Red Hat Hit With Patent Suit Over JBoss 201
An anonymous reader writes "A small software company is claiming that Red Hat's JBoss open source middleware violates one of its patents and is asking a court to stop Red Hat from distributing the product. Software Tree LLC claims that JBoss infringes on its database patent for 'exchanging data and commands between an object oriented system and a relational system.' Software Tree's partners include Microsoft, and that the suit was filed in Eastern Texas, which is known as a plaintiff's paradise for patent actions."
Civil Procedure Question (Score:4, Interesting)
IANAL, as you may suspect.
Re:Civil Procedure Question (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Civil Procedure Question (Score:5, Funny)
They can, because RedHat is selling/offering their software in that state.
Note to self: When I start selling my software, refuse to sell it in Texas.
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If the company you are suing is incorporated in one state, and you, the plaintiff, is in another - can you sue in a third state that has no party resident within it
I think it depends on where "they" (is "they" the company suing or being sued? Or both?) do business, not just where they're incorporated. If my company is based in Delaware and yours is based in California, and we meet in Kansas to actually do business, why wouldn't we be able to use the Kansas courts if one of us got ripped off? That would be where the supposed ripping-off actually happened.
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As always: IANAL, but I do remember the class in business law I took... For whatever that's worth.
The statement that stuck with me in that class is, you go after them wherever they do their business. If they're based in New York, you go to New York cause that's the state that would have to most jurisdiction and ability to uphold whatever the ruling is.
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You can, but you probably will get sued in Eastern Texas.
If I were making my own software today, I would seriously consider adding Eastern Texas to the list of rogue nations where the program can not be exported to or sold, right next to Libya and North Korea.
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These are Federal courts, so it's easier to cherry pick ... it's all in the USA after all.
Untied States Patent (Score:4, Funny)
Untied States Patent #078957284370958240976548037689725, Method and Apparatus for Initiating a Loud Communication Between a Liberal and a Conservative:
The Liberal says, "The government should pay for it!" The Conservative says, "Throw grandma down the stairs and out into the street!" A loud communication thus begins between the two.
I am going to sue every liberal and conservative in the country and seek an injunction to prevent them from talking to each other unless they pay me royalties.
LOL marketing speak (Score:5, Funny)
According to its Web site, Software Tree specializes in "providing superior software infrastructure that shifts the application/database integration paradigm."
Well if nothing else they've definitely got the marketing speak down.
Re:LOL marketing speak (Score:5, Funny)
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It's from that "Office Space" movie, where Marty had to go back in time and use the Schwartz to prevent President Lincoln from being assassinated by Lee Harvey Wallbanger.
Cheers!
Re:LOL marketing speak (Score:5, Informative)
Really? I was thinking it was from Idiocracy [imdb.com]. Though, they were both written and directed by Mike Judge, I don't recall "electrolytes" being used in that film.
In Idiocracy, the future is dumb and they replaced all forms of water (except the toilet) with Gateraid(tm) like product and frequently promote it as better because it has "electrolytes". Including watering plants with it. Which happens to be destroying the crop population and no one can figure out why... except Luke Wilson, smartest man in the world. =P
Happily bought this film for $6 for my show of support. =)
Re:LOL marketing speak (Score:4, Informative)
No, the narration explains that he wasn't smart enough (or, more accurately, educated enough) to figure out/know why. He just had a different tradition, one from an average ~105 IQ society instead of the miserable future.
Rather amusingly, Idiocracy is itself a dumbed-down and toned-down adaptation of the short story "The Marching Morons" (1951): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons [wikipedia.org], which I recommend reading.
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Really? I was thinking it was from Idiocracy [imdb.com]. Though, they were both written and directed by Mike Judge, I don't recall "electrolytes" being used in that film.
I believe the parent poster was getting in to the feel of the film while describing it.
Fishy (Score:5, Informative)
From the Fscking Patent:
O RLY? They honestly want us to believe that they invented O/R mapping? Then what is this ACM paper from 1996?
Object-relational mapping by Scott Amber [acm.org]
Either somebody didn't do their homework and their patent is going to fall under a weight of prior art, or they're just plain patent trolls. Given that they waited until 2009 (9 years after the patent was issued!), I'm leaning toward the latter.
