. the universally despised clippy), The Ribbon, OLE integration of different kinds of docuemnts within a single document, OLE Automation control (Yes, we all know about ARexx capable word processors on the Amiga, but that was really only a tiny fraction of the capabilities that OLE automation exposes).. hell, Word was the first word processor to provide live spell-checking with the red squigglies.. (again, whether you like it or not.. lots of people do like the feature, lots don't).
Don't you think it's just as dishonest to claim there is no innovation when there is, as claming more innovation than there is?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The ribbon is one of the worst UI changes ever to a application. Most experianced Excel users find their productivity going down due to it.
Re: (Score:2)
The ribbon is essentially a tabbed multi-sectioned set of wrappable toolbars.
Borland have had tabbed toolbars for a long time in their IDE and tabbed UIs are not new.
Microsoft have allowed you to create dialogs as components that can be docked to any side of the main window, so complex dockable/docked UIs are not new.
Java and other UI toolkits have had the concept of arbitrary wrappable content for a long time (since at least when Java Swing was created), and a toolbar is just a container of icon-based butt
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Leader AND innovator? (Score:4, Insightful)
Laugh all you want, but office has had a number of innovative ideas, whether you like them or not. Assistants (ie. the universally despised clippy),
in a word processor which they were not the original authors for, which was the first use of a piece of clipart for a function other word processors already had in help panes, status bars, tool tips or pop-ups... (wow, that's innovation... someone else's idea - with a piece of clipart)
The Ribbon
Which still confuses users of older versions of Office to this day by the way it can take what was a simple, easy to use interface and mangle it - and which other word processors did a long time ago in a better fashion by simply hiding and showing the appropriate toolbars for the task at hand...
OLE integration of different kinds of docuemnts within a single document
...which was an idea long since in existence in the Xerox Star systems...
OLE Automation control (Yes, we all know about ARexx capable word processors on the Amiga, but that was really only a tiny fraction of the capabilities that OLE automation exposes)
While on the other hand, REXX enabled word processors had even greater capabilities than OLE automation, as did various competitor products in the Windows and non-Windows marketplace marketplace... and even in the areas where OLE Automation shone, it also caused a bunch of security issues due to it's poor implementation with no thoughts of the consequences caused by it's design (but thats a topic for a different discussion).
.. hell, Word was the first word processor to provide live spell-checking with the red squigglies..
As long as you discount various TSRs for word processors as old as the DOS (non-Windows) age version of word processors, a variety of other implementations on non-PC systems, and the fact that Microsoft introduced it in Word 95, almost 20 years after a team for IBM came up with the concept and 8 years after Spellbound came out with that functionality you tout as having been a Microsoft innovation.
Other than those points, I guess you are right! Either that, or you bought into Microsoft's propaganda (errr... marketing, I mean).
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You show a fundamental lack of knowledge of what you're actually talking about. Assistants weren't simply animated ways to access help text, they could actually analyze what you're doing and supply recommendations. That was innovative. Annoying, but innovative.
What part of "Whether you like the idea or not" don't you understand? You or anyone else liking the idea has
Re:Leader AND innovator? (Score:4, Informative)
You show a fundamental lack of knowledge of what you're actually talking about. Assistants weren't simply animated ways to access help text, they could actually analyze what you're doing and supply recommendations. That was innovative. Annoying, but innovative.
You glossed over the "not the first to do it, just the first to use a piece of clipart" part (paraphased)
What part of "Whether you like the idea or not" don't you understand? You or anyone else liking the idea has no bearing on its novelty.
You don't do your argument any justice by making fallacial comments like this.
You skipped the (again paraphrased) "others did it ages before that by selectively hiding toolbars that did or did not apply to the task at hand" part.
The star had document embedding, but it wasn't live document embedding. You couldn't edit documents in place, and you couldn't update the document elsewhere and have it be updated in the embedded document.
Don't confuse "Someone once did something kind of like that" with lack of novelty. It's not just the base concept, it's the entire concept.
Hmmm... sites that seem to have put far more research into the Xerox Star systems disagree.
