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Visto Founder Blogs about Microsoft Lawsuit 134

Posted by CowboyNeal from the horse's-mouth dept.
neelm writes "Reported a few days ago, Visto is suing Microsoft over patent infringements. David Cowen, a founder of Visto (and Verisign) has made a recent blog post about the patent involved. He clears up what exactly the patents involved are, but what may be a more interesting read is the patent itself - issued in March of 2004. It might be nice to see Microsoft defending itself from patent litigation I admit, but I'm not sure I want to give validity to this patent."
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Visto Founder Blogs about Microsoft Lawsuit More

Visto Founder Blogs about Microsoft Lawsuit

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  • Patent? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bananatree3 ( 872975 ) * on Thursday December 22, 2005 @06:59PM (#14322903)
    " System and method for globally and securely accessing unified information in a computer network"

    At first I thought maybe they were going to sue them for stealing one of the variations on the name "Vista".

    • Re:Patent? (Score:2, Funny)

      by IgLou ( 732042 )
      Man I read that patent and I couldn't help but wonder who you couldn't sue with that? Talk about vague! That's it, I'm patenting the algorithm to add 1 + 1 electronically. Cha-ching!

      • Re:Patent? (Score:3, Informative)

        by a_n_d_e_r_s ( 136412 )
        Actually someone tried to patent addding 1 and 1 elektronically!

        They luckily did not get a patent. But this was many years ago when patent examiners had time to actually read a patent!

        • Re:Patent? (Score:2, Funny)

          by IgLou ( 732042 )
          Hmm, I'll have to try something different then... Any takers?
          I'll partner with whoever comes up the most lucrative idea. How hard can it be to abuse this? Seems like everyone else is doing it and looks like so much fun!

          I've got it! I'll patent the a method to take data and display it to a luser. Brilliant! I'm back in cha-ching land!
    • Hang on, I call prior art. Isn't Exchange/Outlook securely accessing global unified information in a network? How about Lotus?

      • Re:Patent? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by tomhudson ( 43916 )

        As some of the people who posted in the guys' blog point out, their patent isn't innovative - it describes, among other things, CVS, which existed long before they even came up with their "idea".

        Just fire the USPTO. It would be so much cheaper, easier, and better.

        • Re:Patent? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Red Alastor ( 742410 )
          There would be ways to make a patent office efficient. First, find a way to fund them which doesn't mean they get more money if they grant more patents.

          Next, change how the system works. Now, when a company ask for a patent, the Patent Office ask competitors of the company for prior art or at least reasons why the patent is obvious. If it fails, ask the public. Then review yourself. By making other do your work, you save a lot of time.

          And finally, the core idea of the new system. Every time you troll
    • If they mean "worldwide", then "globalness" is not a property of a server, but of the relationship between a server and a world...Whoah, Every single MMOG is in violation of this patent in two senses of the world global!
      • Man, oh Man, It now appears every time I sneakernetted I violated this patent...where do I pay up? Still scouring for other ways I'm in violation of this patent...

        Hmm... seems that the part where I saved files from the internet onto a PC-FAT12 formatted diskette from the library's Macintoshes violates the device-independent capabilities of their patents.

        I'm hosed... Yeah, right!
    • What's the difference?

      MS == DARKSIDE == NSA

      Prediction: PP is attacked by the astromods.

      Besides, the patent is obviously invalid
      due to the prior art at NSA.

      " System and method for globally and securely accessing unified information in a computer network"

      So, really, what is the difference?

  • In all honesty. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grazzy ( 56382 ) <grazzy&quake,swe,net> on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:00PM (#14322907) Homepage Journal
    Let's the big boys fight it out, the rest of us can just watch as they spend their money in courts. When the dust has settled I'm sure Europe, Canada and the rest of the free world will give asylum to the ones of you that decide to depart from the united states of previous freedom.
    • When the dust has settled I'm sure Europe, Canada and the rest of the free world will give asylum to the ones of you that decide to depart from the united states of previous freedom. I'm trying to figure out which side you are on and which side is responsible for the "previous freedom" comment... Could it be Microsoft, the defendant of a patent lawsuit.. somehow attacking our freedoms... or is it maybe Visto... the benefactor of some percieved flaw in the patent system whom is stamping out the precious lib

      • Re:In all honesty. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by grazzy ( 56382 ) <grazzy&quake,swe,net> on Thursday December 22, 2005 @08:40PM (#14323598) Homepage Journal
        I was refering to the broken system you refer to here as the patent office. Things like these should not be able to be patentable. As I see it, either the people working for patent offices are a little slow (perhaps older people not really up2date with current tidings?), or they are bribed.

