Microsoft Wins Summary Judgement in Smart Tag Case 156
dan2bit writes "Business Week reports that a judge in Wisconsin handed down a summary judgement today in favor of Microsoft, defending itself from a patent infringement suit brought by small fish Hyperphrase over the embedding of 'Smart Tags' in Microsoft Office. The suit also produced some amusing minutiae."
Oh no the summary wasn't late (Score:2, Funny)
It is very nice for the courts to be oh-so-forgiving of MS...
Re:Oh no the summary wasn't late (Score:2)
Re:Oh no the summary wasn't late (Score:1)
Re:Oh no the summary wasn't late (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Oh no the summary wasn't late (Score:2)
Re:Oh no the summary wasn't late (Score:2)
A likely explanation is that, since Micros~1 thinks the world revolves around them, they filed the briefs before midnight in Redmond. Wisconsin is two hours ahead.
Schwab
Re:Oh no the summary wasn't late (Score:4, Insightful)
If MS loses, they will bitch about stupid patent laws.
IF MS wins, they will bitch about how courts always go for big businesses.
Re:Oh no the summary wasn't late (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft has quite the double standard here on Slashdot. Everybody wants MS punished. They want to see MS hurt. Unfortunately, it is rare that anybody puts any thought into the consequences of punishing Microsoft. Just like you brought up here, it was probably better for Microsoft to win instead of lose. When the Blaster worm made its rounds, people here were saying "Why isn't Microsoft being held liable?" Sounds great, doesn't it? Make Microsoft pay for their 'negligence'. Never mind that somebody was getting away with being a malicious asshole and Microsoft was being punished for it, no no no, Microsoft should be punished for not being pyschic and predicting that an exploit would be.. uh. exploited. If Microsoft were to be liable for defects like that, then in all fairness, individuals of the OSS Community would risk being liable for somebody else's malicious use. So, in short, Linux could find itself vulernable to whatever punishment is dealt to Microsoft in a case like that.
Be careful about what you wish for. If you want Microsoft to be punished, that's perfectly okay, just be careful that they don't get punished in a way that burns you.
Re:Oh no the summary wasn't late (Score:2)
Re:Oh no the summary wasn't late (Score:2)
Linux is sold...
"Without a defect, no amount of assholeness would have produced a quickly spreading worm."
Bullshit. You can take anything and misuse it. Take Slashdot, for example. People can post offensive things. I can crapflood. I can trick you into going to Goatse. Is Slashdot defective, or am I a malicious asshole?
Re:Oh no the summary wasn't late (Score:2)
-a
Re:Oh no the summary wasn't late (Score:2)
I apologize. I've had this debate before and thought you were going that direction.
"If a manufacturer sets an easily guessed default password which allows remote exploitation, that's partially a bug and partially system admin error."
Hmm maybe I'm misinterpreting you here, but doesn't any password a manufacture sets qualify? I'll leave it at that because I don't think I'm understanding you.
"If I'm careless and the virus spreads,
Re:Oh no the summary wasn't late (Score:2)
Now, I'm not saying that that isn't the case, but I really don't think that it should be, especially with software. If I run Linux on mission-critical machines, and an exploit leads to those machines getting rooted and all my data trashed (or worse), I'm not going to think "Oh well, at least it was free!". Cost of the OS, in that case, is going to be utterly irrelevant.
Just because you arrest an accomplice doesn't mean you don'
ugh... (Score:1, Offtopic)
I tried reading one of the "funny" rulings.. but after about a paragraph i fell asleep.
It's there if you can bear the rest... (Score:5, Funny)
You missed the conclusion! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's there if you can bear the rest... (Score:1)
How is it the readers of slashdot can decipher a thousand and one technology acronyms a minute but need an hour to "wade through" a highly intelligible and well written legal document?
Re:It's there if you can bear the rest... (Score:2)
Well written, yes. They have to be very exact, but if you seriously think most legal documents are easy to wade through, you are either a lawyer or a member of Mensa (the latter, of course, assumes that some member of Mensa can stop stroking his ego long enough to actually read one, which is unlikely).