That's interesting, sicne I can find no reference to any word processor called Spellbound...
Hmmm... have you tried Google? If so, you just didnt dig far enough. It was released by Sector Software in 1987.
And the only reference to a spell checker is the firefox extension, which certainly did not come out 8 years before Word 95.
I'm also suspect of your IBM reference, given that you seem to conflate way too many concepts to believe your arguments. Do you have a reference?
I could just drop a lot of references, but as you've apparently intentionally skipped the important parts of points I have made (as in the first two), why should I bother? Nonetheless, I did give you a few more hints above.
Sure, I am sure Microsoft innovated something... the KIN being one possibly (never seen more than the commercials and a few online reviews, so I am not sure about that one, but it seems a pretty innovative way of integrating many smartphone and other electronic device features in a novel way)... but the stuff you mention does not fit the category. Nor is the "first 32bit PC operating system" claim Microsoft used to make for Windows 95. Or "their" creation of an improved interface for Windows XP (and 95)... oh wait, they licensed that from SDS. Stop believing marketing hype and actually research what you talk about.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, I did use google. It's very obscure and there exist very few relative links even when adding "sector software" to the search criteria. and it turns out, it was just a TSR like all those others. This is not the same thing.
You glossed over the "it does more than you claim it does" part. You're using a ridiculous argument, and not coincidentally, it's the same argument most people who criticize soft
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ribbon
It's interesting that you bring up the "Ribbon" as there is prior art for it [geniisoft.com], yet Microsoft is trying for a patentland grab [wordpress.com] on a relativity [wikipedia.org] common User Interface concept.
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong. Most people who claim prior art for something tend to only look at very superficial details. The geniisoft link for instance only shows tabbed toolbars. That's not what makes the ribbon innovative. The ribbon builds it's UI dynamically, and interactively. If you have a smaller screen, it resizes the elements and relays them out, for instance. It also does live previews of how applying the items in the ribbon will affect your document. If you have access to Office 2007 or 2010, try something.
Re: (Score:2)
Bill
Re:Leader AND innovator? (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft, like most other companies, has indeed had it's share of "innovation", popular opinion not withstanding.
It's easy to find things that are "kind of like" a new invention, that can be said for every single product in existence. It's just fun to do it for Microsoft.
Can you name a single software invention by anyone else that was truly unique? Anyone? Bueler? I guarantee anything you name can find something that is "kind of like" something else. That's how invention works, and that's why patents always have a list of references to other patents which the new patent draws upon. Unfortunately, you can't list things that aren't previously patented.
A short list of things which Microsoft has innovated (off the top of my head, without even googling) in would include (whether you like the ideas or not)
The Ribbon
Photosynth
COM (originally OLE)
Internet Explorer Protected Mode
If you google around, you find lots of tongue in cheek and sarcastic comments, and comments like yours that say point blank that microsoft has never innovated anything. It's certainly true they've bought a lot of their technology, but not all of it and even when you consider technology they bought, they've often improved it with their own new technology (IE Protected Mode, for instance).
Also, Microsoft certainly has their share of bad technology they've implemented. ActiveX, for instance. Whether it's a good idea or not, it's still a novel idea (no, plug-ins weren't novel, but auto-installing them, and creating a generic model that could be used by more than just web browsers was).
So in reality, comments like your really are just hyperbole. It's simply not true that Microsoft has never created anything novel. Hell, Clippy anyone?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, a lot of people act as if innovation was the same as invention, which isn't true.
Re:Leader AND innovator? (Score:5, Informative)
I proved you wrong on a bunch of these above... but let's go at it again.
The Ribbon
Already covered in my last post - done better by others before. Or do you think the fact that they call it "The Ribbon" is the innovation part of mangling an idea others already had?
Photosynth
They funded a University of Washington project which became a MS Live Labs project. Their other related "innovations" were acquired by a company called SeaDragon and various others. So, even the ones that are innovative werent innovated by Microsoft.