        How can you patent a system (from what I can see at a first glance) that stores data remotely accessable? It's a fundamental feature of all computer network and has been in existance since the first connection between two computers was made.

        There is no fairness, logic or good about that system, it's just broken. My comment refers to that fact, they're fighting over a system that is in my view already so flagrantly failed that I dont care who wins. If Microsoft wins, fine, I'll ignore the outcome. If Visto wins, so be it.
    • Europe, Canada and the rest of the free world

      As I recall Canada hasn't been an option for escape for at least a decade (they return Americans now). Britain has lost more freedom then us, France has too much unrest, and I'm not about to move to Eastern Europe. So the free world is made up of what exactly? Most of South America is out, so it seems we have maybe Russia, a smattering throughout Western Europe, and small assorted islands.

      • Re:In all honesty. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara.hudson@ b a r b ara-hudson.com> on Thursday December 22, 2005 @08:20PM (#14323478) Journal

        As I recall Canada hasn't been an option for escape for at least a decade (they return Americans now)

        Whoah! Yes, we will return American criminals provided:

        1. What they allegedly did was a criminal offense in Canada (and just the mere allegation is not enough if the person has a decent lawyer)
        2. The death penalty is off the table in capital cases.

        Any American who wants to stay up here gets treated the same as any other country - they just have to follow Canadian Immigration rules:

        1. Get into the country any way they can;
        2. Say they don't have any documentation and are seeking refugee status (you can have your passport clearly visible in your shirt pocket and the immigration agent cannot call you a liar and demand to see it);
        3. You are now a refugee;
        4. Marry a Canadian (of either sex);
        5. You now jump the queue waiting to become a Canadian citizen;
        6. Get your citizenship papers;
        7. Get your divorce, and bring up your past/future American spouse;

        People do it all the time.

        • Cause, y'know, the immigration officer is so likely to believe that you're a refugee from the US. Even with the amount of civil liberties Americans are losing, they're not even close enough for it to be considered that they would be actively prosecuted upon their return (at least, not without them having broken laws equivalent to Canadian laws, which would then stop them from being able to enter in the first place).

          If you want to see how hard it is to immigrate to Canada, check the forums at Road To Canada [roadtocanada.com]
          • Cause, y'know, the immigration officer is so likely to believe that you're a refugee from the US. Even with the amount of civil liberties Americans are losing, they're not even close enough for it to be considered that they would be actively prosecuted upon their return (at least, not without them having broken laws equivalent to Canadian laws, which would then stop them from being able to enter in the first place).

            Actually, since the war in Iraq, there has been a number of american soldiers who came here

            • That is interesting, and I'd go as far as to say that Immigration was right to let them in in these circumstances. I hadn't heard about this before. Great post.

          • It is that easy. Its done all the time.

            One of my friends was living here illegally (he came in on a visitor's visa and never left). His brother ratted him out to immigration. The inspector who came couldn't believe that the guys' brother would pull a stunt like that, and told him that his best bet was to get married. He knew a woman who accepted $4,000 in return for a quickie wedding, with the understanding that, after he received his citizenship papers, they'd get divorced.

            He's now a Canadian citizen,

      • 'Britain has lost more freedom then us'

        How so?
        • Well ... Britain has more TV cameras than we do.

          For now, anyways.
          • Last I checked cameras dont activly stop me doing anything or remove any of my rights.

            They stop people hitting other people in the head whilst drunk on a Saturday night, but, im fairly sure that the right to not get hit in the head is more important. Well unless the guy your hitting is a real jerk... .
            • I would disagree. The "right" of a citizen to go about his or her business without the State watching every move has shown itself, historically speaking, to be far more important than avoiding a few cracked heads. You probably don't realize this: maybe it's more obvious to me as an American, where we have protected freedoms missing in other legal systems (as well as a history of law enforcement overreaching itself and abusing people anyway ... see FBI under Hoover.) By accepting this public surveillance sys
        • Tony Blair.

