Microsoft Files "Emergency Motion" To Ship Word 221
adeelarshad82 writes "Several days after a judge ordered Microsoft to halt sales of Word and handed down $290M in fines, the software giant has moved to stop the ban. On Friday Microsoft filed an emergency motion to stop the judgment and waive the bond requirement, according to court filings. The actual document was filed under seal, so the full contents of the request have not yet been made public."
For the love of money (Score:2, Insightful)
While reading, I kept hearing the song "For the love of money" from the '70s in my head. The one from the O'Jays that goes "money,money,money,money, mooo...neeey" ;-)
Well; "waive the bond requirement, according to court filings. The actual document was filed under seal, so the full contents of the request have not yet been made public."
It sure helps having money to settle court cases in your favor, doesn't it ?
I figure that (Score:5, Funny)
the sealed bond is just the publicly available document and the rest is just stuffed with $100 bills.
Re:I figure that (Score:5, Funny)
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Of course, because if there is one thing I have learned from Slashdot in the past few months, it is that any judgment that I disagree with must automatically have come about because the judge is corrupt and has been showered with money by evildoers.
It is, of course, impossible that the law could favour my enemies. I mean that is just ridiculous. I'm right and therefore I should win every time. Hell, it works that way in comic books.
Re:I figure that (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh no. Very few judges are bribed or corrupt these days. Politicians go so much cheaper and are more effective.
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Duh! We have an established bribery system (campaign contributions) that ensures all contributors get their share of the winnings.
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Oh no. Very few judges are bribed or corrupt these days. Politicians go so much cheaper and are more effective.
This is popular point of view, but not entirely accurate. Corruption is so much more than taking money under the table; in a political system where the views of all participants are polarized in the extreme, as is the case in America, politicians, judges and everybody ese in a position of power will tend to abandon the common good in favour of those that share their own view. Isn't that a form of corruption? I think it is.
Believe it or not, but in many places, such as Northern Europe, it is not uncommon tha
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Re:I figure that (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure it's a detailed synopsis as to how the US patent system is utterly broken, how it allows the most obvious ideas, and even ideas with a long history of prior art, to be patented. It probably goes into great detail as to how this is severely damaging both the US and global software industries, and how it burdens large companies with having to maintain vast portfolios to defend against just such attacks, and raises prices and creates uncertainty due to licensing costs.
Of course, it's sealed, because while Microsoft doesn't want to be the victim of this moronic and corrupt system, it also doesn't want to preclude being a potential beneficiary either.
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What's with the moderators? I guess there are a lot of patent trolls with mod points.
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Occam's razor suggests
there is a trolls with mod points.
[1] [slashdot.org]
[2] [slashdot.org]
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this is severely damaging both the US and global software industries
No, US software patents damage only US software industries.
Re:I figure that (Score:5, Funny)
"Okay, maybe my we did steal XML, but so what? Computer software is built on plagiarism! If it weren't for someone plagiarizing Xerox, we wouldn't have Windows 3.1! If someone hadn't ripped off Apple, there'd be no Vista! iPod, Zune, XBOX? Google, Bing, MSN Live. Your honor, if you take away our right to steal ideas, where are they gonna come from?"
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runat="server" TargetControlID="MyPanel">
<Animations>
<OnClick>
<FadeOut Duration=".5" Fps="20"
</OnClick>
</Animations>
</ajaxToolkit:AnimationExtender>
<!-- To Roger Myers, keep drawing, your moxie more than makes up for your
lack of talent. Your pal, Chester J. Lampwick,
seems reasonable (Score:5, Informative)
Even if this is unquestionably a patent violation, the Supreme Court has already held, in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. (2006), that an injunction prohibiting sale of the infringing product is not necessarily the appropriate remedy in all cases. Rather, the traditional four factors for issuing an injunction must be balanced: 1) that the injury is irreparable; 2) that there are inadequate alternate remedies to compensate for the injury; 3) that the balance of hardships favors the plaintiff; and 4) that an injunction does not harm the public interest. Microsoft has an least a plausible argument that they are not satisfied in this case, and that alternate remedies (perhaps money damages) would be better than an injunction against sale, even if indeed Word is infringing.
Re:seems reasonable (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, it's about time this happened, given how many times Microsoft has done this to others.
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Re:seems reasonable (Score:5, Informative)
I4i had 200 employees and was a growing, thriving business when MS came calling after 9/ll to learn how to do what I4i was doing. That's right. MS visited I4i to learn just how to do what I4i was doing. That's just how obvious and non-novel I4i's patent was at the time. It also proves MS knew the technology was covered by a patent.
