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UK Firm Patents Software Downloads 56

Posted by timothy from the handy-things-patents-thousands-of-uses dept.
spike1 writes "The Register has a story about BTG (British Technology Group) acquiring a patent on software downloads ... If this is one area of tech that's not covered by prior art, I don't know what is. Although, the Reg doesn't include a link to the actual patents, out-law.com is also carrying the story and contains links to the patents, and looking at some of their patent synopses, it looks like it's a pretty broad brush."
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UK Firm Patents Software Downloads More

UK Firm Patents Software Downloads

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  • Your web-broser is dowinloading SOFTWARE:

    HERE IT IS:

    10 PRINT "BILL GATES MAKES 3L33T PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES";
    20 RUN

  • No effect (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DCBoland ( 700327 )
    Let's entertain the notion that BTG get their way (this wouldn't surprise me anymore), the companies paying royalties would only pass these fees onto their users. Making this another reason for users not to patch, there should be part of patent law for patents that effect national security like this...then again if you're going to change patent law I can think of a few other things I'd change too...

  • BTG's past record (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    BTG seem to be the worst sort of patent parasites, if we go by the "success stories" on their website [btgplc.com]. Here's an excerpt bragging about locking down the rights to Interferon, a vital anti-cancer drug developed by the UK Medical Research Council:

    Because Dr Isaacs and Dr Lindenmann published their findings before any patent applications were filed, it was not possible for BTG to secure patents except in countries whose patent laws offered a 'grace period', namely USA, Canada and Germany.

    BTG applied for
  • that had the patent on hypercards a while back. When it got to the courts, they lost.

    Further, isn't a patent supposed to present something that isn't just common sense? I can remember diagramming such a system as this on a whiteboard for a fellow programmer - in 1981! Can you say prior art?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Global (Score:2)

        by alexo ( 9335 )
        > And it wasn't BTG that "patented" hyperlinks, it was BT, Britain's
        > monopolist telephone company. A phone company that makes you pay by the
        > second for local calls.

        Almost every phone company outside of North America makes you pay by the second for local calls, and most of them are monopolists.
      • it was BT, Britain's monopolist telephone company. A phone company that makes you pay by the second for local calls.

        Telephony is something I consider a natural monopoly, that should be either state-run or under strict state governance.

        Same for energy supply. Phones, gas and electricity in the UK are a disaster now that the artificial market has been created. Everyone tries to cover up the true cost by introducing bonuses for taking two services from one company, "friends and family" discounts, cheap inte
        • SO isntead of paying 30p/minute to Greece as I did under the old nationalised BT, I now pay 1p/minute. Instead of chugging along on 56k with no alternative, I have 2Mbit ADSL. Instead of paying 10p/minute for phone calls I pay 6p/hour. And thats bad why?

          Competition drives prices down and innovation up. That's why monopolies are so bad - no competition.
          • Competition can't drive prices down below cost+profit margin. You're right - competition does produce innovation, but we don't need innovation in the telephone network. We need a stable system with gradual improvement at a low cost.

            For most people, the savings to be made are not worth the time and effort involved in keeping up with changes to calling plans and actually changing suppliers.

            Over 70% of the UK are still with BT, in spite of the artifical market.

            I don't love BT at all. It's simply that the ec
            • So we didn't need innovation when the phones were still switched manually. Or when you used to have pulse dial? Or before things like 1471 to get last number called, or ADSL?

              There are many natual monopolies, rail infrastructure, sewers, roads, the local loop. A phone company is not one.

              The cost is substantially less in privatised companies as theres a motive.
              • I see no reason why the "innovations" you mention would not have happened under a properly state-controlled monopoly. I grant that state-control is rarely practised well, but I don't see that as inherent to the concept.

                Remember that BT is still the monopoly network provider. If a service isn't supported on BTs network then NO-ONE can sell it. Most of their competitors are just glorified sales, marketing and customer service congolomerates.

                I remember the last company I worked for, we moved to Thus from BT

      • BT, Britain's monopolist telephone company. A phone company that makes you pay by the second for local calls.

        Ok, I have family that works for BT so I'll bite on this one. BT used to be a part of the post office, it was then split off as a private company and I believe it had a monopoly for a number of years. I think in about the last 10 years or so competition has been introduced (NTL, various others - I don't pay much attention) and the industry regulated by oftel (I believe a name change has happen rec

        • Eh ? BT _do_ offer unlimited free local (and national) calls depending on which calling plan you take.