Re:ugh... (Score:2, Funny)
Remove the scurge from your webpages too (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Remove the scurge from your webpages too (Score:1)
Re:Remove the scurge from your webpages too (Score:1)
Re:Remove the scurge from your webpages too (Score:3, Informative)
Thus, that statement does absolutely nothing.
Blame Unix (Score:2, Funny)
Filing not late (Score:5, Funny)
The message WAS actually sent June 23, but the exchange server was down until the 25th.
... But was the courts clock accurate? (Score:4, Insightful)
And anyway, it's four minutes and 27 seconds, c'mon!
Insightful? More like Irresponsible. (Score:1, Insightful)
If 4:27s becomes "ok", then what about 8:54s. Its "only" 4:27s after the new ok.
Just adhere to the damn deadline.
Re:Insightful? More like Irresponsible. (Score:2)
Yes, it was highly irresponsible, but WHO FUCKING CARES if it was 4 minutes late? If they were to treat others differently W/R/T lateness, that's one thing, but most courts aren't gonna be dicks about it.
Your court's clock may not be accurate! (Score:5, Funny)
Would you like to download PrecisionTime from the Gator Corporation?
[Yes] [OK] [Sure]
Re:Your court's clock may not be accurate! (Score:1)
The 'OK' link in the above post is busted. I tried the 'Sure' one too - it doesn't seem to work either. What time is it? Wait, maybe if I click 'Yes' -- nope. Crap, how am I gonna know if the pizza guy is late?
Re:Your court's clock may not be accurate! (Score:2)
If you pass out/die of starvation while waiting, he might be late. Or you live in Columbus, OH.
Re:... But was the courts clock accurate? (Score:2)
You'll get no sympathy from me!
Re:... But was the courts clock accurate? (Score:2)
Actually, the federal courts are moving to electronic filing, which renders the particular time of day irrelevant.
Re:... But was the courts clock accurate? (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell me that 2% interest on $18,000 owing for that space of time is not going to piss you off. ($360 for the math impaired)
Re:... But was the courts clock accurate? (Score:2)
RTFA!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Wounded though this court may be by Microsoft's four minute and twenty-seven second dereliction of duty, it will transcend the affront and forgive the tardiness. Indeed, to demonstrate the even-handedness of its magnanimity, the court will allow Hyperphrase on some future occasion in this case to e-file a motion four minutes and thirty seconds late, with supporting documents to follow up to
The judge's decision was outrageous. (Score:5, Interesting)
Generally speaking, any irregularity should make the court even more reluctant to grant summary judgment. The judge here granted summary judgment even after acknowledging that Microsoft was too late to file - and mocked the plaintiffs for objecting at all! I would expect that Hyperphrase is going to be filing their appeal to the district judge in the very near future.
The judge is forgiving Microsoft for filing late, and is basically telling Hyperphrase to stop being a pain in the ass.
Deadlines exist for a reason. If there weren't definite rules for when and in what order things needed to happen in litigation, the courts would be much more inefficient, and people in court would be denied their constitutional right to due process. Yeah, it's funny that Microsoft filed five minutes late - but there's a big difference between some prisoner struggling to represent himself who files five minutes late, and an enormous multinational corporation with gigantic legal resources doing the same thing. A wink and a nod is inappropriate here.
Re:The judge's decision was outrageous. (Score:1, Insightful)
Apparently the judge had previously ordered the two companies not to screw around with picking at every minor infraction that the other side makes, primarily because it would likely cause the case to drag on and not get to the core of the matter.
Re:The judge's decision was outrageous. (Score:2)
That aside, I'm generally inclined to agree with you, to some extent. Yes, they should have filed on time. If the deadline had been set at a specific time for a reason, I'd definately agree with you. If, for example, the deadline had bee
Sarcasm alert (Score:2, Informative)
Wounded though this court may be by Microsoft's four minute and twenty-seven second dereliction of duty, it will transcend the affront and forgive the tardiness. Indeed, to demonstrate the even-handedness of its magnanimity, the court will allow Hyperphrase on some future occasion in this case to e-file a motion four minutes and thirty seconds late, with suppo
Re:Sarcasm alert (Score:2)
Good lawyers all, the Hyperphase legal staff was just making sure they left no stone unthrown.