MS blatently ripped off I4i and now they are crying because they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They stole both I4i's technology and customer base. How? After incorporating I4i's technology into their own products they began to aggressively attack I4i's customer base. At the time I4i had 200 employees. Now they are approximately 1/7th of the size they were.
I'd say that it's pretty clear that I4i has been irreparably harmed by MS's unethical actions.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you read the patent?
It seems like it would cover Adobe Dreamweaver, or any GUI editor that edits an XML-based data and styling application, where the data and the metacode defining the styles are separately stored but selected through some procedure.
For example, Notepad++, an open source notepad implementation, stores style information in a document separate from the storage of the text, which always remains plaintext and without any markup except that which is defined in a separate metadata file. In f
Re:seems reasonable (Score:5, Informative)
I'm the AC you're replying to.
What does any of that have to do with the facts of the case?
MS didn't understand the technology. They went to I4i to understand it. I4i cooperated because MS came in concert with US intelligence and US intelligence was wanting to understand how they could search documents quickly after 9/11. That makes the technology, at that time, both non-obvious and novel to MS, the US government, and most likely the rest of the commercial software world, as they hadn't been able to find anyone who did what I4i was capable of doing. Just because, years later, you think you understand the patent and claim you can think of may applications that violate the patent doesn't invalidate the patent. It had to be innovative/novel/non-obvious then, not now.
Here's a link to give more background.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-biblical-vengeance-of-i4i/article1253054/
Re:seems reasonable (Score:4, Informative)
There has already been a fair amount of discussion and not everything that uses XML and meta-data violates the patent. For example, ODF uses a very different method than this patent for the same kind of task - and from the various commentaries they do not violate it; namely b/c they saw the method proposed by i4i and MS as the wrong way to do it.
They went after MS exactly b/c MS did their normal predatory behavior and they have a legitimate case against MS.
FYI - this doesn't mean that I support software patents (I don't!); but this case is exactly why MS was charged with using its monopoly in an illegal way, and really shows what they do. So it's nice to see them bitten by it like this.
Re:seems reasonable (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a fucking XML-encapsulated document structure. The entire point of SGML and SGML derivatives like XML is to encapsulate data into documents and other file structures. If this use of markups can be patented, then I'm heading down to the patent office to patent CSS.
Re:seems reasonable (Score:4, Informative)
Too late. Microsoft beat you to it. http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Disclosures [w3.org]
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Though it's pretty clear it was a defensive patent to HELP promote the CSS standard (and prevent bullshit like this patent on embedding XML data in a document):
any W3C member or other party will be able to obtain a license under Microsoft's US Patent No. 5,860,073 to implement and use the technology described in W3C Recommendations for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and the EXtensible Style Language (XSL) for the purpose of supporting such standards, on a royalty-free basis. One condition of this license shal
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Even if this is unquestionably a patent violation, the Supreme Court has already held, in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. (2006), that an injunction prohibiting sale of the infringing product is not necessarily the appropriate remedy in all cases. Rather, the traditional four factors for issuing an injunction must be balanced: 1) that the injury is irreparable; 2) that there are inadequate alternate remedies to compensate for the injury; 3) that the balance of hardships favors the plaintiff; and 4) that an injunction does not harm the public interest. Microsoft has an least a plausible argument that they are not satisfied in this case, and that alternate remedies (perhaps money damages) would be better than an injunction against sale, even if indeed Word is infringing.
If Microsoft can't post a $290 million bond without suffering irreparable harm, then what chance to they have to pay even larger money damages for future infringement?
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The injury is to the plaintiff, not Microsoft. MS is probably arguing that any harm to the plaintiff is not irreparable, and that later monetary damages will cure any harm.
So they're going to argue that they'll not only pay the 290 million, but also pay the later monetary damages, and therefore shouldn't have to actually put the 290 million they owe aside?
Somehow, I doubt that will be their argument.
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In this case there is negligible impact against Microsoft as a result of the injunction, as MS Office already has proprietary file formats owned by Microsoft that can be used.
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4) that an injunction does not harm the public interest
One does NOT NEED to be an opensource fanboi to make a decent argument that it would be in the public interest to strip MS of Office completely. There is a long list of word processors that have been exterminated, thanks to MS. Without a megalopoly pushing their version of an office suite, not only would Open Office have a shot at taking the lead, but some of the older competition MIGHT have a chance of making a comeback. Not to mention, a new startu
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public interest != convenience
As things stand, at this moment in time, MS Office is a convenience, because it does everything that people have been conditioned to expect of an office suite. As AC says, there are alternatives. And, removing the monopoly will motivate others to come up with solutions to the problems that MS created.