          Sure, you pay more monthly fixed charges to get free calls, but then same goes everywhere - "free local calls" normally means you don't get charged any _extra_ for the calls over and above fixed monthly charges, not that you don't pay anything at all.

      • BT, Britain's monopolist telephone company. A phone company that makes you pay by the second for local calls.

        I guess you're from the USA, the country we still own. Or have things changed since then?

        BT is no longer a monopoly. Well, not as much of a monopoly as it was. There are various bits of BT that I've given up keeping up with, but some company with BT in the name still owns the wires from your house to the exchange. That makes sense - a monoploy in wires and pipes from houses to some central point

    • Could you verify your statement and post it to the appropriate section at Wikipatent.org [wikipatent.org]
    • This is a generalisation, and I may be wrong. But as this was explained to me (this only applies to the UK side of the pond): A software patent cannot be applied to something that can be done by a human (within reason). It can only be applied to something which a human would be unable to do. Take the example of telephone receptionist. You could replace her with a piece of software which routes calls depending on the area code. This system would certainly not be allowed in the UK - simply because the
  • Most of which I downloaded at least some software. Prior art indeed! What closet have the patent examiners been locked in for the last 30 years that they never heard of software downloading?
    • RTFP

      It's about automatic updates. The headline is misleading.
      • A misleading, FUD headline on Slashdot? Stop the presses :)
      • It's about automatic updates. The headline is misleading.

        From the Article:A British company with a history of taking on larger rivals says it owns six patents affecting software downloads. The claim comes from British Technology Group (BTG), which is in the business of turning inventors' ideas into commercial products. If true, it could mean that dozens of software firms that use the Web to deliver certain kinds of software - including security updates and patches - could be forced to pay royalties to BT
        • RTFPatent ;)

          to be fair I haven't read the patent either, but both of the articles imply that this is limited to automatic updates / patches.
          • Once again- the article on The Register implied no such thing, at least, not by my understanding of English. I saw it as INCLUDING, but not LIMITED TO automatic updates and patches. Also- I had a friend back in college, circa 1993, who was using beneficial viruses and worms to update his shareware automatically, so there is certainly prior art for that which predates the web.
            • Read the other article. The actual patents are linked. From the page:

              Patent 5,694,546: System for automatic unattended electronic information transport between a server and a client by a vendor provided transport software with a manifest list

              Patent 6,594,692: Methods for transacting electronic commerce

              Patent 6,125,388: System for transporting information objects between a user station and multiple remote sources based upon user modifiable object manifest stored in the user station

              Patent 6,658,464: User

              • I'll go read the other article. But on it's face, it's 6,658,464 and 6,611,862 that are the scariest. Every browser, every terminal program, even the old "dumb terminal" VT100 embedded operating system, controled transport, storage, and presentation of content from a remote source; and that's what I was looking at. I'll admit to not actually drilling down below that- some of us have jobs!
              • I've now read the other article. Prior art for Patent 6,125,388: ZModem, YModem. Prior art for Patent 6,611,862: any terminal emulation program or web browser that supports secure or unsecure logins.

                Actually, my full 24 years of experience applies to these two- it's completely rediculous to hand out a patent on either one of these NOW.
    • Read The Flippin' Claims ...

      Patent monopolies are only as broad as the area defined by the claims. I only looked at the eldest patent via Outlaw (http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=1087 3 19985&area=news) to the USPTO (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P TO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.ht m&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,694,546.WKU.&OS=PN/5,694,546&R S=PN/5,694,546).

      The claim 1 (which is usually the broadest) specifies automatic dow
      • Check out patent #6,611,862 - from it's claims every damn terminal emulator, and even the hardware firmware in terminals, violates it. The question becomes, will they enforce them as a set or separately?
  • This set of patents is a veritable gold mine for the holders - its not just web update/patch/dnld mechanisms that are involved. For example Akamai uses a lot of similar technology to sync and distribute content between their different nodes - and the folks at BTG can, doubtless, hear the CHI-CHING!!! of the cash registers. If you own a set-top box that is remotely programmed/updated with firmware through your phone/cable/satellite conenction - CHI-CHING!!!! If you write a small client-server software for yo
  • But having SIX different patents on downloading software? How does that make sense?
  • IIRC, didn't Symantec get a patent on this very idea a year ago, relating to it's LiveUpdate system, but promised not to enfore it? I mean, it was a stupid patent then, but apparently the bar is even lower now. Not only can you patent things you didn't invent and with plenty of prior art, you can patent stuff that's already been patented!