Lee Kaiwen, Taiwan
Re:... But was the courts clock accurate? (Score:1)
Re:... But was the courts clock accurate? (Score:2)
But you won't get one (unless you're swerving or look "suspicious"... or driving a sports car).
Jokey Judge (Score:3, Funny)
"Now that's...COMEDY."
--Slappy Squirrel
Obviously... (Score:4, Insightful)
In any case, good for the court on putting the ridiculousness of the situation in writing. I mean, if the litigators are going to disrespect the court by wasting its time with ridiculous motions, they may be obligated to follow along, but they can at least put their own disrespect for the litigants in evidence.
Re:Obviously...Not ridiculous! (Score:2, Insightful)
This is exactly why Judge Jackson tounge-lashed them to the media! He picked up on this outright condecending attitude to the Law and meant to put the hurt to them.
In my opinion, the court should have awarded the case to the other side, and made MS f
Re:Obviously...Not ridiculous! (Score:2)
Prior art (Score:5, Informative)
The generic link designates a link with a selection as source (this would in the simplest case be a string, but could be e.g. a image) and a specific destination. Thus, whereever the selection is encountered, there is a link to the destination. This functionality has been reimplemented a number of times in various open hypermedia systems.
Re:Prior art (Score:2)
I wonder if the quote of the day at the bottom of every
Re:Prior art (Score:3, Funny)
Haha.. haha (Score:2, Funny)
On a more on-topic ms note, I just saw an add on
We now have to pay to use a protocol? yuwah?
Heres ya' link to it: http://m3.doubleclick.net/790463/mrs03124_ha_728x
After some (Score:2, Funny)
Isn't MS pro-software patent? (Score:1)
Re:Isn't MS pro-software patent? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Isn't MS pro-software patent? (Score:1, Interesting)
Defense against patent claims (Score:1)
Re:Defense against patent claims (Score:1)
The judge left an extra surprise for them (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The judge left an extra surprise for them (Score:1)
AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T USE ALL CAPS (Score:3, Funny)
Re:AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T USE ALL CAPS (Score:2)
(this text added to get around lameness filter. You know there's so much text up there I have to add a lot to balance the lameness filter)
Re:AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T USE ALL CAPS (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T USE ALL CAPS (Score:3, Informative)
For those that argue that people just skip over the text because it's hard to read or it's like yelling, well, that's a silly argument, and no court would accept that
Re:AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T USE ALL CAPS (Score:1)
In land surveying everything handwritten is written in capital leters for readability. People tend to take more time with capitals than with lower case. It is amusing trying to get my father to type surveying documents any other way than all caps (and all the other surveyors I used to have to deal wi
Re:AT LEAST THEY DIDN'T USE ALL CAPS (Score:1)
All caps is also used whenever you want to make something more difficult to read. Check out the 'disclaimer' on a pack of cigarettes sometime - it's puposely written in sans-serif narrow spaced ALL CAPS in order to make it more difficult to read.
Legalize through obfuscation!
Nothing to do with legality of software patent law (Score:3, Interesting)
When this issue originally came up many people were hoping that Microsoft might argue against the legality of software patents in general. They completely side stepped the issue. What's going to happen when Ogg gets sued by Fraunhofer and company?
Re:Nothing to do with legality of software patent (Score:2)
Ogg and patents (Score:3, Informative)
Vorbis is a codec that does the same job as MP3 (only better). The Ogg guys worked very hard, with lawyers vetting the code at each stage of development, to make darn sure that no patents apply to anything in Vorbis. It would have been done a lot sooner if they hadn't had to do this.
Theora is a video codec, based on a video codec called VP3. The guys who developed VP3, On2, hav
Please explain... (Score:1)
There is something interesting about this artice/post to me though. It's the number of posts saying this is boring/confusing/not funny when just about everyone on slashdot in general is willing to give legal advice/suggestions/jokes regarding the topics at hand.
