Why Software Patents Are a Joke — Literally 311
eburnette writes "A former Sun/Oracle employee explains how developers created patents in an unofficial contest to see who could get the goofiest patent through the system. James Gosling said, '... we got sued, and lost. The penalty was huge. Nearly put us out of business. We survived, but to help protect us from future suits we went on a patenting binge. Even though we had a basic distaste for patents, the game is what it is, and patents are essential in modern corporations, if only as a defensive measure. There was even an unofficial competition to see who could get the goofiest patent through the system. My entry wasn't nearly the goofiest.' Now Oracle is using patents from the same folks as the basis for its lawsuit against Google."
Innovation has been replaced by litigation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Innovation has been replaced by litigation (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the algorithm
1. Patent an 'invention'
2. If you notice someone is using your invention, DON'T SUE
3. Wait for them to actually succeed, and invest time. money and creativity in creating something useful that's loosely based on your half-baked idea that you patented
4. Sue the successful company
5. Profit
or just randomly sue successful start ups until you find one that used your patent
Patents have really lost their purpose.
By the way I've just patented
1 step one
2 ???
3 profit
pattern so from now on I can sue anyone who used a systematic approach to generated profit.
P.S.
Anyone else chuckled after reading the name Charles Nutter?
Re: (Score:2)
3. Wait for them to actually succeed, and invest time. money and creativity in creating something useful that's loosely similar to your half-baked idea that you patented
"Related" might convey things which didn't really take place...
Laches (Score:5, Informative)
2. If you notice someone is using your invention, DON'T SUE
3. Wait for them to actually succeed, and invest time
If someone convinces a judge that you did this, then you can't collect damages under the "laches" rule.
Re:Laches (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Laches (Score:4, Interesting)
If I held a software patent for a program that measured how many times the Spacebar button is pressed, I cannot be held from collecting damages under the laches rule because it is unreasonable to expect patent holders to troll every piece of software in search of patent infringement. The courts cannot reasonably accept the argument, "Anonymous Coward did not find the patent infringement within X number of days within Windows 7's launch, therefore he should not be allowed to collect damages."
And yet they hold people to the opposite. When anyone writes a piece of software they are supposed to
1. search the entire patent database (that excels in clarity *cough*)
2. check to see if this covers their program
3. either contact the patent holder and negotiate a license -or- program "around" it (insofar that's possible)
Is that reasonable ?
According to Lawrence Lessig, the "hello, world" program violates at least 15 patents. Surely any other program violates at least those same patents, plus potentially dozens or hundreds of others. Is that reasonable ? Or is Lessig lying ? (he is a lawyer, you know)
And if you don't do this you become liable for retroactive damages ... this is not reasonable, surely you see that.
How about we make the following addendum to patent law : anyone is free to send a description of an invention (source to a program, designs, ...) to the patent office, which then for 15$ and within 14 days has to list all patents that cover that invention, and that list is binding upon the courts. If they do not respond within 14 days, the program is considered not to violate *any* patents, and this is equally binding upon all the courts.
Quite frankly, that rule should be extended to the entire law system.
This is typically government style doing : they pass laws, which leave large gaps in interpretation. So anyone on the street does not even have the possibility to know if he is or is not violating the law. You'd think that he could ask the government if something is wrong or not, but he can't. Government wants to impose rules, but like all tyrants, does not feel the need to explain them. Obviously one needs to be able to ask these questions, and get a response, for free, within a reasonable timeframe.
And if the government cannot provide this service, quite frankly, they should leave making laws to a more capable organization, or simply have less laws.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, apparently, the guy has patented light switches, turning computers on and off, and wiring buildings for power.
I suppose he can sue anyone he wants, eh?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone else chuckled after reading the name Charles Nutter?
I did, but for a different reason -- he's a core developer of JRuby. I saw him demo some very cool JRuby-on-Android things this summer. If he's crazy, it's the good kind of crazy.
Re:Innovation has been replaced by litigation (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree on one point only. The first is not "Patent an invention" but "Patent a sci-fi concept that in the future will be realized as a real product/service by someone".
This is simply absurd. You cannot patent a lamp without a working prototype of a lamp, but you can patent an abstract software concept without showing USPTO a single line of code.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I thought they had a rule that you could not patent a perpetual motion machine? Why would that be?
Because it has been tried so many times that the USPTO was sick and fed up with it and decided to make this exception.
"With the exception of cases involving perpetual motion, a model is not ordinarily required by the Office to demonstrate the operability of a device. If operability of a device is questioned, the applicant must establish it to the satisfaction of the examiner, but he or she may choose his or her own way of so doing."
Re: (Score:2)
There's a little guy standing out on my front lawn that says he's got prior art on your patent. Maybe you can hire him now and lock up his services as an expert witness at the trial.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
An inventor has up to 1 year after the invention goes public to file for a patent.