COM (originally OLE)
Covered above... Xerox Star (and others) and for COM implementation (ie: more than just OLE), it was to catch up with IBM and OS/2, the Mac and numerous other non-PC based implementations.
Internet Explorer Protected Mode
Even if they were first, it doesnt count because it would actually have to work first. And there are already exploits that can bypass IE in protected mode on operating systems (Vista onwards) that support it. That aside, various programs did this far better than Microsoft's implementation before Microsoft licensed various technologies for it and wrote the rest. One such is a package from a big software firewall company (I'll give you a hint...ZA). That aside, Chrome manages it better than IE and Vista/Win7 - even without all the added work that Microsoft did to Windows itself to enable this feature in IE.
So... where were we? Oh yeah... I remember. Microsoft MAY have innovated something, but you cant think of anything. Well, here's one. Edlin.
Re:Leader AND innovator? (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying it does not prove it. Show me the prior art. Bear in mind that merely being a tabbed toolbar doesn't make it the same thing. The Ribbon's functionality is what makes it innovative, not the fact that it has tabs.
Regarding Photosynth, All new ideas are based on research of others. Newton said something about standing on the shoulders of giants, doesn't make his work any less innovative. Photosynth, as a product, was highly innovative.
Are you fucking kidding me? OS/2 was created by Microsoft and IBM together. Microosft wrote nearly all of OS/2 up until OS/2 1.3, and COM and OLE goes back to 1987, the same year OS/2 was released *WITHOUT A GUI OF ANY KIND*.
Wow, you are ignorant of history. Wow, that's just plain stupid.
And Xeros Star had nothing like COM or OLE. It's object embedding technolgy was entirely different.
Now you're just being stupid. Of course it works. Just because it can't protect from every possible exploit doesn't make it useless or "non working". By that argument, just because someone can root a unix box, that means all of it's security doesn't work.
Wow, I just can't believe what passes for logic these days.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Saying it does not prove it. Show me the prior art. Bear in mind that merely being a tabbed toolbar doesn't make it the same thing. The Ribbon's functionality is what makes it innovative, not the fact that it has tabs.
Corel used a similar method, various word processors I use on OS/2 did. They were tabbed toolbars that were dockable and undockable, and hid or displayed different tools depending on task... toolbars - not "the ribbon" - the only "innovative" difference.
Regarding Photosynth, All new ideas are based on research of others. Newton said something about standing on the shoulders of giants, doesn't make his work any less innovative. Photosynth, as a product, was highly innovative.
They WROTE it for Microsoft. And yes, it IS innovative - I already said that. It wasnt Microsoft's innovation though. It was the university's innovation that Microsoft procured and perfected. An innovator is the one who comes up with the novel way of doing s
Re:Leader AND innovator? (Score:4, Informative)
The only word processor Corel had was WordPerfect, and it did NOT do what the Ribbon does. The fact that you can't actually point out any specific thing, just vague hand waving is evidence enough that you're talking out of your ass.
Regarding COM, you seem to be confusing when a product shipped with when it was created. OS/2 2.0 and OS/2 1.3 were done by IBM yes, and COM was released as a product in 1993 (OLE 2 in 1992), but the actual technology was created by Microsoft in 1987, with white papers written in 1998 and 1990.
COM was not originally a product, but was the basis of OLE 2. It existed for several years before OLE did, and the basic concepts were drawn from whitepapers by Antony Williams in 1998 and 1990.
All of this predated OS/2 2.0 by a great deal, and while betas of OS/2 2.0 were in existence in 1990, the workplace shell and SOM were not.
WPS didn't even appear in betas until sometime around late 1991 (after Windows 3.1 and OLE 2 betas were already shipping)
It's relatively easy to know this because SOM is based on CORBA, and COM and CORBA came out about the same time. CORBA was an RPC based technology while COM was a function dispatch based technology. COM and CORBA came at the same problem from opposite sides, and eventually met in the middle with CORBA moving from distributed objects towards component objects and COM moving from component to distributed.
I point you to this article:
http://www.wincustomize.com/article/81265 [wincustomize.com]
In which, it says quite clearly that the reason for OS/2's delay from late 1991 to 1993 was WPS.