          Him and Bush go hand in hand together. Touching, no?

    • Re:In all honesty. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ShinGouki ( 12500 )
      http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/ 22/0142244&tid=126&tid=219 [slashdot.org]

      titled: "Britain to log all vehicle movement"

      posted 8 entire hours ago on this very site

      and you're making cracks about america's percieved lack of freedom

      you, sir, are a moron.

  • How did that get a "patent"? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Fallen Kell ( 165468 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:02PM (#14322933)
    I mean, really... It sounds a lot like CVS and even patch updates as well as partial backups, snapshot backups (from Network Appliance systems), and MANY other systems that have been in use for years.

    • Re:How did that get a "patent"? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      USPTO policy: You file it, we grant it. Easy, ain't it?
    • Have the CVS/et al. makers complained about this? Sometimes, even good government goes blind (not that ours is even close to good intent anymore), and the improperly governed must swab its ears and scream "foul".
    • Because nobody can clearly define the restriction of obviousness, and even if they could, patent clerks screw up (possibly even more than most people since I hear being a patent clerk is a crappy job).

      At this point, I'm pretty much starting to think patent systems always suck. Sure the occasional patent may reward the inventor, but it seems these days they tend more to reward rich investors, patent lawyers, and frivolous filers.
      • I'm down with rewarding rich investors & patend lawyers if they're providing something that would not be accomplished otherwise.

        The problem is that they're rewarding people for stuff that would get done even without the reward. And the reward comes off our backs.

      • [P]atent clerks screw up (possibly even more than most people since I hear being a patent clerk is a crappy job).

        The main problem is not that the patent clerks are stupid or incompetent or anything like that. In fact, most of them probably aren't.

        Instead it is the economic incentives built into the system that ensure that the patent office will continue to grant more and more obvious patents.

        Nowadays most patent offices around the world are already "self funded", so the fees go back to the patent o

    • it's also an overly technical explanation of how isync works in OSX.

      the main problem with software patents is that there are as many ways of wording a way of doing something for a patent as there are ways of actually doing it in a computer system.

      99% of software patents are bullshit. even a lot of hardware patents are bullshit, but the signal-to-noise ratio is, at least, respectable.
    • Being "a lot like CVS" & etc doesn't invalidate a patent. Your patent can read, "Just like CVS, except for pasta recipes", and it will have a fair shot at passing. Taking an existing solution, tweaking it in an infinitesimally small manner, and patenting it is totally supported by our system.

      That's only part of the problem.

    • Re:How did that get a "patent"? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I mucked around in these stories and it appears that they're talking about US patent 6,708,221. That patent has a priority claim for some of the invention back to December 1996. That's just an observation - claiming is different from proving, and I'm not going to spend my evening figuring out the differences between the priority documents and their patents. (Maybe the guy with the blog does? Sorry but I have a policy of not reading blogs linked to from Slashdot's front page.) I don't know off the top o

  • CVS (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bchapp ( 905116 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:05PM (#14322955)
    The patent sounds like any concurrent versioning system. How can that be "invented" in 2004?

    • Re:CVS (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:36PM (#14323195) Journal
      It would appear that the US patent system has now simply collapsed into inanity. It is starved resources, abused by large corporations, and now they in turn are finding themselves the victims of the same behavior. Real patent reform is needed, and my feeling is now that clearly abusive patents should lead to massive fines and/or suspensions for long periods from making any more patents (and that means against future companies that have anybody on the board of a company that has previously been caught in this kind of scam).
    • A previous thread brings up the same thing. This "patent" covers so many different technologies it's stupid. Say it with me "Software Patents bad..."
      Seriously though, I'm all for protecting your product but there is a point when what you think of is so basic that any of us could have thought of it and trying to hold a patent to it just stiffles progress. (Aside: Note to self patent the bubble sort.) Now why isn't someone explaining that to the patent office?

  • David versus Goliath? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:07PM (#14322967) Homepage Journal
    Is it better to support the little guy versus the big guy in any patent brawl?