Oracle vs. Google exposes fake solutions like OIN (Score:5, Insightful)
For years I've been criticizing all those fake solutions to the patent problem, such as "patent pledges" or the Open Invention Network (OIN) [blogspot.com]. Both Google and Oracle are licensees of the OIN. The OIN patent agreement is meant to be a non-aggression pact between its members, with respect to "the Linux System" [blogspot.com].
Given that Android is a Linux distro (and a strategically very important one), it should be fully covered by the OIN as the self-proclaimed protective shield for the Linux ecosystem. Consequently, Oracle should be prohibited by the OIN cross-license agreement to sue its fellow OIN licensee Google. I'm not the only one to have raised that question. I saw Simon Phipps (OSI board member, former chief open source exec at Sun, now at ForgeRock) and Bradley Kuhn of the Software Freedom Law Center (and formerly FSF) raise the same kind of question on Twitter/identica. Now TheRegister contacted the OIN and wanted a comment on Oracle vs. Google, and the OIN declined to comment [theregister.co.uk].
By the way, Eben Moglen promoted the OIN big time at LinuxCon, just a few days before Oracle announced its lawsuit.
What's certainly not a fake solution (although difficult to achieve) is the proposal to abolish software patents. The EndSoftPatents.org campaign runs the software patent wiki and has a pretty informative Wiki page on Oracle vs. Google. [swpat.org]
Re:Oracle vs. Google exposes fake solutions like O (Score:3, Insightful)
Hm, though Android is currently essentially branched from the Linux, kernel, into its own tree; even with bits of unmaintaned contributions to the mainline deleted...
Yeah, we know it's still Linux for most practical purpose. But such perdiod of (basically) forking could be something to drag legal proceedings on for years, I guess... (in the meantime seeding doubt among manufacturers, etc.)
Re:Oracle vs. Google exposes fake solutions like O (Score:4, Insightful)
Just to make this clear, I don't mean to defend everything Google does or did, especially in connection with Android. Most Android-based phones appear to be closed source in practical terms, and the forking you mention plays a role in that.
But the OIN is not about free software or open source values. It claims to protect companies in the open source ecosystem, and Google became a licensee a couple of years ago and now sees that it doesn't get any benefit from its membership.
What IBM does with Websphere/Apache is also forking by the way.
What about "patent promise"? (Score:2)
There was some "patent blogger" on first story regarding this absurd decision by Oracle. Guy was actually giving "Mono", yes Mono as example of how things should be done.
Perhaps some companies actually started to think that open source guys are dumb? I mean you come to a story speaking about a big company suing other for patents and you come up with mono advertisement. One really has to have balls to do that on slashdot.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Except for the bit where one of the patents sounded suspiciously obvious and like the zygote process (7,426,720 - System And Method For Dynamic Preloading Of Classes Through Memory Space Cloning Of A Master Runtime System Process): basically making things quicker by pre-initialising and freezing a process at a certain point, cloning it and then co
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, Mono would have been safer in a way since Microsoft had patent agreements because it was properly standardised, but that wouldn't make it 100% safe from patent threats from anyone (including Microsoft, who could have used patents covering the implementation using methods that weren't part of the grant).
The Microsoft community promise is open-ended. It does not specifically mention patents, rather it pledges that any necessary patents are implicitly granted for the purpose. You can read this as both good and bad.
Good: Microsoft is not holding any hidden cards, it is not a trap, they cannot suddenly rush out and hit you with a patent (like Oracle did).
Bad: If you implement in a way which cannot be said to be "necessary" or "the only way" *and* infringes on a MS patent, yes then they could theoretically clai
Re: (Score:2)
The case is nothing to do with Linux, it's to do with Java. The fact that they are running Java on Linux is irrelevant, and doesn't contravene the OIN.
Re:Oracle vs. Google exposes fake solutions like O (Score:5, Informative)
Both Google and Oracle are licensees of the OIN. The OIN patent agreement is meant to be a non-aggression pact between its members, with respect to "the Linux System" [blogspot.com].
Given that Android is a Linux distro ...
I don;t see how Android being a Linux distro is relevant in an "aggression" conducted on Java-related patents. Would you please care to elaborate?
Not saying that I do agree with software patents, not saying that OIN is a good or a bad thing, just saying that Linux != Java != Dalvik, thus the OIN issue have little relevance in my opinion. I mean, some (countries/govs) can agree to a non-proliferation nuclear pact and disagree on a carbon emission trading scheme, right?
Re:Oracle vs. Google exposes fake solutions like O (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Companies like Oracle might reasonably be able to argue that A
Re:Innovation has been replaced by litigation (Score:4, Informative)
Your patent is pretty much already done with prior art. The DMX512 with relay outputs and a programmable console such as any of the inteligent consoles with soft patch in them preceeds your patent.