This message seems to indicate the first beta that included PWS was late 1991.
http://www.rusbasan.com/Humor/OS2_Dream.html [rusbasan.com]
This infoworld article from July 1991 [google.com] says that it didn't exist in the beta.
Re:Leader AND innovator? (Score:4, Informative)
"Saying it does not prove it. Show me the prior art."
Borland Delphi - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Borland_Delphi_4_screenshot.png [wikipedia.org]
"Are you fucking kidding me? OS/2 was created by Microsoft and IBM together."
COM (circa 1987) is not new as well - it was just a standard on vtable format, nothing more. There was _no_ OLE in 1987, not even close. One of the first usages of COM, in fact, was MAPI.
OLE and IDispatch came much later, in 1992 developed mainly for office automation. And by that time they were nothing new as well. For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoeba_distributed_operating_system [wikipedia.org] had not just dynamically accessible objects, but _distributed_ dynamically accessible objects.
So sorry, your examples of innovation are stupid.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Prior art:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/ig/20-Years-of-Photoshop/Photoshop-Elements-1-0-2001.htm [about.com]
Button and menu controls on the palettes, tabs to switch between control palettes, all of it. Just 'cause the Ribbon is blue doesn't make it new.
Re: (Score:2)
Or do you think the fact that they call it "The Ribbon" is the innovation part of mangling an idea others already had?
The innovation part is "mangling an idea others already had". That's what innovation is.
They funded a University of Washington project which became a MS Live Labs project
Yep. ...your point?
Are you really that dense? Buying something isnt innovation. The gang at UW innovated. Microsoft bought.
Even if they were first, it doesnt count because it would actually have to work first...
It does work, Chrome's is not better and definitely came later (why do you think it's better, btw?), and I'm really curious about what Zone Alarm did, but I'm pretty confident that it's different from something built into the browser and you're doing EXACTLY what the GP complained about by pointing to something with some vague similarities and claiming therefore that it's not innovative at all. What technologies, btw, do you think they licensed?
What technology didnt they? Citrix stuff in partiality for this. And no, they didnt license it, they bought it. Then wrote the rest. ZoneLabs has a utility that effectively sandboxes the browser. Microsoft did NOT make a browser that operated in it's own protected space. What they did was revise the operating system to allow such functionality works - this is why protected mode only works in Windows Vista
Re:Leader AND innovator? (Score:4, Insightful)
An not to forget:
- Clippy and the Windows XP Search Dog
Also I think Microsoft is the main innovator on user annoyance technology.
Patent titles in the summary are meaningless (Score:5, Informative)
Once again a Slashdot patent story is posted with reference to the titles of the patents. Patent titles are legally meaningless. The patentee doesn't even have to supply one; the Patent Office will write one for you if you leave it out. What matters are the claims read in light of the specification.
Anyway, from the complaint, the patents in question are:
7,251,653 [google.com]
5,742,768 [google.com]
5,644,737 [google.com]
6,263,352 [google.com]
6,122,558 [uspto.gov]
6,542,164 [google.com]
6,281,879 [uspto.gov]
5,845,077 [google.com] (the leading 5 was left off in the complaint, but this is the right patent)
5,941,947 [google.com]
The '768 patent was originally assigned to Silicon Graphics. It was one of several SGI patents assigned to Microsoft in 2002 as part of a $62.5 million deal [theregister.co.uk].
Some of the patents are related. The '164 patent, for example, was the result of a continuation application based on the application that eventually became the '879 patent.
Anyone looking at these from a prior art perspective should bear in mind that the patents have quite early priority dates. Most of them seem to date from the mid-90s. The '164 and '879 patents, for example, stretch back to June 16, 1994.