Re:Fishy (Score:5, Informative)
ObjectStore [wikipedia.org] came out in 1988. The version that we used back in 1998 definitely performed this mapping for C++ code. I don't know if it counts as prior art because I can't remember how it handled the schemata for the mapping.
Re:Fishy (Score:5, Informative)
ObjectStore is NOT ORM. It is an OODBMS. Probably not quite what you want for prior art.
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Then you might know of a product called PowerTier [internet.com], later renamed to DataXtend CE [progress.com]. That was an ORM for C++ and Java from Persistence, which was also acquired by Progress. We started using that at version 5 or 6 around 2000/2001 time frame.
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as the summary states ...patent for 'exchanging data and commands between an object oriented system and a relational system. all you need is to prove that your OODB can be accessed from a relational programming language or system. Job done!
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Enterprise Objects is now bundled with Apple's Xcode as part of WebObjects. It's kind of ironic that Apple encourages WebObjects/EOF developers to deploy their applications on the JBoss application server, which also comes pre-installed on Mac OS X Server.
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Well you know the typical problem. How can you compete with Hibernate(free) especially when you are charging 3k per dev/tester to essentially do the same thing Hibernate does for you.
Re:TopLink (Score:5, Informative)
Software Tree claims that Oracle has infringed the '776 Patent through products including the Oracle TopLink.
"Defendant has actual knowledge of the '776 Patent, and actual knowledge that the Oracle product known as Oracle TopLink product, and all other Oracle products that include TopLink, infringe the '776 Patent," the original complaint states.
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Yay for selective quoting! (Score:5, Informative)
"Software Tree's partners include Microsoft, IBM, Borland, and Sun"
Fixed that for you.
Re:Yay for selective quoting! (Score:5, Informative)
Good catch. On top of that, as long as a company meets a few small requirements for developing on a Windows platform, they can become a Microsoft partner. It is not some secret club that goes around suing OSS companies on behalf of Microsoft.
Re:Yay for selective quoting! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yay for selective quoting! (Score:5, Insightful)
Only their website doesn't even mention Microsoft as a partner. IBM, Borland, Sun and Oracle are mentioned as partners, though, with contact details.
What was the intention of mentioning Microsoft and leaving out those partners? Is Microsoft a business partner at all?
I hate software patents. But summaries like this blatantly trying to skew facts to weasel in hints of a grand Microsoft conspiracy does the fight against software patents disservice.
What a crook. Bad! I had to look twice because I fully expected this to be a "kdawson". Not this time, though.
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What a crook. Bad! I had to look twice because I fully expected this to be a "kdawson". Not this time, though.
I'd put money down that the "anonymous reader" that wrote the summary was actually kdawson.
Re:Yay for selective quoting! (Score:5, Informative)
What was the intention of mentioning Microsoft and leaving out those partners? Is Microsoft a business partner at all?
It's on the company info [softwaretree.com] page:
"Software Tree is an ISV partner with Microsoft."
Of course, all you have to do to get that status is to write software that works on Windows, and most shops that develop Windows software and sell it are registered MS ISV partners.
Of course, the guys are also:
"Software Tree is an IBM Solution Developer Program partner."
"Software Tree is a technology partner with Borland."
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I was working on a small web dev firm a couple of years ago and we were MS partners.
And we were not even writing in
The only advantage was that they send MS Win/Office copies with lots of legit serials for us to use.
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Shouldn't a story about patent trolls itself be a troll?
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Okay, so they are partners with several RedHat competitors, not just one.
This defuses the idea that they might be patent-trolling on behalf of a partner...how?
East Texas (Score:3, Insightful)
East Texas is a hell hole.
Patent mentioned in article (Score:5, Informative)
6,163,776
Link to US PTO United States Patent: 6,163,776 [uspto.gov]
Wasn't Bilski supposed to have stopped these??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wasn't Bilski supposed to have stopped these??? (Score:4, Funny)
No, that was simply the fevered hope of many open source criminals who seek to profit off the hard work and innovation of others.
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No, that was simply the fevered hope of many open source criminals who seek to profit off the hard work and innovation of others.
Like those programmers who work hard for open source projects?
Falcon
Re:Wasn't Bilski supposed to have stopped these??? (Score:5, Insightful)
it's closed source DMCA protected software. There's no way law abiding programmers could see the source code and most of the key developers in these cases have too little time to reverse engineer other people's products.