I guess the last lighting installation I did is in violation of your patent simply by using off the shelf components.
A lighting console with softpatch takes care of reassigning switches and addressable dimmer/relay packs takes care of the addressable outlets.
Good luck defending your patent against the DMX512 1990 revised standard.
http://www.usitt.org/standards/DMX512.html [usitt.org]
Re:Innovation has been replaced by litigation (Score:5, Insightful)
This week China became #2 economy in the world. Don't you think America that it is time to worry about keeping up with innovation, USA ? You won't top Chinese labs with lawyer companies.
Re:Innovation has been replaced by litigation (Score:5, Insightful)
You obviously don' t understand. Rupert Murdoch owns Fox News, which owns the republican party. The Chinese are shrewed enough to recognize that Murdoch can be easily manipulated by his insatiable greed. To maintain his business in China he has to do what the Chinese want, which is to insure that America's ability to attend to its political and economic problems are overwhelmed by mind numbing, inane "info-tainment" to rile up those incapable of thinking for themselves or support the debt they incur, yet who, by virtue of their numbers, can obstruct progress directed toward solutions of any kind that might set America on a path of "innovation" or "success". America is doomed to being caught between Glenn Beck and the lawyers, who represent Murdoch and his corporate clients. Technical advances in all spheres of human activity will steadily gravitate toward China until about 2020, when the Chinese overtake the US and call in our debts.
You're claiming the Chinese are to blame for FOX? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now you're stretching it. While it is obvious that Rupert Murdoch's media empire is nothing more than a multibillion dollar propaganda business for American conservatives and the Republican party, to claim that they are doing this at the behest of China is just being silly. They would be doing this with or without the influence of China because they mistakenly believe that their actions won't result in America being ground into third world nation status; on the contrary, they think doing these things will m
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The EU passed the USA years back for biggest economy. If China is now #2 then the USA is #3.
Re:Innovation has been replaced by litigation (Score:5, Interesting)
The reasons why the fashion industry wasn't allowed patents is also interesting, I would say the same arguments could apply to software.
Re: (Score:2)
They mocked it by submitting completely ridiculous patents. And USPTO made even more of a mockery of itself by granting those patents.
Destructive memes at its best (Score:5, Insightful)
Suicidal company? (Score:5, Insightful)
I started to feel like Oracle's acquisition of Sun will end up like Amiga focusing on CD32, Sinclair spending millions to ship that weird C5, IBM rejecting Win32 API on OS/2. You know tech stories like "Company was doing great, if they didn't make that horrible decision."
I was telling they can't be that stupid to undermine Java or MySQL, things turned out to be very different. Java and J2ME already have some questions and as this patent lawsuit is on, I am sure some companies question their inclusion of java techology in operating system, devices. Did you also figure IBM is still silent about this? If I were Ellison, I would think about it.
More Like Suicidal Humanity (Score:3, Insightful)
We continue to put our faith and trust in corporations and religions as the approach that will deliver humanity from the growing environmental crises that face it, largely because of the faint hope that we may find ourselves among the favored few. Yet as we watch corporations, their lawyers and the righteous battle it out and stomp on the "little people", its not hard to figure out where this is all headed. If humanity has another 300 years, I would be surprised.
Re:Destructive memes at its best (Score:4, Interesting)
Whats next? Entire cultures seeing suicide as something cool that should be tried at least once by anyone?
In my view that's basically what recreational drug use is, alcohol included. Its just too slow for most people to see it.
Much of what people do to earn money, like patent trolling, isn't real work in the sense that it actually adds value to the system. It just games the system, making one's own piece of the pie bigger, for a time, while the pie gets smaller. Gradually the system decays. How is this related to drug use? You're more content that your professional life is hollow if you can fill the void with after-hours partying. And the good feeling that real work can provide doesn't mean as much to you if you if you've been finding your good feelings in other diversions. You forget what real accomplishment feels like, and even if you remember, at some point it becomes nearly impossible to find it when the environment you're in is no longer structured towards that ends. But we all need to feel good, so we cling tighter to what has been slowly destroying us, while justifying it.
Pleasure is the positive feedback your body gives you when you do successful things like eat or procreate. Its like currency for biologically successful behavior. Any activity that gives you significant pleasure without contributing towards your well being in some meaningful sense is poison, because its counterfeit. It doesn't even matter if the thing is chemically addictive or has any other nasty side effects. Just the fact that it feels good but doesn't actually make you healthier dilutes your ability to choose other worthwhile things. Gradually you can no longer find the motivation for honest endeavor.
