Barnes & Noble Names Microsoft's Disputed Android Patents 386
Julie188 writes "B&N is really blowing the lid off of what Microsoft is doing and how they are forcing money from Android. It has accused Microsoft of requiring overly restricted NDA agreements from those even entering into patent license talks. Because it is disputing Microsoft's claims, and the restrictions of its own NDA signed with Redmond, B&N has gone public. It has named in detail six patents that it says Microsoft is using to get Android device makers to pay up. Plus, B&N is also trying to force open Microsoft's other plans for stomping out Android, including the agreement Redmond made with Nokia, and Nokia's patent-troll MOSAID."
Well now (Score:5, Informative)
It's about damn time the patents came out.
Re:Well now (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep pushing kids around, and eventually someone's going to push back.
Fortunately, this is a pretty big kid. This should be fun.
Re:Well now (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't have a product that runs Windows.
I wonder how much extra a Windows license would cost if you don't pay for the Android license?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Well now (Score:5, Interesting)
It's about damn time the patents came out.
Yes, and they are more trivial than I could have ever imagined.
RTFA, it's worthwhile.
Re:Well now (Score:5, Insightful)
There's quite obviously an assload of prior art for them too.
Re:Well now (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft exposed as a thuggish patent troll, who woulda thunkit?
Re:Well now (Score:4, Informative)
The only people who can sue them for anti-trust is the DOJ I believe. If so that ain't happening. Before the last anti-trust suit MS was stingy on political donations. They wised up when the DOJ went after them and now they donate tons of money to politicos, greasing many palms. I doubt there will be any anti-trust action. It's easy to follow the money.
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000000115 [opensecrets.org]
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Consider the simulating mouse inputs alone using other devices. WTF the mouse inputs simulate using other devices. So what, using a mouse makes prior devices illegal. Who the fuck grants these patents, who was paid under the table to allow crap like that through.
Re:Well now (Score:5, Informative)
TL;DR-friendly list of patents:
https://www.networkworld.com/community/files/imce/img_blogs/microsoft_patents.jpg [networkworld.com]
I don't know what to say.
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"No. 6,897,853: simulating mouse inputs using non-mouse devices"
Can someone explain to me why Microsoft has two patents for the same thing? Or an I just reading that wrong?
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The summary sentence is just that. There are probably (trivial) differences in the detailed description somewhere. I can't be bothered to look up the actual patents there myself, of course.
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No, they would not.
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Those just summaries / titles of the patents, presumably the full patents contain differences.
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Re:Well now (Score:5, Funny)
My God, what have we become?
Peasants.
Re:Well now (Score:5, Interesting)
That list is so freaking absurd that it just boggles the mind that Samsung, HTC, et al are actually paying hundreds of millions over it. My God, what have we become?
Here's a good conspiracy theory: Are they really paying money, or did MS say "Hey, if you "pay" this licensing fee for Android, we'll return it to you as credits on Windows Mobile licensing fees".
So Microsoft gets to spread FUD and tell everyone "Hey, these other guys paid up, so should you", while the companies may not be paying anything.
Since MS tried to require an NDA and confidentiality just to disclose the patents (which are already in the public domain), I wouldn't be surprised to find that they had some backroom deal to reward companies for paying for Anrdroid.
That does make sense (Score:5, Interesting)
That might explain why phone manufactures like Samsung and HTC (who make both Android and Windows phones) are willing to take the deal but B&N is not.
Re:Well now (Score:5, Interesting)
Patents have become a way for a group of big players to completely lock out the small players. Because software moves so fast (and these are all exclusively software patents from MSFT) the 20 year patent duration is excessive. Basically the libraries of patents that these companies hold are so large that they really don't know what they have or what they might be infringing upon from another company. So they simplify it by just having a blanket cross-licensing deal with all their friends. Ie, "you're probably infringing on us, and we're probably infringing on you, so let's shake hands and call it even and go after those small upstarts instead." A century ago this sort of thing would have been called a trust and invited strong government scrutiny.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well now (Score:4, Interesting)
They are trading for well under book since they are very close to losing money. But they have plenty and only about $700m in debt.
Further Google might be looking to take over the lawsuit.
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That is why while I say software patents shouldn't be allowed in the first place often you are better off just paying the troll to STFU and go away.
"Once you pay the Danegeld, you are never rid of the Dane."
Makes me wonder why piracy isn't even more rampant than it is, with patents being ~18 years too long and copyrights being 70-100 years too long.