In short a person "skilled in the art" saw some trade magazine article about a products general function and recreated it without looking... that's pretty much the definition of "general knowledge" as applied to patents.
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I appreciated the classic Adequacy style, at least. Brought back memories!
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Indirectly, one might argue that the patent should be invalid because of its nature, i.e. it never
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I'm no lawyer but wasn't the Bilski decision supposed to put an end to these software patent lawsuits & (essentially) invalidate software patents? Software patents don't deal with "machines" or "transformations", so I'm confused as to how these continue... Or is the Bilski case waiting to have their day in front of the US Supreme Court and such cases will continue until a ruling comes down from SCOTUS...
Not exactly. Bilski did set up a new test for patentable subject matter, the "machine or transformation" test you noted, but it's not clear whether this shoots down software patents entirely (since programming a general-purpose computer with the software involved may make it a "specific machine" for the purposes of Bilski), and in any case, Bilski's only immediate effect is to prevent new patents from being issued that don't pass this test. Existing patents remain in force, even if they wouldn't have passed
Woahh... (Score:2, Interesting)
So... If I understand correctly : every OO program that talk with a relational database is guilty?...
no more comments...
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Good thing most of us programmers suck at OO programming, this ensures the patent will never fly.
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but it also means that they might sue Microsoft afterwards, all that Linq2SQL and Entity Framework stuff they've added to .NET is a prime candidate for some more big buck patent "rewards".
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That's how I read it, too. If that is in fact the proper interpretation, I've written code from scratch half a dozen times that violates this patent.
Prior art? BO vs. Cognos (Score:5, Informative)
"exchanging data and commands between an object oriented system and a relational system."
This sounds familiar... hmmm.... ah.
Business Objects' United States patent number 5,555,403 entitled "Relational Database Access System Using Semantically Dynamic Objects." [patentstorm.us]
Fight fire with fire...
Re:Prior art? BO vs. Cognos (Score:5, Interesting)
Furthermore... they seem to be trying to patent what TopLink [oracle.com] was already doing prior to 1996 [wikipedia.org].
For those who care, TopLink has now been opensourced as EclipseLink [eclipse.org]
No ORM? In 1998? Yeah, right. (Score:4, Informative)
In the patent application (dated 1998) they stated:
One problem existing in the art is that there are no systems and methods to bridge the gap between the programming paradigm used for object-oriented systems and the programming paradigm used for relational systems.
(from here on in you know there's going to be no prior art submitted that does exactly that, when in fact there was plenty.)
Liar liar pants on fire. [google.co.uk]
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If anyone wants a good reason why software patents do not foster innovation, this has to be it.
The question is however, will RH fight it, or code around it?
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read the patent? There ain't no coding around it, and every single ORM on the planet violates it rails, django, sqlalchemy, hibernate, it doesn't matter, if it has an ORM it violates this patent. Were ORMs really invented in 1997? No one had thought about this before then? I dunno... every reference I can find just points to object databases...
So, I guess we can all license this patent from these guys, or get rid of OO all together (or get rid of RDBMS all together and just move to data stores like couc
More ORM patents? (Score:2)
Another ORM patent? They were hit with one of these back in 2006. http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/30/0451221 [slashdot.org]
After a quick glance through the patent (applied for in 1998) I fail to see how the claims differ from previous published work, but the claims are many, and the patent is long.
NeXTStep Dbase, Enterprise Object Frameworks (Score:4, Interesting)
NeXT, now Apple has patents on this stuff predating this with DBKit.
bad mojo. very bad mojo. (Score:2, Insightful)
do these people ever think, what will the public perception about their own products, website, whatever software they produced and will produce in future, be in the underground scene ? after they do this stunt ?
i mean, this is basically like raising a flag saying 'im an enemy of open source, come, get me'. EVEN if you are not.
underground scene doesnt hesitate from taking down fbi, cia, nasa, whatever web sites, and they produce a lot more viruses, trojans to hamper the companies perceived as 'evil'.
this eve
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Sure, and think of all the good publicity for open source when it's associated with illegal activity!