    Not for me. Patents are scummy ways of avoiding competition. In my non-existant "utopia" I would never accept them -- don't invent if you can't compete with what you invent. Someone else will come out with the same idea soon enough.

    For many geeks, their careers probably rest on companies that have many patents. Yet how much quicker would technology progress if we were able to perfect the imperfect and not have to wait a decade or two for a patent to expire? How many geeks here on slashdot that have been part of a team that discovered a patented process would continue to research and develop new products because they love the process, not just the endgame?

    I continue to work on new ideas and new processes for my business, some of them that I openly share with my competition. Sure, business procedures may not be patented, but why not? Why can I patent a keyboard style on a cell phone but I can't patent how I lay out my retail store or how I handle customer complaints?

    I don't support either party in this lawsuit, and in the end, only the lawyers win. Guess who pays?
    • Not for me. Patents are scummy ways of avoiding competition. In my non-existant "utopia" I would never accept them -- don't invent if you can't compete with what you invent. Someone else will come out with the same idea soon enough.

      Hahah. Your "non-existant" utopia sounds like alot of fun. Sign me up for that poorly thought through "utopia" of yours. The path to hell is paved with good intentions.
    • They can be patented: These rules changed in July 1998, when a federal court upheld a patent for a method of calculating the net asset value of mutual funds. State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signal Financial Group, Inc. 149 F.3d 1368 (Fed. Cir. 1998) cert denied 119 S. Ct. 851 (1999). The court ruled that patent laws were intended to protect any method, whether or not it required the aid of a computer, so long as it produced a "useful, concrete and tangible result."
    • Not for me. Patents are scummy ways of avoiding competition. In my non-existant "utopia" I would never accept them -- don't invent if you can't compete with what you invent. Someone else will come out with the same idea soon enough.

      On the downside, Americans will have patented all possible ideas in the next few years and engage in useless lawsuits that will cripple the economy and allow China, India, Japan, and the EU to surpass us in the invention field.

      On the upside everything will be public domain 17 yea
    • There are a lot of items where figuring out how costs $fooMillion, but actually producing costs a few cents each. There should be some return on the initial $fooMillion investment, or nobody will spend it. There needs to be a balance between stifling innovation because you can't profit from original research, and stifling innovation because every trivial variation of everything has been patented.

  • Blog Excerpt (Score:2, Informative)

    by Stan Vassilev ( 939229 )
    "Today I woke up and started preparing for work as usual. Brushed my teeth, shaved, took a shower. But you could sense the tension in air. Today I'm filing patent violation suit against Microsoft.
    During the years, we've had the chance to sue the hell out of a lot of companies for all sorts of patented ideas we came up while picking our noses, but this is my first big project.
    Needless to say, I'm pretty nervous and excited to work with the legal department of such a big and popular company. I've met with the

    • Re:Blog Excerpt (Score:5, Interesting)

      by FyRE666 ( 263011 ) * on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:33PM (#14323172) Homepage
      During the years, we've had the chance to sue the hell out of a lot of companies for all sorts of patented ideas we came up while picking our noses, but this is my first big project.

      This says it all about patents really. This guy admits these "highly valuable" ideas, worth millions were dreamed up by a few guys sat around picking their noses. Of course, nobody else could possible come up with such brilliant ideas on their own, when it takes so much time, development effort and expertise to put these patent portfolios together... Morons...

      • Re:Blog Excerpt (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Eccles ( 932 )
        It's worse than that.

        By implication, he's admitted that the big companies would come up with these ideas independently. Thus they are not novel, and are obvious to a practitioner of the art. The idea of patents is you come up with something so clever, so original, that it advances the state of the art, and you publish it to give the world the benefit of your cleverness in exchange for patent rights. Does anyone here believe Microsoft read this patent?
      • Today I woke up and...I hope we'll do a great job together."

        Unless I rolled off the wrong side of the link this morning, the "Blog Except" is a joke. A well crafted joke, paraphrasing the nut of David Cowen's blog, but still an obvious joke. Ah well, I guess a well done cartoon can inform as well as a multi-column news piece.

    • Today I woke up and started preparing for work as usual. Brushed my teeth, shaved, took a shower.

      And we're supposed to believe this guy is a computer engineer?? Piffle, any real geek would be too busy drawing up new patent applications to bother with something as trivial as hygene.