Bow to your overlords without sigs.
Re:Please explain... (Score:2)
Re:Please explain... (Score:2)
Oh well, the humor was intended to be sardonic. Some people like sardonic humor (I thought the linked page was hilarious) and some don't. I guess that is the same thing as some people liking Monty Python, and some not.
Go microsoft. (Score:1, Insightful)
Enemy of the enemy is a friend. (Score:1)
Lawyer humor (Score:1)
Lawyer 1:
Lawyer 2: Did you get all the paperwork done yet?
At this point, both of them fell over laughing. It was hilarious!
I guess you had to be there.
Re:Lawyer humor (Score:3, Funny)
Groan...I'm switching majors. Or shooting myself.
Just what I needed (Score:3, Interesting)
This was a chuckle and a half. I can't understand all you who think it was boring. Apparently the $5 and $10 words scared you off.
I had never seen flyspeck used as a verb before...
Microspect (Score:2, Funny)
She continued "We be payin props ta doz silly azz mofos intalectual propertiez, but they'ze disrespectin' ours. Whats up with that shiznat dogz?"
------
This means war! (Score:2, Funny)
Patents bad. Even worse than Microsoft. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Patents bad. Even worse than Microsoft. (Score:2)
Generalizations always suck.
What we've become. (Score:2)
I love well-worded use of language. It just feels good to say well-written prose. One could divert into the technology here, but I would like to take another road.
This, to me, seems to sum-up American life. We grow up, dream big dreams, educate ourselves, strive for betterment. In the end, we spend our lives making our point through formatting. Is it just me or has America become a bunch of pussies (I'm
Re:What we've become. (Score:2)
OK, that actually might be kind of fun for a day or two, but still...
Lawyers and all their $10 words! (Score:2)
Insouciance?
Temerity?
Magnanimity?
You think this guy got 750+ on his verbal SAT or LSAT?
Fun with www.m-w.com (Score:1)
The magnanimity of your accepting mine own proposition in insouciance will establish the temperament with which I approbate your further articulations.
You seemed to list them in least to most common usage - I've seen insouciance the least, but the others are fairly common. Especially when making fun of medieval/fantasy stories
8-PP
Re:Lawyers and all their $10 words! (Score:2)
I'm no MS fan but.... (Score:1)
Judge Kent's Pigs (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Judge Kent's Pigs (Score:2)
An excerpt from the parent's link:
Re:Judge Kent's Pigs (Score:1)
Re:Judge Kent's Pigs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Judge Kent's Pigs (Score:2)
Issues of whether such chastisement from the bench is fair or not - perhaps that's something that the Bar Association should look into. I must admit that I have a hard time with the article's portrayal of lawyers as such helpless individu
Re:Judge Kent's Pigs (Score:2)
I came out of reading this article with a sense that a member of the "mainstream" judicial profession was criticizing another for not acting like the majority.
Personally, even though i'm far removed from the judicial circles, i found Judge Kent's memorandum both original and refreshing. My
Re:Judge Kent's Pigs (Score:2)
But both judges are really funny in a caustic way
Re:Judge Kent's Pigs (Score:2)
All your base are still not funny. (Score:1, Troll)
Keep it up, guys. If the slashdot moderators don't find you funny, I'm sure the corporate lawyers will.
-Carolyn
midnight means midnight (Score:3, Informative)
When a court sets a deadline, people should be expected to stick to it. If, in this case, the court decided that it wanted to ignore its own deadline, that's its choice. But would have been perfectly acceptable and entirely reasonable for it to throw out any documents submitted even a second late.
Re:midnight means midnight (Score:2)
Agreed. One or two minutes can be explained by clock differences (not that you should be leaving it that close to the wire anyway) but an hour later?
SmartTags Against Terrorism! Yeah! (Score:1)
Did we mention terrorism.. ok good.
Re:The funniest thing (Score:1)
Was how they disabled the comments. But that did not stop the Sporkinator [corplawblog.com]!
I disagree (Score:1)