Real public interest ~= innovation
I have a feeling (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I have a feeling (Score:5, Funny)
Powerpoint.
Re:I have a feeling (Score:5, Funny)
Word.
Re:I have a feeling (Score:4, Funny)
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I guess that teaches i4i to keep their sourcesafe.
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They're just a bunch of explorers looking for windows of opportunity.
I wonder if... (Score:5, Funny)
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... PDF is an open format and it's harder to modify after receipt than a Word file.
You can edit PDF files in OpenOffice. It's not difficult.
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While you're being funny, if it was filed in Federal Court, the choices are Word Perfect or PDF...last I checked.
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Kinda like the guy that shows up wasted to a DUI hearing.
One example they might follow... (Score:2)
Perhaps in the sealed document they'll point to Amazon's handling of the 1984 e-book, and offer to put a remote kill switch into any shipped copies of Word. If they ultimately lose the i4i infringement case, then - POOF - no problem!
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"and offer to put a remote kill switch into any shipped copies of Word. "
they all ready have a remote kill switch this is a feature of everything from MS since Vista.
What was filed under seal (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Judge, The world will end if we can't continue shipping Word.
I think it was more like this: (Score:5, Funny)
--
File attached: clownfart.wdoc
Why can software get patented again? (Score:4, Insightful)
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No. This is EXACTLY how patents are supposed to work. Without patents, the rich get richer and the poor, small software company ALWAYS LOSES.
In this case, they have won. Now the only argument is what is an appropriate remedy from Microsoft to them.
Re:Why can software get patented again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Without patents, the rich get richer and the poor, small software company ALWAYS LOSES.
This is a rare case where the smaller company may benefit. In most cases, the larger company will just point out the numerous patents of theirs that you're infringing, and then tell you how the case will be settled. In more cases still, the new company has no chance of patenting anything, so they're unable to enter the market, or risk being sued, because of the difficulties of bringing a product to market without stepping on every software algorithm and other idea that's already been patented by someone.
And I still don't understand taking their side just because they're smaller. Bad laws are bad laws. When that random company threatened to sue every ISP on the planet because they had a hyperlink patent, was everyone rooting for the little guy then?
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Except this patent is nonsense.
The patent is a system that covers taking a plain text file, and saying "from character 3 to character 42 is bold, from character 67 to 90 is in sans-serif. characters 3 to 90 are the first paragraph" etc.
I can tell you this is exactly how the Quark file format works. Quark 6 and above even use XML to do the styles.
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It's true.. sort of. The smallest software company wins. So the big software company gets sued by a smaller one, and then the smaller one gets sued by a single lawyer working out of a shared office.
He's not infringing you see, all he does is file for patents and write lawsuits. So he wins every time in your system.
Patent supporters mistake "economic activity" (moving money around) for economic _productivity_ ie actually making something. They maximise the former at the cost of the latter and end up up to th
They may win this one (Score:2, Informative)
Re:They may win this one (Score:5, Informative)
if this injunction stands and Microsoft then wins the case...
This isn't a preliminary injunction, they already lost the case.
Re:They may win this one (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft already lost the case, they were already ordered to pay $200 million which they have so far refused to do.
Normally, once the court finds you liable and orders you to pay, you have to actually do what they ordered you to do, or face sanctions and additional injunctions, like they have.
MS has only themselves to blame, they should have paid the $200 million to the court.
Suck it Microsoft! (Score:2, Insightful)
You built this mess of "software patents" and it's way past time that it started to bite you in the ass. "Motion Denied" (and also suck-it!)
more patent troll cases please (Score:2)
Eventually big corporations will lobby the governments for some real patent reform. Once the patent system makes it impossible for businesses to turn a profit something will have to give. Hopefully when the reform comes it will be done in a way that allows for a level playing field for all. I can't think of too many ways of reform that would make things worse while giving businesses a way out of the patent troll fiasco. Any way out for them is, I believe, going to benefit everyone.
There are lots of possible
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Eventually big corporations will lobby the governments for some real patent reform.
And it will look like:
Only corporations with gross revenues of more than $XXX,XXX.XXX will be allowed to hold patents.
They shall not be held liable for violating any patents held by smaller entities.
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highly unlikely.
Sealed? (Score:2, Interesting)
On Friday Microsoft filed an emergency motion to stop the judgment and waive the bond requirement, according to court filings. The actual document was filed under seal, so the full contents of the request have not yet been made public.
Why on Earth does a way seal court documents even exist?
To protect... (Score:3)
To protect trade secrets under dispute, or to protect the identities of minors. Those are the two reasons that spring directly to mind. I'm sure there are others.