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I get your point that most lawsuits like this usually result in bad PR for the plaintiffs, but you have to figure that they are doing this because of 1 of 2 possible scenarios:
A) They are not patent trolling, but really, firmly believe that they have a legit grievance. Regardless of the outcome, they feel they need to defend their
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as i said,
the people decides what should be done and what should not. individuals' or groups' perceptions on anything does not matter. that's a reality of society. whether you like it or not. it was like that throughout history, and it will be like that in the future.
Crack down on forum shopping (Score:5, Insightful)
That court, and all federal courts, should start rejecting all suits from or against companies where neither party's main presence is in this court's jurisdiction.
Unless one of the party's principal business is in the Eastern District, the court should say "have you tried the courts where you and the defendant are principally located first?" and accept only cases where
1) those courts rejected the case for whatever reason and
2) the case would not be rejected if the companies were located in the Eastern District of Texas.
This would allow limited forum shopping in cases where "local" courts dismissed the case out of hand, but would not allow shopping just to get a more favorable jury or judge.
In the alternative, simply dismiss all cases that aren't the principle address of either party. However, that might take an act of Congress.
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That court, and all federal courts, should start rejecting all suits from or against companies where neither party's main presence is in this court's jurisdiction.
Redhat does business in Texas, and that's what counts.
Falcon
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Understood, Falcon, but I think David's point was that this should be changed, such that "doing business in XX jurisdiction" is no longer sufficient, and instead the main criterion for choosing a litigation forum would be "having a principal place of business" (i.e. David's "main presence") in that jurisdiction.
Cheers,
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I'm not sure that would help. All of the patent trolls would simply re-incorporate in East Texas.
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If a Court "rejects" a case generally that means the case is over, period, and can't just be re-filed in another court. Of course it depends on how the court "rejects" the case because there are numerous ways a court can dispose of a case, a very few of which would allow refiling the case elsewhere.
Jursidictional rules are complicated and there are already means for transfering the
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To have it any other way would undermine the separation of powers under Federal and State Constitutions.
This is why it is in the mess it is in, so what is needed is a good administratively minded Supreme Court judge, with and understanding of IT and modern technologies to clean it up. Hope
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Patent Litigation Venue: "A party shall not manufacture venue by assignment, incorporation, or otherwise to invoke the venue of a specific district court." Venue is only proper were (a) defendant is incorporated; (b) defendant has its principle place of business; (c) where the defendant is permanently located and has committed substantial acts of infringement; or (d) where the plaintiff resides if the plaintiff is a nonprofit or individual inventor. The court should transfer venue to avoid evidentiary burdens when transfer can be accomplished without causing undue hardship to the plaintiff."
(From Patently-O [patentlyo.com])
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(a) ... defendant... (b) ... defendant... (c) ...defendant... or (d) where the plaintiff resides if the plaintiff is a nonprofit or individual inventor.
Or, otherwise translated, you must sue the defendant in their home jurisdiction, and multiple defendants in multiple jurisdictions, unless we think that you're a sympathetic plaintiff, in which case you can sue in your home jurisdiction like every other Federal plaintiff bringing a claim against private party (assuming that there is personal jurisdiction).
On
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IMO, that goes too far. If the defendant has (allegedly) infringed in plaintiff's home state, plaintiff should be free to sue there. And if the defendant has infringed somewhere other than either party's home state, and only there, the plaintiff should be free to sue there. (e.g. defendant based in New York sells something only in Florida which allegedly violates patents of Arizona company could be sued in Florida, even if defendant does not have a location in Florida)
Why doesn't this threaten everyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
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The problem is copyrights and trade secrets. In "steel and stone" patents, product difference are quite apparent, arguing that your product does something different, or even "different enough" is relatively easy as you can point to the parts and demonstrate the actions to the judge. Often a company pays a small fee, then goes back with a "different enough" design to satisfy the judge that infringement is not occurring, then everybody moves on.
With software, it's never about the "parts" or the source code,
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There needs to be a test that goes beyond "prior art" for software patents. Namely, if a software solution is obvious given the problem and the tools, then it should not be patentable.
There is a test for non-obviousness [wikipedia.org]. The "Supreme Court [cnet.com] loosens patent 'obviousness' test"
Falcon
Looser test criteria mean tougher obviousness test (Score:2)
Actually, despite the misleading headline, that CNet article describes the SCOTUS decision as *tightening* the test (i.e., making it harder to pass) -- which most of us would regard as a good thing, in reducing the number of no-shit-Sherlock patents and thereby making it harder for patent trolls to sue the modern world into oblivion. What the SCOTUS loosened were the criteria for what constitutes "obvious". From the CNet article:
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This may, in fact, threaten all systems that use a similar set up and haven't paid for a license. This could be a first step lawsuit testing the waters to go after larger companies.