Prohibition doesn't fix the problem - it creates crime, particularly in weaker economies that supply the drugs. Puritanism doesn't fix it. Where does one draw the line? Recreational sex? Video games? Chewing gum? Music? We have to proceed from where we are, and trying to go cold turkey on vanity would make most of us deathly miserable. But at least understanding our situation a little better helps I think.
Re:Destructive memes at its best (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
If i ever went that way, i would have to build a huge Rube Goldberg device the size of the entire house, activated by an Arduino just to annoy idiotic elitist commenter's on Hackaday.
Needs more blue LEDs. And some EL wire. And you didn't give me credit, I started working on this six years ago but never put anything online, why doesn't /. ever cover my stories.
This has nothing to do with software patents (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a problem with the patent system, not with software patents themselves. The software industry is more affected because it depends much more on innovation than other industries. Plus, with the speed at which the technology moves, the length of a patent is effectively much longer than in other industries.
Re:This has nothing to do with software patents (Score:5, Insightful)
The software industry is more affected because it depends much more on innovation than other industries.
In particular, it depends on the incremental innovation, whereas almost all new inventions are typically (and in some cases by logical necessity) are old inventions slightly reconfigured. Patents stop the incremental innovations in its tracks, since an "inventor" of a killer app has all the reasons to sue everyone in sight and none of the reasons to improve on the app. And even if the patent holder does use the monopoly profits to innovate further, it cannot possibly make up for excluding everyone else from the process. Imagine for a moment that a compiler was patented. Only a few biggest players could then afford licenses required to develop commercial software, and free OSes like BSD or GNU/Linux would be illegal. Proponents of software patents must admit that that is the way we should have went: if anything deserves to be called an innovation in software, a compiler certainly does. They also must close their eyes on the fact that the free software community produced and now maintains not one, but two best OSes of today, while competing with an entrenched monopolist. Anyone who believes that software patents are producing any good for the society is either grossly misinformed about the software market or is an enemy of the public (that is, a corporate cock sucker) and a hater of the computer science in general.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
details equipment movie The writing
raw evaluators wanted even into-it
A floppy resurrected keyboard LoseThos
very but I other I
I've
Re: (Score:2)
Anonymous Coward (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a problem with the patent system, not with software patents themselves.
Boiling frogs, don't you love them ?
Re:This has nothing to do with software patents (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a problem with the patent system, not with software patents themselves.
That is not true at all. It is a problem with software patents. They are a scandal. Hardware patents have worked well in the past, because hardware development is completely different from software development. By the Curry-Howard isomorphism a large part of mathematics is software and can nowadays be patented. This fact alone speaks rigorously against software patents, but has been ignored with pretty lame excuses by lawmakers and jurisdiction since attention was drawn to it. In fact, various parts of mathematics already already have been patented as we speak. Moreover, writing software mostly consists in assembling together various pieces, subroutines, and algorithms to achieve some goal, as Richard Stallman rightly said it is a bit like building with Lego bricks. When there are thousands of software patents covering all aspects of an application it becomes completely impossible to write and publish even a non-innovative program, not to speak of a true innovation, without potentially violating hundreds of patents. If the current trend is not reversed, the idea of having a universally programmable device at home will become obsolete in future, because it will simply be illegal to write your own software.
The funny, or perhaps better to say ironic, aspect of software patents is that even the big players cannot have an interest in them in the long run. Right now, they can innovate and use software patents to ensure mutual destruction and for patent trolling. But if the number of software patents keeps growing even the big players will have their possibilities for innovation blocked entirely within a few decades. Software patents are a time bomb that is going to explode not within the next few years but within a foreseeable future. Unfortunately, neither politicians nor many end-consumers (=voters) are able to get this into their brains, because it takes a (small but significant) amount of experience with software engineering and knowledge about the foundations of computer science to understand the issue.
For a shareware author like me the situation is already devastating today. As long as I do not have success, I can sell whatever I like. However, having success would invariably mean that I'd get sued for infringement of *some* patent I have never heard of and subsequently loose everything. The same applies to any and all individual software authors, FOSS projects, and small companies, because existing software patents already cover many aspects of programming (GUIs in particular). It is an absolute scandal that software patents have been allowed in the first place, and the process has to be reversed by all means. The vast majority of people that argue for them are forced to do so, because they are on the payroll of a large company that holds software patents. It's as simple as that.
Re:This has nothing to do with software patents (Score:4, Informative)
You have probably never worked with hardware patents.
http://www.wiley.com/legacy/products/subject/business/forbes/ford.html [wiley.com] [wiley.com]
----------
In 1879, a Rochester lawyer named George Selden applied for a U.S. patent for a road vehicle powered by a gasoline engine. Through his own delays and those of the government, however, a funny thing happened. Selden, who never built an actual automobile, received the patent on it in 1895, long after other people were building automobiles. In return for a percent of future revenues, Selden assigned the valuable patent to a group of New York financiers in 1897, and they defended it vigorously. In the first years of the century, they settled on a process by which automakers joined the Association of Licensed Automotive Manufacturers (ALAM), which served as a conduit for licensing fees for 1 1/4 percent on annual sales. Most of the country's automakers seemed reconciled to joining ALAM.