Re:Patent titles in the summary are meaningless (Score:4, Informative)
Some of the patents do have claims are more specific than the titles would lead you to suspect, but some of them actually aren't much more specific. The '077 patent, for example, is literally patenting the following: generate a list of installed software, send it to a remote server, the remote server checks for updates, and sends back notification of available updates to installed software, with a description of the problems those updates fix. Essentially, any update scheme that checks on the server side (fortunately, this means something like Debian's 'aptitude' is not covered, since it compares the list of available updates to the list of installed software on the client side). Is the idea of asking for a list of updates to a list of installed software really non-obvious, even in 1995?
For reference, this is Claim 1 in its entirety:
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I can't think of a single software vendor that was doing what Windows Update did in 1995. Can you?
Re: (Score:2)
My comment wasn't a prior-art comment, but an obviousness comment. It's sending a list of software, and getting back a list of updates, which can then be installed. I have trouble believing that someone "skilled in the art" as of 1995 would have considered that to be an actual invention, as opposed to an obvious and straightforward application of existing technology.
Re: (Score:2)
No, but my point is that if something is truly obvious, then prior art will exist. If, as you say, it should have been obvious, where is the prior art?
Re: (Score:2)
I agree that's often the case, but even for obvious things, someone has to be the first to do them. I don't think you should get a patent for something just because you were first, unless it was also sufficiently novel...
Re: (Score:2)
The question of novelty can be solved by whether two or more people independantly come up with the identical idea (not merely similar) without any knowledge of each others work (or anyone else with similar ideas).
Think about the wheel. If patents had been around when the wheel was invented, would the wheel be obvious? It certainly is to anyone today, and you can list lots of reasons why. But the wheel was probably based on rolling logs. Someone looking at a log on the ground and watching it roll around
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
rsync, a UNIX utility that can perform this task not just on software but any file, "updating" both client and server side (if asked to). Developed in 1996 but based on the idea of "rdist" from 4.3 BSD released in 1986, which in turn was based on earlier such ideas going all the way back to 1960s.
In short the insanity that are software patents is quite handsomely illustrated here: most software is s
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to misunderstand what is being asked. This was not about syncing two files, it was doing the specific functionality, which was going to a server, retrieving a list of updates given a list of files and versions. Then providing that list.
Rsync doesn't do that.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
rsync does all that and more. In one of its modes, it takes a list of files and compares it against another on a server and then sends down "updated" (i.e. "newer versions") of files down to the client. The files can be programs and the versions can be simply dates of change or MD5 hashes or what not. The precise version tracking mechanism (of which there are literally an infinite number) is irrelevant.
Microsoft's update uses a small portion of that functionality, with a specific version tracking method. R
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh for Pete's sake, how do you suppose the "syncing" occurs? By telepathy? Or perhaps "actual files" are sent from the rsync server to the rsync client?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, the first claim is always the most general. The patent must take all claims into account, not just the first one. It's patenting everything together, not each indidvidually.
Re: (Score:2)
My understanding is that patent claims are standalone, so it's not only the most narrow conjunction of claims that's actually claimed.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes and no. More specific claims are built upon less specific claims. The more general the claim, the more likely the claim is to not withstand a validity test.
So while claim 1 may not be valid as a patentable item, when claim 13 is based upon claim 12, based up upon 11, etc.. is.
For example, if you created a new mousetrap, and wanted to patent it, your claim 1 would probably sound a lot like every other mousetrap in existence, but your final claim would not.
Re: (Score:2)
As an example, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claim_(patent) [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Some of the patents do have claims are more specific than the titles would lead you to suspect, but some of them actually aren't much more specific... For reference, this is Claim 1 in its entirety:
And the title of the '077 patent, for reference, is "Method and system for identifying and obtaining computer software from a remote computer". I'd say that that claim is a LOT more specific than that title. For reference, a hypothetical claim that would be equally specific would be:
1. A method, comprising: identifying computer software from a remote computer; and obtaining said computer software from the remote computer.