Mickey Mouse is 83 , and won't be public domain for at least 15 more years (assuming Disney doesn't pull something else out of their sleeve). How long will be long enough for Disney to have profited from that particular piece of Intellectual Property? Is there a single person on the planet who hasn't been ex
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Patents already only last 20 years. I'd rather it were 2, as quickly as the industries are moving these days.
50 years for copyright is 10 times my posts' proposed limits (which were some of the original limits).
The original concept of these legal structures is to allow the original creators to profit from their creations, and then have those creations move into the public domain after a reasonable amount of time. 50 years is not really any more reasonable than 120.
I think people are already pursuing the san
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@FedcourtJunkie [twitter.com] :"Koh just held both tablets above her head, one in each hand, asked Samsung lawyers to identify which was which. Took them a while to do so.."
Again it's not about icons, it's about icons specifically made to resemble iOS icons. It's not about a rounded square device, it's about a device that's made specifically to resemble Apple's style, etc. All those elements together create a copycat that makes it hard to distinguish from the competing product. Compare this to a competitor done right, as
Re:Well now (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, let's look at the claims Apple is making:
a rectangular product shape with all four corners uniformly rounded;
the front surface of the product dominated by a screen surface with black borders;
as to the iPhone and iPod touch products, substantial black borders above and below the screen having roughly equal width and narrower black borders on either side of the screen having roughly equal width;
as to the iPad product, substantial black borders on all sides being roughly equal in width;
a metallic surround framing the perimeter of the top surface;
a display of a grid of colorful square icons with uniformly rounded corners; and
a bottom row of square icons (the "Springboard") set off from the other icons and that do not change as the other pages of the user interface are viewed.
The phone you linked meets everything there except what, that it's white instead of black and the icons are square instead of having rounded corners? You can try to claim that the similarities between Apple's device and Samsung's are more than what's listed, but all that means is that the trade dress claims are overly broad.
The fundamental problem is that all touch screen phones have similar characteristics for purely functional reasons. All the similarities between Apple's device and Samsung's come down to a simple calculus: In any market with similar devices competing, you can always evaluate each of your various competitors' products to determine which one is most like yours, and (absent a tie) there will always be one that is. Naturally, a company intent on doing some lawyer-based chest thumping will choose that one as the target of their aggression. Subsequent comparisons between that competitor's device and other devices on the market will always show that device to be the most similar, because it is, and that's why they picked it as their target.
But none of that proves that Samsung did anything wrong. Having the most similar device and having a device that is too similar are two completely unrelated questions. You can have neither, both, or either one without the other. And pointing out a list of generic similarities doesn't prove anything. Pick any two modern cell phones and I'll be able to give you a list of a hundred characteristics they both share.
Apple is making trademark and trade dress claims. The point of those things is to identify the product to the customer when they're purchasing it. Nobody is buying a Samsung phone thinking it's made by Apple.
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And if the lawyers held up two modern smartphones, how many lawyers (or consumers) could pick the Windows Phone (if the screen was off)?
It would be trivial to spot the Samsung tablet (hint: it's the less-square, 16:9 one), but perhaps shape recognition isn't part of the lawyer skillset. With the home screens on, it'd be even easier. Nonetheless, the GP is right; hand-sized, rectangular shape, speaker at the top, basic black colour - none of these could be considered a unique feature in phones, because the form is in large part dictated by the function. Just as with tablets.
Ask your average consumer who came in to buy an iPad to identify the iPad in a side-by-side comparison, will they be able to ? Down to the packaging Samsung have copied elements that were distinctively Apple-like. To me the Windows phones look substantially different, so does the UI and crucially the combination of the two is something fresh showing that yes you can come up with a new approach even when working within the constrains dictated by function. I also thought the Palm Pre, though less distinctive
Andrew Ryan said it best (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the difference between a man and a parasite? A man builds. A parasite asks "Where is my share?"
Re:Andrew Ryan said it best (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Andrew Ryan said it best (Score:5, Funny)
Whoa whoa whoa.
Ayn Rand.
Andrew Ryan.
Dude, you just blew my mind.
"We are Ayn Rand" (Score:5, Funny)
ANDREW RYAN
swap first and last 3 letters
YANREW RAND
scramble first letters
WE R AYN RAND
Ein Volk. Ein Reich. Ayn Rand.
Thank you Barnes and Noble (Score:5, Insightful)
Barnes and Noble did the world a favor and maybe we can all return the favor.