The common good is not merely programming and decisions as to whether or not patent law advances the common good can not be restricted solely to matters concerning programming.
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There needs to be a test that goes beyond "prior art" for software patents. Namely, if a software solution is obvious given the problem and the tools, then it should not be patentable.
You mean like the requirement that an invention be non-obvious in 35 U.S.C. 103? Or the 9 factor test the Supreme Court outlined in KSR v. Teleflex? I think you've got an incredibly new idea here - maybe you should patent it.
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Despite those things, there's still a valid patent on a general purpose computer installed in a car. I think something's still broken.
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It's a damned good thing it wasn't this bad in the old days. All the patents you'd see for the most absurdly obvious things. "Well, my cart's different because it's pushed by a person instead of pulled by an ox." "Well, my cart's different because it has three wheels instead of four." "Well, my cart's different because it only has two wheels instead of three or four, and it's balanced on the common axis of those two wheels." "Well, my cart only has two wheels, but it's the wheels are at one end and the
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Shut down the "plaintiff's paradise" (Score:3, Interesting)
Why stop there... (Score:2)
</sarcasm>
By the way, the GPL is not an EULA and cannot dictate terms of usage, only distribution!
Anyway, I assume you're joking, because the GPL is all about giving users freedom, not protecting yourself from being sued...
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how is it now a EULA? In the license it permit use of this software with no discrimination against anyone.
I wrote, "not an EULA", grandparent wrote "...forbid the distribution or use of the software in East Texas" which does IMO because of the word "use" mean that GPL should be an EULA...
A Trend, TomTom, RedHat Guitiarez (Score:4, Insightful)
In spite of what Rob Endele has said this is enemy action, "Once is coincedence
The US legal system, as I have said before, needs to brace up and get its act together on vexatious corporate litigation and to adopt the 'Costs in cause' rule so small defendants with a strong case will always defend. I look to senior academic lawyers, and the appelate benches of the Federal Appeal Circuit and the Supreme Court, which does not require legislation or a specific case but can be delt with by practice direction, to take a lead on this.
Those responsible for business competitiveness, especially in the EU need to do more. At minimum re-opening the M$ anti-trust investigations which I hope TomTom press for, from the Netherands. The State Attorneys and US Justice Department should also re-open the Anti-Trust suit compliance issue, especially after the discovered and proven complicity of M$ in the meritless SCO litigation.
The EU should also raise this as a WTO issue. Indeed the rational reaction is to say to US "We will hold all enforcement and co-operation on IP issues until you have reformed your broken Patent and Copyright systems" and stand firmly against term extension as the rest of the world needs the innovation effect of time limited IP rights. We should no-longer tolerate the East Texas fiasco and put as much back pressure on the US to end this legal corruption, which is, by no-means, too strong a description.
This can be effected by amicus-curia briefs by Commerce and Justice and by making it clear to these judges that all their decisions will be appealed until they resign or retire. They have done enough damage.
And no, after the Economic Crisis largely created by US corporate malfeasance, greed and lack of transperency the rest of the world needs to say 'enough' loudly, and refuse to toady or further pander to the economic nonsense, from the lunatic right, in Washington, which has done so much to damage the world economy.
Is Microsoft involved? (Score:2)
There is a distinct sense of __non__coincedence__ in the air, the stink of M$ and rotten US corporatism and lack of effective regulation and enforcement of honest transparent business practices.
Where's your evidence Microsoft is involved. And about that part about corporations, you do know that Redhat [google.com] is a corporations too? So is Dell [google.com] and Hewlett-Packard [google.com], both of which are also named as defendants.
I don't like MS but I have not seen evidence MS is involved, unlike the SCO case.
Falcon
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He's simply pointing out that it's an eerie coincidence that Microsoft is suing TomTom for linux code, and that this company is suing a Linux shop for O/R mapping at the same time. This patent troll could have filed suit against any number of companies, including Apple, Sun or Oracle -- all of which sell JavaEE middle tiers and make far more money on them. Why did they pick RedHat? It smells fishy.