Waive the Bond? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder what the reason for this is and how frequently is this request granted.
Any way, that's at least the second thing I remember this summer (the first being the buy now at 60% off deal on the various Windows 7s) that suggests Microsoft has a cash flow issue at the moment.
Regarding the judgment, remember 90 million was tacked on by the judge to make Microsoft pay for its lawyers' behavior.
Microsoft was fighting tooth and nail. (Score:5, Informative)
After reading the verdict its pretty clear that Microsoft knew about this patent and i4i long before they implemented custom XML. Its probable that they did infact learn about custom XML through i4is products and patents. Internal mails was shown where Microsoft did mention i4i and even their patent numbers.
It looks as if Microsofts counsels has done pretty much anything possible to defend themselves but the case is so darn clearcut that they just cant win. The problem for Microsoft is that Office Open XML has now become i4is bitch while ODF is wholly in the clear and unencumbered by i4i patents (according to i4i). Since ECMA-376 contains the i4i patented technology in the standard its worthless to anyone in the US.
Dear Judge (Score:2)
"Dear Judge,
I know you have issued a judgment against me saying I'm not allowed to beat my wife. I have full intent to comply with the law. However if I stop beating my wife I will... ummm... I will... suffer significant psychological damage. That's it! Psychological damage. So I would like to file this motion saying that, while another judge double-checks your homework, I should be allowed to continue beating my wife. Respectfully yours,
Microsoft"
Yeah. I'm sure that would go well.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Nope. MS got what it deserved.
They did not question patent's validity in fear that it might undermine their portfolio. So let them suffer.
Re:I hate taking Microsoft's side... (Score:5, Informative)
They argued both that the patent was invalid and that they didn't infringe on it, in any case. They lost on both points, but they certainly made the argument.
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If they argued the right way on invalidity (in re Bilski...) they would have probably won the case. But the full-court press on invalidity would have hindered their future positioning on other legal fronts forevermore.
Re:I hate taking Microsoft's side... (Score:5, Informative)
Except, there are no patent trolls in this case. i4i ships and sells an actual product, the patented code for which Microsoft actually stole after working with them.
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I'd compare MS's pilfering of i4i's product (which should never have been patented in the first place) to a pirate's pilfering of RIAA soundtracks (which enjoy far too draconian protection under copyright law).
Re:I hate taking Microsoft's side... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people have the radical notion that perhaps an idea can't be owned by one person.
The patent system was not made for people to own ideas, it was made for people to own IMPLEMENTATIONS of ideas, this is where patents tend to fall flat on their ass with software. With every man and his dog patenting 'the ability to do x'.
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i4i created and sold a product that M$ stole.
If they did that, i4i would have sued them for copyright infringement, not over patents. They did not 'steal' the product, they made their own product from scratch that did something similar
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I know they didn't copy it, or steal it, I was saying that they didn't, what I wrote was that IF they DID 'steal' i4i's product, it would be a copyright infringement, not patent. Re-read the conversation if necessary.
But the idea behind that code is valuable and needs to be protected by a patent.
So what your saying is, that the first person to come up with sin/cos/tan should have patented it and not let the world use the idea? Mathematics are except from patents for a reason, they are ideas, and not implementations of ideas
You seem to think that ideas (not a novel implementation of an
Re:I hate taking Microsoft's side... (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to be on Microsoft's side but they are right on this one. Maybe if they fight off enough patent trolls they will join in efforts to reform patents out of self preservation.
The problem is that they themselves patent just about everything under the sun.
Re:I hate taking Microsoft's side... (Score:4, Informative)
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Defensive patents...
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Which they have already used to threaten open source projects. Not terribly defensive.
Re:I hate taking Microsoft's side... (Score:5, Informative)
Except that the plaintiffs are not patent trolls and have a real and verifiable grievance.
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And what's that exactly? That they store documents in a single XML file? That's kinda the point of XML, and indeed of most of the SGML derivatives. The concept has been around for decades. What they have is a product based off of a rather old idea, and then Microsoft implemented that rather old idea itself, thus rendering their product worthless. That's not an argument for them getting some sort of monetary reparations, it's an argument for companies not basing their revenue stream on decades-old conce
Re:I hate taking Microsoft's side... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, its okay because Microsoft uses patents as weapons and not just defensively, and so they are now getting what they deserve. See the TomTom case for example.
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As usual TFS doesn't give enough information. Perhaps reading slashdot will free you from this troublesome burden of thinking MS is in the right:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1339159&cid=29101019 [slashdot.org]
hit the link in that post for external-to-slashdot details.
Re:You reap what you sow (Score:5, Insightful)
You're wrong, and overmoderated.