  • They took our problem and made it their own! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rahga ( 13479 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:11PM (#14322992) Journal
    From the blog post:
    "These PC's were running on the same large TCP/IP network as my PC client at Bessemer as well our Exchange server, and yet there was no way for me to access my corporate email and calendar."

    "These patents were written by programmers who were engaged in building a viable, commercial platform, and genuinely wished to protect the invention."

    Here's the deal... He wants to fix a problem, bridge a gap. On obvious gap. The patent system is supposed to protect inventions, not prevent people from creating their own solutions to a problem. I see nothing in that stupid patent that isn't nebulous and pathetic.

    "But this time Microsoft is steamrolling its way into wireless messaging through the clear theft of my, Daniel's, Chris', and others' intellectual property. That's why Visto is suing."

    Pray, tell, what exactly did Microsoft steal? Did they steal your problem space? Because patents don't cover problems. They cover solutions.
    • I see nothing in that stupid patent that isn't nebulous and pathetic.

      Most software patents are like that. It's what you get when you try to call an abstraction and invention. I'd be much happier if Bill Gates spent his billions eliminating software patents, rather than supporting them and abusing them when it suits him.

      Pray, tell, what exactly did Microsoft steal? Did they steal your problem space? Because patents don't cover problems. They cover solutions.

      What an amazingly empty statement. I imagin

  • Broad == Vague (Score:3, Interesting)

    by komodotoes ( 939836 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:11PM (#14322995) Homepage
    From TFA:

    But in the coming months we filed broad patent applications that were subsequently granted.

    I think that pretty much describes one of the big problems with the current patent system (and it's not just the American patent system, so don't go getting righteous because you live outside the U.S.) - the patents that are granted are very broad. The original purpose of patents was to give rights to people who had specific ideas that resulted in specific products (tangible or intangible), not sweeping vagaries that left room for interpretation.



    NeverEndingBillboard.com [neverendingbillboard.com]
    • Patents were originally designed to protect an inventor's investment. They were not intended to be the source of investment in and of themselves. The patent system is now essentially a means and end unto itself, and looking at it, it's almost inevitable that businesses have formed whose sole reason for existence is to patent as many loose and overgeneralized ideas as possible and then wait for someone to walk into the trap. The notion is basically that large corporations will simply settle rather than go

  • No content in this 'article' (Score:5, Funny)

    by tpgp ( 48001 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:14PM (#14323020) Homepage
    Don't bother reading this blog posting - for your amusement I will present the entertaining parts:
    our only assets were 17 computers and a very well used futon.
    *shivers* Glad I didn't work there....

    Oh - and this photo [bbspot.com] is mildly amusing too...

  • Groove? Yahoo? Where does it stop? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DanielMarkham ( 765899 ) * on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:15PM (#14323025) Homepage
    (disclaimer: I am a IP patent holder)

    I've been using Groove for over a year now, and it is really cool. It does all that stuff that is in the Visto patent. So does Yahoo, and a bunch of other services. I can see that in 1995, perhaps this was a new idea, but ten years later it is all over the place. Synchronizing files and services by use of a global server? I would bet that even in '95 you could find analogies somewhere -- incremental backups or some such. Wasn't database replication being worked back in 95 as well?

    It's unclear from the information provided whether this was a truly new invention that Microsoft is trying to poach (along with half the world of computer development) or it was a day late and a dollar short. Once again, waiting ten years after the patent application is filed makes such analysis almost impossible. Technology is moving very quickly. The patent system needs to be fixed where we are not arguing ten-year old ideas -- by this time it's all old hat.

    My Blog [news2lose.com]
    • (disclaimer: I am a IP patent holder)

      F/OSS Traitor! *takes out pitchfork, noose and rubber ducky* GET HIM!!!

      Seriously, your "The patent system needs to be fixed where we are not arguing ten-year old ideas -- by this time it's all old hat" belief seems contrary to your holdings. Give it/them away after ten holding years and then we'll know how your really feel.
    • Synchronizing files and services by use of a global server? I would bet that even in '95 you could find analogies somewhere -- incremental backups or some such. Wasn't database replication being worked back in 95 as well?