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He's simply pointing out that it's an eerie coincidence that Microsoft is suing TomTom for linux code, and that this company is suing a Linux shop for O/R mapping at the same time.
What exactly is the coincidence? That they happen to be one of thousands upon thousands of Microsoft partners?
This patent troll could have filed suit against any number of companies, including Apple, Sun or Oracle all of which sell JavaEE middle tiers and make far more money on them.
Hahaha fail. They already did file suit last year against Oracle over the exact same issue : www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuit.asp?id=35286
# April 8 # Software Tree LLC vs. Oracle Corp. Plaintiff Software Tree claims it is the owner of U.S. Patent No. 6,163,776 issued Dec. 19, 2000, for a System and Method for Exchanging Data and Commands Between an Object Oriented System and Relational System. The original complaint states the '776 Patent was subject to a reexamination by the U.S. Patent Office which confirmed the patentability of all claims and amended some claims. The reexamination concluded on April 8, 2008. Software Tree claims that Oracle has infringed the '776 Patent through products including the Oracle TopLink. "Defendant has actual knowledge of the '776 Patent, and actual knowledge that the Oracle product known as Oracle TopLink product, and all other Oracle products that include TopLink, infringe the '776 Patent," the original complaint states. The plaintiff claims Oracle's knowledge is evidenced by correspondence dating back to early 2004 between Oracle and the inventor of the '776 Patent, who is also the president and CEO of Software Tree. "Instead of properly taking a license to the '776 Patent, Oracle engaged in a series of unsuccessful attempts to invalidate the '776 Patent through numerous meritless filings of ex-parte reexamination of the '776 Patent," the complaint states. "Despite its actual knowledge of the '776 Patent and its infringement of same, Oracle has continued to engage in its infringing conduct without a license." As a result of Oracle's alleged acts of infringement, Software Tree claims it has and will continue to sustain substantial damages in an amount not presently known. Software Tree is seeking injunctive relief, damages, lost profits, expenses, costs, attorneys' fees, treble damages, interest and other just and proper relief. Jeffrey Bragalone of Shore Chan Bragalone LLP in Dallas is attorney in charge for the plaintiff. Court assignment is pending. Case No. 6:08-cv-126
Oh well, I guess that blows your coincidence theory out of the water, eh?
Why did they pick RedHat? It smells fishy.
Only because you are apparently ignorant of prior history do things look fishy.
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Considering the latest ORM stuff Microsoft has put into .NET, they could have sued microsoft. Surely the payout would be greater considering the more prevalent distribution of .NET!
Its not like they can sue thinking RedHat can't afford lawyers so they'll easily win.
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I make two quite separate points:
1. I do not trust coincidence hand have been in the business long e
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(a) in TomTom, the (V)FAT patents fail the test
(b) in Software Tree LLC, the wording of the patent, on its face
means that a Master (Magistrate Judge in US) can decide, on the pleadings, that the plaint "
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Nonsense, I am making structural points about good corporate governance.
You are Astroturfing.
It is time for Industry and Corporations to get on and innovate, not squabble, like hyenas on the corpse of long dead, and non-innovative turf marking whose engenderment and existance are the result of Congress passing silly legislation and the USPTO accepting so much dumb, obvious junk.
Again a failure to regulate and efficiently monitor the regulators. Get it? Banking, SEC, Anti Trust
All your database are belong to us.... (Score:2)
Set us up the patent.
Deja Vu all over again? (Score:2)
Didn't Red Hat put this behind them with this settlement? http://www.press.redhat.com/2008/07/15/a-readers-guide-to-the-firestar-settlement/ [redhat.com]
What is the good of making a settlement like this that was suppose to protect everybody when the next troll comes along? Red Hat should have not just given in and settled the previous case, because now every other joker with a patent related to ORM will come after them.
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From the Firestar settlement:
It covers almost everything (Score:2, Insightful)
Give it away for free... (Score:2)
then sell 'service agreements'.
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Sure they did! (Score:2)
Apparently Microsoft didn't learn anything from that little SCO fiasco.
Sure they did!
They learned that a patent suit against even the strongest of their enemies by an expendable cannon-fodder company can tie up their enemies for years and cost them lots of time and money that can be replaced from the sucked-dry husk of their sock-puppet.
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