Re:Patent titles in the summary are meaningless (Score:4, Interesting)
So the standard HTML drop down menu wouldn't apply, it is a menu created with a separate chunk of code. I'm not sure I saw that kind of thing before 1998, so there may not be any prior art. However, that doesn't mean its not a silly patent. It should have been obvious to any programmer who was thinking about that sort of thing. I don't think I even have a problem so much with software patents, although they are a bit annoying. I have a problem with patents that are so obvious that anyone could figure them out. 1-click purchase is an obvious example.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem with ideas is that they seem obvious in hindsight. Prior to that, clearly nobody had implemented it.. so the idea couldn't have been that obvious. Obvious ideas have lots of simultaneous prior art because, well, they're obvious..
The thing about knowledge is that if you know it, it's obvious. If you don't, it's not. 2+2 = 4 is obvious to us, but it wasn't before the invention of math. Hell, the concept of "0" seems obvious to us, but nobody figured it out for centuries after math was around
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with ideas is that they seem obvious in hindsight. Prior to that, clearly nobody had implemented it.. so the idea couldn't have been that obvious
You're saying: because something hasn't been implemented yet means it must not be obvious?
I'm saying: Perhaps M$ just got to the patent office first with an obvious idea... (much like the Bell's Telephone [wikipedia.org])
Since the patent examiners are not professionals skilled in the art It's obvious that they aren't qualified to make the non-obvious distinction, or else we wouldn't have so many of these obvious patents.
----
FYI Menus existed in 1995. Menus on a webpage == fnck!ng obvious esp. to any professional skilled i
Re: (Score:2)
You're confusing obviousness with theft of idea.
The telephone was not an obvious idea when invented, but yes, Bell made it to the patent office first.
In fact, your example proves my point. The telephone patent was a case where prior art existed, and the patent should not have been granted or should have been invalidated. It wasn't an "obvious" idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Or maybe you saw it in a microsoft product, maybe not even realizing it, and your subconscious now "invented" it.
It's hard to tell. It takes years to process and get a patent ac
Re: (Score:2)
This is true in perhaps many cases, but not so with the '768 patent. Displaying menus using applets? That wasn't an innovative idea, it was taking a very, very old idea (menus) and implementing it using the technology-of-the-month (applets). If you consider this patent to be non-obvious, then you'll be really impressed with my next innovation: menu
Re: (Score:2)
Given that both menus via HTML5 canvas tag and menus via SVG already exist, there's prior art.. and lots of it. So you wouldn't be able to get a valid patent on it.
I agree the the 768 patent is pretty vague, and probably would not stand up to scrutiny, but given that it was filed in 1996 by Silicon Graphics, and awarded to them (before Microsoft bought the patent as part of a patent portfolio sale) I wouldn't blame Microsoft for it. SGI patented it.
Re: (Score:2)
The point was not that examples exist, but that a technology (HTML5 canvas tag or SVG) do not supply them inherently and the concept being applied already exists. It's like TV concepts where you say "this is XYZ... in SPACE!"
Lets say you create a new programming language (like Google's Go) and don't provide in-built support for certain data structures. Is implementing a linked list or queue in that programming language innovative (given that no-one has written one in that language yet (not Go, but the new p
Re: (Score:2)
True, 2 + 2 = 4 wasn't obvious before the invention of math. But, after the invention of math, applying that math to solve the problem of adding 2 and 2 was obvious. The invention of math may have been novel and patentable, but it's application to that specific problem isn't.
And that nobody's done it before is irrelevant. No matter how obvious something is, someone had to be the first to do it. If nothing else, someone had to be the first to address the problem. You don't look at obviousness in hindsight, b
Re: (Score:2)
By your argument, all ideas are obvious. Ideas occur to someone to solve a problem. If someone comes up with an idea, it must be obvious.
What seperates an obvious idea from an inobvious one? If it wasn't obvious, how did the inventor come up with it?
Re: (Score:2)
No, this is not it.
TV has been invented. Now that is a very novel invention. Patent A. They worked out the apparatus and technique to broadcast a celluloid tape film over TV without use of a cinema screen and in perfect sync of frames. Patent B. But then someone patents broadcasting movies - "A method of showing cinema movies to the TV audience, patent C" that consists of "load up a tape that contains a movie into apparatus from patent B, proceed like in patent B". Most of data stored on tapes are movies. T
Re: (Score:2)
just a quick nit-pick before we start, you are not supposed to be able to patent an idea: you are only supposed to be able to patent the implementation. Of course, the system is broken and they're happily patenting ideas, precluding anyone from implementing the same idea differently.