      How about email servers with users connecting from more than one machine via IMAP?
    • Your post could give people the mistaken impression that this patent is 10 years old, but actually it wasn't filed until September 20, 2000. In fact it doesn't even reference any patents before 1995 and astonishingly only a handful of non-patent references. I think that this will be reexamined and the patent-holders will be found to have failed in their duty of candor and thus to have perpetrated a fraud against the PTO. The claims are all clearly either anticipated in the art or obvious applications of ex
    • I know for a fact that Archie (the original FTP search engine) predates 1995, but it is arguable as to whether it could be said to be driven by a global server. The NIS/YP password/account system is also most definitely older and was designed to be run with a database replicated off a global server, but that might be considered too trivial an example.

      Your best bet might be some of the early X.??? protocols, as many of these are pre-Internet - Europe ran off the International Packet Switch Stream in the ston

    • Another 2cent thought, rather than grouping all patents together under one standard, how difficult would it be to set different guidelines on different types of patents? Given that most software can be safely considered a "non-novelty" or even out-of-date if not updated within a few short years, why not reduce the patents to a few years also? This would provide protection (to startups and big corps. alike) without giving them grounds for monopoly. A 5 year patent would *more* than cover existing technolo

  • rsync? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by burnin1965 ( 535071 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:42PM (#14323231) Homepage
    So this guy patented rsync?

    Andrew Tridgell has copyrights on rsync as old as 1996, possibly even older.

    This patent never should have passed the Novel or Obviousness tests. I find it amazing reading some of these patents that have been issued and finding that the patent itself explains why it should not be patentable. From the uspto.gov website:

    "The subject matter sought to be patented must be sufficiently different from what has been used or described before that it may be said to be nonobvious to a person having ordinary skill in the area of technology related to the invention."

    Now I'll get a long list of replies with "if it was obvious how come nobody did it before". All I can tell you is that just because somebody hasn't done it doesn't mean its not obvious.

    Let me explain it this way, if you have a problem that needs to be solved by developing a software application and you can sit down with a developer and he says "yeah, I can do that" then its obvious. If the developer says "thats impossible" and somebody then spends significant time and resources trying to find a solution and does, they very well may have something that is patentable.

    That said I would also point out that in 99.999% of all cases software algorithms and solutions are not patentable, they should be covered by copyright. And copyright covers the actual code a binaries, not reverse engineering. If somebody does the same thing with their own code it is not a copyright violation.

    burnin
    • Even worse, to me it seems like he's patenting association between items of data. That data could be as simple as username:password or something like a dictionary in Python: dictionary['key']=value. And since thats prior art in languages, it only leaves performing the operation over the Internet. Which I don't think is novel enough to patent nowadays.

  • While I decry software patents.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CodeShark ( 17400 ) <ellsworthpc@yaho[ ]om ['o.c' in gap]> on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:43PM (#14323236) Homepage
    The facts are:
     
    • in my own experience and that of a family member who is also a programmer, we know that Microsoft steals and implements other people's tech all the time, usually putting otherwise viable companies out of business in the mean time because they can selectively manipulate the OS to their advantage, and
    • software patents exist, and if Visto has a valid patent and doesn't want M$ to steamroller them, they have to defend themselves now.

    And if M$ gets the crap kicked out of them and loses a bunch of money because the patent is valid, so much the better. If the patent's not valid, then M$ attorney's have to be paid, AKA Microsoft foots the bill that invalidates the patent for the rest of us. Which is not a bad thing either.

    Question is, if the patent is valid, will Visto play nice with the rest of the world and thereby gain favor and $$ in the short and long run, or pull a Unisys (.gif fiasco) style play and shoot themselves in the foot?

  • Legal Semantics (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Radical Rad ( 138892 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:44PM (#14323246) Homepage
    Abstract

    A client stores a first set of workspace data, and is coupled via a computer network to a global server. The client may be configured to synchronize portions of the first set of workspace data with the global server, which stores independently modifiable copies of the portions. The global server may also store workspace data which is not downloaded from the client, and thus stores a second set of workspace data. The global server may be configured to identify and authenticate a user seeking global server access from a remote terminal, and is configured to provide access to the first set or to the second set. Further, services may be stored anywhere in the computer network. The global server may be configured to provide the user with access to the services. The system may further include a synchronization-start module at the client site (which may be protected by a firewall) that initiates interconnection and synchronization with the global server when predetermined criteria have been satisfied.