  • Who'd have thought ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @05:19PM (#9446690) Homepage Journal
    ... that the Web would be useful for installing software?

    But now that these guys have shown us the way, we can all start doing it. It oughta be a lot faster than those punch cards that I'd been using.

  • apt-get (Score:4, Funny)

    by sydb ( 176695 ) * <michael @ w d 2 1 . c o . uk> on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @05:38PM (#9446837)
    Do I have to take it out of cron now? If I put it in cron, but didn't write apt-get, am I exempt?
  • When we used tapes to load software on computers I heard it was possible to record tapes from the radio and then use (or upload if you will) those tapes onto your computer. Prior art may even go back all the way to downloading software from Radio.
    • Heh, this brings back memories - my dad and one of his friends spent an afternoon playing BASIC programs to each other down the phone, each recording the output to a tape recorder. I remember thinking "Wow! wave of the future!" when one of those crappy BASIC listings actually worked using this method. However, the level of mental anguish involved to try and copy any Speedlock or Bleepload-protected data (damn you, Footballer of the Year!) using this method far outweighed the convenience factor. R:Tape Lo

      • Re:back in the day (Score:3, Informative)

        by spike1 ( 675478 )
        Various TV programmes in the UK did similar things. Tomorrows world back in the early 80s tried a few methods of downloading from the telly.

        The old tape recorder next to the tv while we play you the loading sound was the first (I tried that with the ZX81 one they broadcast... didn't work, they also did vic 20 and later, spectrum, iirc). Later, they tried a direct connection to the computer via a light sensor stuck to the screen, and a flashing black and white square. (Think that one was only for the BBC
  • After I RTFA, what caught my interest, was this;
    The company also claims to hold a patent that relates to off-line Internet browsing, another area that could be lucrative in terms of royalty payments.

  • me too .... (Score:2, Funny)

    by turnin ( 698827 )

    Investor: We decided to invest in Company 1 due to the unique Download patent they had.

    Company 2: oh ... if that is the case we had pending patents on
    1. upLoading 2. leftLoading 3.rightLoading 4. omniLoading
    ofcourse with "download" as an old prior art.

  • microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)

    by qtothemax ( 766603 )
    From the article: The UK's Daily Telegraph, which broke the story, speculates that Microsoft - which delivers millions of security updates for its software over the Net - is one of the firms on BTG's hit list.

    Since Microsoft is involved, I see 3 possible outcomes to this:
    1) Microsoft challenges the patent and wins
    2) Microsoft buys BTG and does not enforce the patent. Everyone lives happily ever after.
    3) Microsoft buys BTG and milks the patents for all they are worth. Everyone looses.
    If microsoft is f

    • Re:microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Thursday June 17, 2004 @10:38AM (#9453001)
      What I'd like to see is, shall we say, option 1a:

      Microsoft challenges the patent and eventually wins, but uses its courtroom manipulation mojo to make the trial last as long as possible, thus causing BTG to collapse into bankruptcy under the weight of its own idiocy. Maybe that will be a bit of incentive to stop further patent stupidity from other firms.

  • If you take a look at the second link and investigate the patents, you'll see it's really not as simple as 'downloading software'. Although it's plain to see that BTG are a bunch of immoral patent-grabbing bastards, it looks as though these particular patents might just be specific enough to circumvent your scorn. Maybe just.
  • Does this patent 6,611,862 [uspto.gov] cover trojans?

  • They did *not* patent, they *licensed*! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Randym ( 25779 ) on Thursday June 17, 2004 @05:18PM (#9457438)
    A British firm that is the exclusive licensee for a portfolio of six US patents...



    These are *pre-existing* US patents which they have *licensed*. They, themselves, have *not* patented these, they have paid money to the people who *did* patent them.



    The real controversy here is their application of these patents: their business plan is that they will sue the pants off the largest corporations they can find that they can plausibly attest is violating "their" patent. This has been their modus operandi for awhile.



    Ironically, they were originally set up by the government of Great Britain in 1948 to commercialize "publicly funded research". It seems that they have gotten a little off track, and should probably be reined it a little.

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