---------
Read a little bit about hardware patents. They're the same obvious, lawyer filled crap that software patents are.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if you do it on paper, or imagine a theoretical Turing machine, a court cannot place an injunction on you to stop you from thinking or imagining. However, an inventor can get claims for a process that require, as a limitation of the claims, that the process be performed by a specific machine.
That's exactly what I've meant: lawmakers and jurisdiction do not understand the issue. A computer is not a specific machine, it is a universal computing device (apart from its resource boundedness, which it shares with humans). With the appropriate software, e.g. Plt's redex sandbox, it can evaluate (rewrite) any formula of the lambda calculus just as a very patient mathematician can. So what you say is that the mathematician may evaluate the formula of the lambda calculus without infringing the patent, he
We do actually have to rejoice (Score:2)
Most detailed Oracle vs. Google patent analysis (Score:5, Informative)
I wanted to recommend this detailed blog posting (about 8,500 words, plenty of scrolling) on Oracle vs. Google [headius.com].
It discussed many aspects of the dispute and in particular goes into detail on the seven patents Oracle seeks to enforce against Google, and inhowfar they may or may not read on Android.
I posted a correction in the comments there to point out that Oracle changed its stance on software patents years ago, not just after acquiring Sun's patent portfolio.
His comment on moral high ground for Microsoft... (Score:4, Informative)
He seems to mean this primarily in terms of compliance with the official Java specification but one could also look at it in terms of software patent action against FOSS. I recently wrote about Microsoft's use of patents in connection with open source [blogspot.com] and got bashed for simply telling the truth: so far it's actually other companies who make the truly hostile moves. Far be it from me to defend software patents; I just mean to point out that there are different ways in which they get used, and in light of Oracle vs. Google, I believe more people will agree with me now.
One group of people James Gosling doesn't criticize are all those former Sun execs who strongly supported Oracle's acquisition of Sun because it was financially advantageous for them, only to leave the combined company as soon as possible after the closing of the deal. Many of those told the FOSS community that Sun had patents that could be very dangerous for open source, and Oracle was such a "reasonable" patent holder that it would be much better for them to acquire those patents than to take any risk that maybe Microsoft (which by the way never made a bid for Sun) could get them.
I opposed Oracle's acquisition of Sun. I also had concerns over the Java part but kept quiet about that and focused on MySQL. That's because I cooperated with Monty (the original author and founder of MySQL) and he wanted to be neutral about programming languages. For those who heard the slander that my work in that context aimed to change MySQL's license from the GPL to something else (which some even propagated here on Slashdot), I've meanwhile posted a detailed explanation, including links to several documents I used during my fight against the Oracle/Sun deal, in order to provide conclusive evidence that I argued against -- not for -- a license change. You can find that information in this blog posting (the link leads directly to a passage on MySQL and the GPL). [blogspot.com]
Re:His comment on moral high ground for Microsoft. (Score:2)
But what about possible proxy wars of Microsoft? Some funding of SCO, apparently. Or sabotaging ISO standarization via small partners (OK, this one not exactly about patents; but showing modus operandi)
To answer the proxy wars question (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO is a copyright case. While copyright litigation can also cause problems, there's a fundamental difference: you don't infringe copyright inadvertently. Theoretically you could, but practically you won't just by coincidence write a significant number of lines of code the same way someone else did. But patents are broad and you can infringe them totally unknowingly. That's why programmers who make independent creations never have to worry about copyright but unfortunately do have to worry about patents.
Concerning standardization, both Oracle and Google (as well as IBM and Red Hat) are member of "OpenForum Europe", a lobby group in the EU that pushes for "open standards". Here's a blog posting [blogspot.com] in which I criticized the hypocrisy of that group last month. If you look at the flawed Java Community Process [blogspot.com], that's also a serious standardization problem.
All large corporations try to use the patent system or standardization processes and standards policy to their advantage...
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
I think it does matter (Score:2)
Doesn't matter.
If you come up with an identical work independently, it's yours. Copyrights govern the actual act of copying, not the nature of the work as such.
So if I write a program to produce every possible combination of words in the English language with a total number of words in each between say 30,000 and 600,000 , I will have my own copyright free version of every English language novel ever written including all the Harry Potter series? Come to think of it I will have the copyright on every English novel yet to be written.