    Which definition of may [reference.com] is being used here?


    1. To be allowed or permitted to: May I take a swim? Yes, you may.
    2. Used to indicate a certain measure of likelihood or possibility: It may rain this afternoon.
    3. Used to express a desire or fervent wish: Long may he live!
    4. Used to express contingency, purpose, or result in clauses introduced by that or so that: expressing ideas so that the average person may understand.
    5. To be obliged; must. Used in statutes, deeds, and other legal documents. See Usage Note at can1.

    Some parts of the abstract appear to use (5), to be obliged, must. But other parts are ambiguous and sound as though they are possible but not necessary (2). 'Which may be protected by a firewall' certainly sounds optional.

    If this patent is not thrown out as too broad or because it doesn't appear to have any innovation in it, then will patent attourneys argue in later cases that it is more general than what the patent examiner actually intended? They may. They may indeed.

    • Re:Legal Semantics (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The abstract doesn't count. It's just there to be full of bullshit so that your patent is hard to find on a patent search and you can sue unsuspecting people who spent thousands of dollars making sure they didn't infringe on any patents but still failed to find yours. A past USPTO article on slashdot referenced two completely different patents that had had the abstract copied and pasted word for word, and they were still accepted.

      Now, whether they used "may" in the claims, that's what's important.

  • Pseudocode, Lawyer-Style (Score:3, Funny)

    by joe_n_bloe ( 244407 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @07:53PM (#14323319) Homepage
    "Thereafter, the applet 359 in step 1325 acts as the I/O interface with the communications interface 340 of the global server 115. If the global server 115 in step 1330 determines that it is unauthorized to perform a remote terminal 105 user's request, then the global server 115 in step 1345 determines whether the method 1050b ends, e.g., whether the user has quit. If so, then method 1050b ends. Otherwise, method 1050b returns to step 1325 to obtain another request. If the global server 115 in step 1330 determines that it is authorized to perform the remote terminal 105 user's request, then the global server 115 in step 1340 acts as the proxy for the remote terminal 105 to the service 615. As proxy, the global server 115 forwards the service request to the selected service 615 and forwards responses to the requesting applet 359 currently executing on the remote terminal 105. Method 1050b then jumps to step 1345."
  • It looks like the fifth patent NTP was suing RIM over has been overturned by the USPTO: http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20051221 150546394 [linuxelectrons.com]

    The article seems upbeat about patent reform coming, but I doubt it. I think the prevalence of Blackberrys in D.C. probably had more to do with this being overturned.
  • What extols affairs, bemoans and swears
    Polls Rover your neighbors dog?
    What's great for some flack a personal attack?
    It's Blog, Blog. Blog!

    It's Blog, Blog, its big, it's heavy, it could.
    It's Blog, Blog, it's better than bad, it's good!
    Everyone wants a Blog! You're gonna love it, Blog!
    Come and get your Blog! Everyone needs a Blog!
  • Patent reads like a description of IBM's WebSphere, which was on the market in June 1998, long before the September 20, 2000 filing date of the Visto patent. Another USPTO wheeze!

    Shandon

  • Maybe this will be the one (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sir_Real ( 179104 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @08:18PM (#14323468)
    Finally? The straw that breaks the camels back. When big companies become lawful targets (not ethical, just lawful) and are suddenly financially exposed, there will be reform.

    If Microsoft loses, all bets are off. A loss here legitimizes patent barratry as a business model.

    But, if Microsoft wins, their patent portfolio loses value.

    I can't wait. Nuthin like a good petard hoisting to get the blood pumpin.

  • I love this guy... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by thesnarky1 ( 846799 )

    But now that the market is finally maturing, Microsoft is doing what is does so well--bringing products to market based on other companies' technology. Hey, I normally have no problem with that--I prefer Word over Wordstar, Excel over Visicalc, and Access over dbaseIV. But this time Microsoft is steamrolling its way into wireless messaging through the clear theft of my, Daniel's, Chris', and others' intellectual property. That's why Visto is suing.