So at the risk of approaching reductio ad absurdum, you're suggesting that because the Mayans didn't invent the drive-th
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Lowest patent number in there is 5,644,737, highest is 7,251,653. Now I wrongfully assume that between those two numbers there are only software patents. which makes 1,606,917 patents. How in the hell are they making sure none of those patents cover the same thing? And how in the hell should I find out if something I made infringes any of those patents?
Bill Gates (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember a few years back when Bill Gates said that Microsoft had been sued over patents, but never sued anyone else. They insisted that like IBM and other big companies, they had massive patent portfolios just to protect themselves. But then they sued TomTom over FAT patents and now this. What happened to Microsoft doesn't believe in suing over patents? Is this indicative of Gates handing the reigns over to Ballmer, the guy who threatened to sue anyone running Linux?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Bill Gates (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft sued TomTom over a range of patents, one of which was the FAT patent. It wasn't specifically about the FAT patent, and in reality, TomTom had threatened MS with patent suits first. Microsoft responded to the threats by actually filing a suit, effectively calling their bluff when they settled so fast after a feeble attempt to modify their original threatened suit to be a counter-suit. TomTom was no saint and had sued a half dozen other companies previously after shakedown attempts. They chose the wrong victim when they went after Microsoft.
This is, to my mind, the first time Microsoft has ever filed a truly offensive (as in offense, not offending) patent lawsuit. I have to think there's more to the story here than meets the eye. Microsoft is seeking injunctive relief, not damages. As such, they're not using this as a revenue model.
Re:Bill Gates (Score:4, Insightful)
They are using it to suppress competitor. It is still about revenue.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
This is, to my mind, the first time Microsoft has ever filed a truly offensive (as in offense, not offending) patent lawsuit.
It might be, but it isn't the first time they use patents to threaten competition. I guess they just found someone who didn't give in to the threat of fighting Microsofts vast lawyer army. Here's an example of what Microsoft has actually done (or tried to do) to its competition with patents: http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/ [wordpress.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You really don't understand what that meeting was about. Microsoft was most likely trying to get a cross licensing deal, and if you read between the lines, that's most likely exactly what happened.
Microsoft has been doing that for years, going to companies and saying "You violate our patents, what have you got for us" and the answer is usually "Well, how about we give you the right to use our patents, you give us the right to use yours", shake hands and walk away.
East Texas (Score:2)
A software patent trial outside of East Texas? How will the court system ever know how to handle such a thing?
Re: (Score:2)
If you have a public company with a massive workforce and huge PR campaigns that pretty much everyone from the entire metropolitan area knows someone who works for them personally you hold your lawsuits in the city because of the home court advantage. It would be silly for MS to sue anyone outside the Seattle metro area because of the effect being a massive local employer will have on the Jury. It'll be damn near impossible for salesforce to reject every Juror that has a direct family connection to MS and i
Re: (Score:2)
I think they're depending on a large bias in the jury pool towards Microsoft, given that a large percentage of the population depends on them either directly or indirectly.
Wait, Seattle? Not Texas? (Score:3, Funny)
Guess I better go register to vote so I can hopefully get jury duty for this. lol
Hahaha I've got them (Score:2, Funny)
Microsoft is screwed.
I have a patent (#666666) on applying basic logic and common sense, with a smattering of visual composition intuition, to any problem at hand.
You've been punk'd
No you haven't (Score:3, Funny)
Nope. No way have Microsoft ever applied common sense. You'll never make money from that patent.
Ms is so made of love !!! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I guess that means Microsoft will finally have a real customer for one of its CRM products.
Re: (Score:2)
MSFT must have recently gotten their hands on salesforce.com's source code
Yeah, in their web browser they just went to the toolbar and 'View -> Page Source'. They can then see the code in all its raw formatted glory.