There is no patent troll in this case.
i4i is an actual company, that sells actual products. They worked with Microsoft, and Microsoft, line for line, stole their code. i4i subsequently sued them, and won.
There is no patent troll in this case.
Re:You reap what you sow (Score:5, Insightful)
i4i is an actual company, that sells actual products. They worked with Microsoft, and Microsoft, line for line, stole their code. i4i subsequently sued them, and won.
Hi, uninformed person here. If they stole code line for line, why is this a patent case and not a copyright infringement case?
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actually if they did steal the code line-for-line it would be both a patent and copyright infringement case.
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citation needed. All I see here is a patent case, which has nothing to do with copyright infringement which you accuse MS of.
Besides, any company stupid enough to work with MS and not expect to be ripped off deserves to be ripped off. They should even make a special law granting MS the right to do that, since they've done it so many times in the past yet these stupid companies keep trusting MS to not do it again.
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If you know a contractor that's been arrested many, many times for ripping off his clients, stealing their stuff from their homes when he's entrusted to do jobs in them, etc., has been in the news for that, and has even ripped off your next-door neighbor, would you hire that contractor to work in your home? If you did, I would call you stupid, and I actually would say that you deserved to be ripped off for your stupidity.
It's the same thing with MS. Every company that works with them is burned.
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I would be willing to bet that the same thing will happen that happened when they lost the CP/M case. They paid the 'injured' off, continued to ship product during the entire episode ( in that case, decades ), made far more then the pay off was and it was all swept under the carpet, chalking it up to 'cost of doing business'.
Normal operating procedures for a monopoly.
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I hope not. Microsoft need to actually win this and get that patent invalidated. Or else who will i4i shake down next? OpenOffice? Notepad++? It's a bad patent.
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Or else who will i4i shake down next? OpenOffice? ...
Err... wake up.
As noted in several comments, i4i themselves have stated that Openoffice/ODF are *not* affected by this patent.
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Re:You reap what you sow (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. True, a traditional patent troll is one that makes no real products. However, MS's activity against Linux can certainly be seen as "trollish", because of their vague threats meant to stir up FUD. At least the traditional patent trolls have the decency to state which patents are being violated, even if they're BS patents.
So, unless you can come up with a better term for their despicable behavior, I'll continue to use the term "troll" for MS.
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This is all getting pretty pedantic, but maybe we just need a whole new term for MS's behavior, since I can't think of any other instance where a company went around bad-mouthing its competitors, claiming it has patents which they infringe, but refusing to disclose what those patents may be, just to get people to stop using the competitors' products.
Or, if we wanted to use a more lax definition of "troll", we could say it's anyone attempting to use the patent system (with its lax to non-existent safeguards
Re:You reap what you sow (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a bit too narrow.
Justice Bradley stated, in 1882
Those "speculative schemers" are patent trolls. It doesn't matter whether they actually use each "shadow of a shade of an idea" in a product of their own; they're patent trolls even if they make their own product, as long as they try to prevent others from using those non-novel or obvious ideas.
By that definition, i4i is a patent troll, and Microsoft has, in other instances, acted as a patent troll.
Not making a product is neither necessary nor sufficient for patent-trollism. An organization which mainly does research might legitimately obtain a patent without any intent of developing it themselves. And an organization which makes a real product might engage in patent-trolling to put competitors out of business, or to obtain a revenue stream when their own product has failed.
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By that definition, i4i is a patent troll
Except for that whole "without contributing anything to the real advancement of the arts" part.
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10101001 10101001 wrote as part of a post:
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Is there any good reason that being large and/or important should exempt you from the usual procedures of justice?
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This isn't a "state-level" judge, its a federal judge.
The Constitution of the United States lays out the specific kinds of cases in which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, other than that, all federal judicial power rests initially in lower trial courts, with the Supreme Court only hearing appeals (and, for the most part, not even direct appeals.)
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Why should a state judge not be able to rule that a company selling a product in his jurisdiction is illegal? Just like this federal judge ruled selling a product in his jurisdiction is illegal.
By the way, global would be outside the jurisdiction of the US supreme court anyway.
MOD PARENT UP, NOT DOWN. (Score:2)
im4aired its JESUS UP THE
We shouldn't be modding these down, we should be modding them up. Yes, they're annoying and nonsensical (or even offensive) - but it's fairly obvious that these types of comments are computer-generated, so it becomes obvious that someone/something is breaking the captcha - modding these comments down just helps them hide the fact that they can spam slashdot any time they want to. How many of us browse at -1?
Mod these comments +1, Interesting, and maybe it will attract someone's attention that slashdot is mo