Sun To Seek Injunction, Damages Against NetApp 183
Zeddicus_Z writes to note that Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz has outlined Sun's response to Network Appliance's recent patent infringement lawsuit over ZFS: "As a part of this suit, we are requesting a permanent injunction to remove all of their filer products from the marketplace, and are examining the original NFS license — on which Network Appliance was started. In addition... we will be going after sizable monetary damages. And I am committing that Sun will donate half of those proceeds to the leading institutions promoting free software and patent reform... [Regarding NetApp's demands in order to drop its existing case against Sun:] ...[to] unfree ZFS, to retract it from the free software community, and to limit ZFS's allowable field of use to computers — and to forbid its use in storage devices."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Translation for the non-lawyers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:old news. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, software piracy is a tad rife there, but I'd rather be strategising against pirates (services instead of software payment etc), than have my company gutted because of some shitbar patent suit in texas.
Re:This is why we need to KEEP software patents (Score:5, Insightful)
To draw an analogy to something a little more obvious we should look to the drug industry. Many people believe that patenting drugs shouldn't be allowed, what should be allowed are patents on the method of making the drug. If someone can think of a way to get the same end result using a different process they should be allowed to do just that. Having a system that allows companies to hold patents on what amount of sequences of data is silly.
The same should go for software. It's fine to patent a specific implementation of some code, but it's not fine for that patent to cover every conceivable way of achieving the same end result.
Re:Translation for the non-lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
The reality is that the mega patent holders. IBM Sun and even Microsoft tend not to run out and file patent lawsuits to stop innovation but rather as a defensive measure to protect their business from litigious none innovative parasites.
NetApp isn't the worst of the bunch since they still have viable products on the market. Unfortunately they are so panicked over the possibility that we may use PC Servers with huge piles of massive SATA drives at a total cost way below the stuff they are selling.
If only they were able to come up with new products when someone else innovates enough to make what they are selling today a commodity.
So no offence to Sun but hey we should be able to make fun of our friends too.
Re:This is why we need to KEEP software patents (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it does promote progress to have patents on software, but it's not a foregone conclusion; study some of the arguments [mit.edu] (there may also be a good site arguing in favour of swpats, but I don't know of one) and decide what works best in the public interest, rather than just assuming that any measure in favour of 'inventors' is going to help the public.
Re:This is why we need to KEEP software patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe patent applications should be examined by qualified people to see if they can be implimented using only the information supplied in the application together with that already in the public domain.
Re:In the interest of fairness (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, so what are you going to do? Sue Sun?
If so, you'd better hope that there's nothing in Sun's patent portfolio that you're infringing upon. The way software patents have gotten these days, it's a pretty fair bet that NetApp runs afoul of at least a few of Sun's 14,000 patents.
To reassure folks internally, Dave appeals to ignorance:
There's always a first time. And maybe that's what it will take to reform the system. While Sun can wave the F/OSS flag as they battle NetApp, they will end up proving a few scary points about the current state of the patent system:
1) If a company tries to use software patents the way they were intended, it will only be successful against companies smaller than themselves. The big boys will insist on a portfolio exchange; if that fails, one party will end up looking like SCO.
2) The only way to get money out of the "big infringers" is to have a company with zero liability of patent infringement, such as one with a litigation-based business model.
3) Software patents are a barrier to entry for small companies, and a perpetual liability.
Re:This is why we need to KEEP software patents (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't copyright a stove, because people can't just copy it. You patent it, and now people can't build an identical stove, even if they could build something very stovelike. But with software, you copyright the software, and now people can't copy it. Patenting would, in theory, fulfill the exact same purpose - "you can't build the identical software" - and that's software patents are kind of bizarre and shouldn't even exist.
Instead, though, patents are being treated as "one step up from copyright" - you can't build an identical stove, and you "can't build software that does the same thing". Which isn't the equivalent of patents at all. It's more the equivalent of a concept monopoly. If software patents were imported right back into the physical world, you'd have people able to put patent on "cars", or "stoves", as an entire class of thing.
I don't think software patents need to be "fixed". I don't think they need to be "abolished". I think what's necessary is realization that the entire concept of "software patent" doesn't even make sense, and that there really is no parallel with the physical world here.
Storagetek "started" it ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The only real proof Netapp's CEO has provided is an email which states there were demands over one and a half year before December 2006 (so 27 months before that post, can't be the same communication he is talking about unless he doesn't know what he is talking about). Which puts it well before the takeover. Question is, did Sun push for them to enter a cross licensing deal after the takeover or was the deal proposed in the email inherited too? Hard to say without knowing the context of the single email provided.
All I know for sure is who initiated a lawsuit.
Re:This is why we need to KEEP software patents (Score:3, Insightful)
If Drug Company B comes along and manages to produce the pill at $1.50, but didn't have to do the research and regulatory testing, they make money from the start.
Manufacturing costs are only a small portion of the cost of producing a drug. Allowing another drug company to compete only on manufacturing gives them a tremendous advantage. Patents allow Drug Company A to recoup their investment.
Your argument conveniently ignores the fantastic risk drug companies face when they develop a new drug. If it doesn't work the way the think it will, they face bankruptcy. Why would anyone take that risk if Joe Blow is going to export production to China and sell at half your price? Clearly patents have a use in this situation.
No longer true (Score:1, Insightful)
Or Sylkarov, working in USSR for a USSR product THAT WASN'T BEING SOLD IN THE US (deliberately, they took steps not to). Still got banged up.
The past few years, if it's illegal in the US, it doesn't matter if you aren't in the US.
And, if you are found guilty, they can take you in if you fly over or stop to change craft in the US (as per UK betting mogul currently doing bird in the US).
Re:This is why we need to KEEP software patents (Score:3, Insightful)
Solution, if you don't have the time to validate a patent, don't issue it. I'm sure if they stopped issuing 90% of patents, there would be a lot more attention focused on this problem.
Re:Why is Sun blogging about this? (Score:0, Insightful)