Better get started on that plan now, shame the number of possible combinations is probably more that the total number of atoms in the
Re:His comment on moral high ground for Microsoft. (Score:5, Insightful)
He seems to mean this primarily in terms of compliance with the official Java specification but one could also look at it in terms of software patent action against FOSS. I recently wrote about Microsoft's use of patents in connection with open source and got bashed for simply telling the truth: so far it's actually other companies who make the truly hostile moves. Far be it from me to defend software patents; I just mean to point out that there are different ways in which they get used, and in light of Oracle vs. Google, I believe more people will agree with me now.
You totally misinterpreted his comment, and it looks intentional. Gosling is obviously stating that Microsoft is a horrible company, but the rest of the industry has become so much worse recently that Microsoft seems benign in comparison (i.e., it is a sad truth). Microsoft is still the mortal threat to open source that it has always been.
I'm going to come right out and say it, I guess, since I'm posting AC anyway: I suspect you're shilling. This stinks like a PR campaign.
Re:His comment on moral high ground for Microsoft. (Score:5, Insightful)
AC has a point up there, especially when you consider that Microsoft doesn't sue openly, but instead makes all of its threats quietly (see also Novell's little pact, as well as various little or unpopular distros making similar pacts...) There's also the TomTom case. Microsoft wasn't exactly a Boy Scout whipping around that FAT32 patent like they had.
SCO was a copyright case, but in Microsoft's eyes, IP is IP (Ballmer has a nasty habit of not making distinctions in that particular realm either). Also, while in a similar post you go on and on about how one doesn't "inadvertently" infringe copyright, you missed something. Fact is, SCO posted (IIRC) as their one and only public 'encrypted evidence' snippet... a piece of BSD-licensed code that drifted into SysV's reference codebase even before the whole AT&T vs. Berkeley fights (I know, I know - Early Pleistocene and stuff). BUT - the point stands: anyone who has taken even a cursory glance at the whole BSD vs. SysV legal wars (and more importantly, their outcomes) knows better than to say something like "you don't infringe copyright inadvertently". Sheesh.
But anyway - while they're not as noisy about it (given their record of losing so many of such cases, little wonder why), Microsoft does do more than the usual amount of backroom intimidations and back-alley shakedowns in this whole "intellectual property" circus.
Re:His comment on moral high ground for Microsoft. (Score:5, Interesting)
Gosling is obviously stating that Microsoft is a horrible company, but the rest of the industry has become so much worse recently that Microsoft seems benign in comparison (i.e., it is a sad truth).
It's true. I admit I've recently been thinking less bad about Microsoft. I'm not going to be a fan any time soon, but MS seems to have remained rather stationary on the Evil scale (possibly even edging slightly away from the evil end, but that might be an illusion), while everybody else seems to be in a hurry to overtake them and dive off the deep end of the scale.
10 years ago I didn't think it was possible, but in the mean time many companies have proven that it is indeed possible to be far more evil than Microsoft.
If you are wondering what Gosling patented. (Score:2, Informative)
He tried to patent the light switch and switching lights on. ...
All of it is pretty silly, but Claim No7 contains some gems:
7. A method for controlling electrical power coupled to a plurality of electrical devices, said method comprising the steps of:
- providing a control unit comprising an identification map
- connecting said electrical power from a power source to each of said power outlets;
Which can describe the wiring in the wall.
Re: (Score:2)
Claims frequently recite boring and commonplace elements, because those elements serve as a foundation for other elements which are novel and non-obvious. It doesn't mean they're getting a patent on those boring and commonplace elements in isolation, but rather that in order to infringe the claim, a product or method must include those elements as well as all the other ones recited in the claim.
In this case (although I don't have time this morning to sort through the prosecution history to be sure), the ne
"Energy Star" (Score:2)
Similarly, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) recently obtained an Energy Star certification [nytimes.com] for a gasoline powered clock radio, among other things. It's a pencil whipping operation with no credible investigation of manufacturers claims. Worry not! The EPA has since announced [usatoday.com] reforms to this stellar program, so have no doubt that whatever price premium such august recognition demands is worth every certified penny.
Not even as a defensive measure. (Score:2, Interesting)
Even though we had a basic distaste for patents, the game is what it is, and patents are essential in modern corporations, if only as a defensive measure.