    This is great, first he thinks it's fine for Microsoft to

  • Software Patent Validity... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 3seas ( 184403 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @09:32PM (#14323877) Homepage Journal
    Software patents are as valid as the idea of the earth being flat.

    And it is provable.

    Problem is that neither side of the software development community (proprietary and open source) have either the incentive or clarity of mind to to support the proof.

    However, just as the roman numeral system finally gave way (after 300 years since the initial introduction of the hindu arabic decimal system) to the much simpler and more powerful decimal system and included zero place holder..... So will software patent break down.

    fraud simply cannot hold itself together for long...

    The weight of the wrongs of software patents will build until it topples over.

    These large corporate donations of software patents to the open source community are two fold in reason. One to slow the topple, the other to try and substain PR "for software patents"...

    software ware patents won't fall easily, but they will fall.

    The difference is whether or not you and I get a chance to experience the benefits of honesty about software and its common place (as the decimal system of math is today) usage..... and what all people will then come up with..

    NOTE: the computer as we know it today, could not have been built using the mathmatical limitations of the roman numeral system. The same leap in advancement can happen when software is inherently free because you make it up as you need it, like using a calculator to calculate something as you need it.

    • Q.E.D. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ObsessiveMathsFreak ( 773371 )

      Problem is that neither side of the software development community (proprietary and open source) have either the incentive or clarity of mind to to support the proof.

      You forgot to mention the proof in your post. It goes as follows:

      1. Under current patent system rules, mathematical algorithms cannot be patented.
      2. Computer software IS a mathematcial algorithm.
      3. Therefore computer software cannot be patented.

      It's really quite unambiguous. If someone comes at you claiming they have a patent on a piece of soft

  • Priority dates (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Compulawyer ( 318018 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @10:11PM (#14324034)
    The patent may have issued in 2004 but the priority date (the earliest filing date that the patent can take advantage of) is 1997. Also, just from the list of references cited, it appears that this patent was examined more thoroughly than many software patents I have seen.
    • Also, just from the list of references cited, it appears that this patent was examined more thoroughly than many software patents I have seen.

      Ten minutes is still too short a time in which to approve a patent.
  • I don't despise any company enough to wish this type of patent to be found against them. The patent is basically about synchronizing/moving data in a certain way. Does this mean I can patent the exact pattern of roads that I take to work everyday? If somebody else doesn't want to pay, then they can instead turn left a little futher on.
  • There has to be so much prior art out there its not even funny. CVS, rsync, etc. all use the idea of the transmission of diffs. Even if the patent isn't 100% invalidated, the prior art should drastically limit its scope.
  • I realize that I am asking a loaded question but: Has Microsoft ever actually sued anyone over patents? Not in response to being sued (between governments and sharks, there have been a few of those), but as a first strike. I have heard of cross patent "agreements" but never an actual lawsuit. I went searching around and couldn't find any; alas searching for something like this is harder than I thought.

    Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft but they don't own me, they are just renting my mind and fingers ;-)

  • As I thought about the problem, pondering the range of computing devices that would ultimately participate in reading and writing email/PIM data, I concluded that we'd eventually need virtual desktops to synthesize and synchronize the workspaces instantiated in each device.

    But what about the quantum phase variance? Don't you need to reverse the polarity of the neutrino flow? What a load of self-important dribblings with a completely unnecessary use of buzzwords just to make his obvious statements seem pr

  • Has anybody ever tried to sue the patent office? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by simonfunk ( 592887 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @01:28AM (#14324867) Homepage
    It seems to me the patent office is routinely and grossly negligent in performing its duties, and this is costing businesses millions of dollars and the country as a whole billions. And I'm just talking about legal fees and unduly diverted revenue, not even touching on how the economy is being stifled (which is much harder to measure).

    Isn't that grounds for a law suit?

    Couldn't any company who has been sued for violating some patent that is eventually overturned as absurd seek to recover associated legal expenses (and lost revenues caused by any associated delays) from the patent office itself?

    From what I have read in the past, the patent office seems to be motivated internally by revenue. While I'm all for not wasting taxpayer money, I would rather have my taxes pay for a well-run, highly scrupulous patent system that grants only sparingly than pay nothing for one that costs me far far more in indirect consequences.

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