I really appreciate their work at mocking patents law system, but I can't agree with this part. While we can't change patent laws, we can at least avoid having them. We're not forced to patent our ideas just to protect them, because nobody can make sure the very same patents won't be used for suing other developers. I live in Iran and our patent system isn't as silly and as serious as America's, but I'm trying to avoid even this. I've come with an idea for a new Persian soft keyboard for our own commercial
Re:Not even as a defensive measure. (Score:5, Interesting)
You might not need a patent for your keyboard, but in any complex technology, you do. The Apple Vs HTC is a great example. HTC is building off of the 'no shit' next steps in cell phone technology. What is patented by Apple is stuff that, even if they did "invent" first (which is a dubious claim to even begin with), would have been invented in the very near future by others who were running down the same path. So, Apple sues HTC claiming infringement on a pile of obvious next step technologies that are absurdly broadly defined to begin with. HTCs only defense is to turn around and do the same. So, HTC has some stupid and obvious patents that they then claim Apple is infringing upon. The defensive pattens are not there to protect your technology, they are there to be used against a company trying to sue you.
Patents are like nuclear weapons. Even if you don't want to use the damned things offensively against others, you still want them so that you can threaten to use them on anyone who uses them on you.
Sadly, what this leads to is a stifling of creativity and innovation. The point of a patent is to encourage people to invent. As soon as a patent fails at that, it fails at its purpose. So, in the case of cellphone makers, it isn't like the lack of the ability to patent some overly broad technology would have prevented Apple from using and developing it. It is being used now ONLY to prevent creativity and innovation. It basically means that no one who doesn't already have an arsenal of patents can't jump into the market. The thought of a small time specialized cell phone maker jumping into the market is laughable because you can't enter the market unless you are armed to the teeth with your own defensive patents. Hell, the very reason why HTC is getting attacked by Apple is because they have the smallest patent portfolio.
Re: (Score:2)
"Patents are like nuclear weapons. Even if you don't want to use the damned things offensively against others, you still want them so that you can threaten to use them on anyone who uses them on you."
Patents are different in Iran, they're only used for peaceful purposes.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like Iran has Patents of Mass Destruction.
Get Them!
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand how you can say that after reading that Sun nearly went out of business because IBM sued them for violating patents.
Re: (Score:2)
While we can't change patent laws, we can at least avoid having them. We're not forced to patent our ideas just to protect them, because nobody can make sure the very same patents won't be used for suing other developers.
...and then someone will reverse-engineer your work, patent it, and sue you over it [uspto.gov].
Re: (Score:2)
Vote Pirate and stop this madness (Score:2, Informative)
Pirate Party is not only against patents on software, we work actively against it.
Asking this question is hard, suing is easy (Score:2)
They don't ask a simple question, a very simple one.
"We have our technology preinstalled to near billion handheld/mobile devices. We have industry giants who submits their own enhancements. Opera Mini (and soon Locago) proved those users will care to install something if it means something to them. So, what was wrong with J2ME and why Google went their own way instead of enhancing J2ME?"
If you can get answer, ask any high level executive in MS what would they feel if some MS technology, like "silverlight li
Inventor's Oath? (Score:2, Insightful)
All inventors must sign an oath [uspto.gov] stating that they have disclosed all information known to them to be material to patentability. If you think your patent is invalid from the start, you are under an obligation to disclose whatever prior art you think is relevant. Am I the only one who finds it a little disturbing that luminaries are now admitting to fraud on the patent office?
Re: (Score:2)
Am I the only one who finds it a little disturbing that luminaries are now admitting to fraud on the patent office?
Yes. They all do it, it's only a matter of time before they start openly admitting it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Inventor's Oath? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's the Android fragmentation argument again (Score:5, Interesting)
Android has pretty much played out the way that we feared: there is enough fragmentation among Android handsets to significantly restrict the freedom of software developers.
The notion that Android suffers from a huge fragmentation problem seems to be repeated everywhere, but I really don't understand where this is coming from. I've developed JME and Android applications and the amount of fragmentation on Android is mostly non-existent. Apart from some small number of device-specific bugs (that are fixed with phone updates) that won't affect most Android apps, cross-device development is a breeze. I remember JME development was way more troublesome, where model-specific versions were the rule instead of the exception.
Re: (Score:2)
Depends, do you have meet QA assurances to customers? I know we've dropped QA assurance for Android devices from our contracts now unless the client asks for specific models with specific OS's. We still offer a QA assurance standard for iOS based applications because it's not costing us $8k a year for hardware like it was with Android for iDevices. Making sure your application runs on android isn't a problem. Guaranteeing it works well across a range of devices is a different ball-game.
Gosling's patent (Score:2, Insightful)
Another Joke Patent. How many others have done so? (Score:5, Interesting)
About 18 years ago, I did the same.. We had to come up with patents for a product that was the owner's pet project... Well, I had to come up with a patent too, since I had worked on the project, so I wrote up a patent for a steering wheel. It was a complete joke and i used as much obfuscation as I could, describing complex equations defining circular motion such as X^2+y^2=1 and the likes.. It had the other engineers in stitches... We all thought it was hilarious and the boss slipped it into the pile to go to the patent office so they could enjoy the joke as well... Some time later the boss came in stony faced and simply said "The patent for the steering wheel. No one ever jokes about it again. Ever. Period." then walked out. Seems it was the only patent that stood up to scrutiny.... All the rest were rejected... So, the owner of the "Timezone" amusement centers around Australia formally owned the patent on every electronic steering wheel that controls a vehicle... Ever invented. Anywhere. Even if it uses mechanical linkages. Especially if it was in the shape of a circle, but it also counted if was a joystick that could be moved through a "virtual circle"... Not that it didn't stop the engineers rolling around on the floor laughing for a few minutes when I told them all. Yep. another literal joke patent... And to their credit, they all kept a straight face when the "Big" boss came in to congratulate us all.
GrpA
Re:Another Joke Patent. How many others have done (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon's 1-Click patent (Score:2, Interesting)
"There was even an unofficial competition to see who could get the goofiest patent through the system."
I believe this is how Amazon's 1-Click patent got started.
This problem is now over 200 years old! (Score:5, Interesting)
I was at the london science museum last week and saw something interesting on the information board regarding one of the steam engines on display. Unfortunately I didn't think to take a photograph / transcribe it, but this blog gives a summary: http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2006/08/engineering-parallels-at-the-s.php [currybet.net]
To quote the blog's transcription of the caption:
In 1769, James Watt had taken out a patent that allowed him to dominate steam-engine design and improvement. As a result, other engineers were prevented by law from developing new, alternative designs."
When the patent expired other engineers were able to innovate again, particularly Richard Trevithick. He experimented with using steam under a much higher pressure, and as a result was able to build smaller and more powerful engines, which enabled him to build the first locomotive railway engine capable of hauling a load.
So even the science museum is suggesting that patent's stiffle innovation, and have been doing so for over 200 years
One for the IQ test? (Score:3, Insightful)
Software patents are to the IT community as malware is to operating systems.
First thing to do with a new Windows machine is to remove the Symantec crap which it came infected with. As what to do with all those lawyers I'll just refer to Shakespeare [spectacle.org] and leave it to you, dear reader, to interpret this quote by the Bard of Avon...
Gosling's patent... (Score:2)
Literally? (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean "figuratively".
http://xkcd.com/725/ [xkcd.com]
Re:Literally? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
You mean big companies bribing the system to allow patents on asses.
Re:Yep (Score:5, Funny)
Why do you hate their right to be successful?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If "successful" means destroying all innovation, progress and freedom to develop - just to be able to kill every starter that is getting a little ground, I think you can really hate that kind of "success".
Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Because they do it largely at everyone else's expense. Who said "success is a right" anyway? Success is not constitutionally mandated.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yep (Score:4, Insightful)
I beg your pardon?
Don't you mean "Large Corporations abusing a system designed to protect inventors and using it to push forward a monopoly?"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Patents, at face value are required.
If you went through all the trouble of inventing say - the google search engine algorithms - then I shouldn't have the right to nick your sourcecode and use it myself without paying you for it.
In that case its fair.
When its not fair is when you lock down an 'idea'. Now in other things it makes sense, but in software, where even a single idea 'A way of sorting lists' can have tons of different implementations (ex: bubble sort, quick sort, trees etc...) in software its not
Re: (Score:2)
>> Patents, at face value are required.
>> If you went through all the trouble of inventing say - the google search engine algorithms - then I shouldn't have the right to nick your sourcecode and use it myself without paying you for it.
A) That would be copyright infringement.
B) How would you legally get the source code?
How does being patented do anything to help here?
Re: (Score:2)
A) Sorry, but I don't speak lawyer. Last time I was corrected on this I got the impression that a 'copyright' is there to protect a company image while 'patent' is there to protect what the company invents.
B) Reverse engineering is only illegal because you're doing it on something patented. Reverse engineering the Linux kernel is legal.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think he meant that. I don't believe software patents were ever designed to protect inventors, rather they were always intended for use by large corporations to limit competition.
I think it's reasonable to conclude that software patents are working exactly as they were intended.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
you assume they'd get their costs back.
Once you have a legal department handling lots of patents the marginal cost drops a lot.
Employee moral was probably in the shitter after the company almost got screwed followed by requiring the devs to write hordes of innane patent apps. Of course people are going to act out a little and write some crazy applications.
It is quite funny in a dry way.
The point is that no matter how stupid the op got a valid patent on the light switch. It doesn't matter that it's stupid, s
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not saying the patent system isn't broken, but...
* It's not a software patent
Who cares? Software patents are just examples of what's wrong with patents, and show to anyone who understands the field that patent examiners routinely issue patents for "inventions" that are entirely obvious to those of us who actually know how to write software. Just because software patents are routinely bad doesn't mean we can't and shouldn't find examples in other fields that are just as bad
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)