Amazon accepted to pay Microsoft while Barnes and Noble is fighting them over their absurd patents.
At the moment many are wondering whether to buy a Kindle Fire or a Nook Color or Nook Tablet.
I have a Nook Color and I love it.
The stock software is ok and color children books are nice, so I would happily recommend the product to non technical people.
The stock software can also do youtube videos etc.
For me, the killer feature was the micro SD card that is bootable. I put Cyanogenmod on it, got the Google market etc.
This lawsuit makes me want to recommend the Nook to more people. I used to feel the kindle fire was just the same (minus the micro SD so hacking is a bit less friendly).
But if Amazon is paying Microsoft, then buying a Kindle Fire is scoring against the Open Source camp.
Re:Slashdot's new anti-Microsoft position (Score:5, Insightful)
Although you provide a compelling argument. There are a couple of facts that you overlook here:
1) Microsoft wouldn't disclose which patents were the problem to the vendors, nor Google. As stated in the articles here, B&N had to break an NDA to show the world what Microsoft was leveraging for the lawsuits. That's piss poor behavior in my opinion, and a sign of operating in "bad faith."
2) The licensing fees are comparable to the entire cost of a Windows Mobile OS license. This is not a "reasonable" fee which is what patent law calls for.
3) The licensing agreement includes provisions that prevent the licensee from making changes to the product, and reach far beyond the scope of the patents that are owned by the patent holder. Specifically, by allowing Microsoft (in PJ's terms) veto power, Microsoft is attempting to assert full control over a product that they are trying to compete against. That is highly anti-competitive.
And of freaking course Google is releasing the OS for free. It's called OPEN SOURCE. The OS is freely available. Honestly, I can't blame Google for trying to procure patents... It's a defensive measure against cabals like this. The whole point of the lawsuits against Android makers is to use the courts to gain market share. This does great harm to the consumer by stifling competition and innovation (see Internet Explorer 6... That was a hideous mess and web technologies were stagnant until the Mozilla foundation released Firefox). That's why these licenses are problem, and that's why I don't agree with your statement that Google is the problem.
B&N and the NDA (Score:5, Interesting)
B&N REFUSED to sign any Microsoft Gagging Agreement apart from one very limited document. That is clearly documented in the filings made by B&N.
B&N are also irate about the terms MS wanted to impose on them for seemingly ancient and trivial violations.
So MS got a patent on using the kb to simulate a mouse/trackpad. There is so much prior art that will shoot that down that i want to get up an applaud B&N for exposing the MS RICO scam. I can't support them by buying a Nook as they don't ship it to my country.
I'd also like to be at a few shareholder meetings of the companies that have signed up for the MS Scam. I'd expect their BOD to get a really hard time explaining why they let MS literally screw the comany and shareholders.
Re:Slashdot's new anti-Microsoft position (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Slashdot's new anti-Microsoft position (Score:5, Interesting)
Judicious coders are now looking for prior art, and they'll probably find it. But each patent fought will be a battle by itself, cost a lot of money, and more cross-complaints will be filed. This is only the beginning, not the beginning of the end.
This is the knock-down argument for why what Microsoft is doing is illegitimate. If it doesn't matter whether the patents are valid because they have a thousand other patents in their back pocket then you're not paying for a patent license, you're paying protection money against ruinous litigation. You either have to pay up or you have to play Russian roulette with a machine gun where every dud costs you a million bucks in legal fees.
That's the problem with mutually assured destruction. It only works when the entities are the same size. Otherwise it's a war of attrition, so the big guy only needs to force an equal dollar amount of each party's cash into a big pile (called "retainer fees") and then set it all on fire and wait for the little guy to either capitulate or go into bankruptcy. And compared to Microsoft, B&N is the little guy.
Re:Slashdot's new anti-Microsoft position (Score:5, Insightful)
Google licenses Android for free, because they get paid in different ways and have a strategy that stretches beyond next quarter. They don't have any kind of monopoly in any of their businesses, so the comparison with MSFT of the 90's isn't a great comparison.
It's a little like Mozilla giving Firefox away for free because they get paid in different ways. Should they be stopped because others who want to charge money for the browser can't figure out a way to compete?
Software and process patents are just a way to funnel money from innovators to lawyers.
Re: (Score:3)
Except I submit that if your paying for the product, then you're still the product (and now a bit poorer).
Do you believe that your cable company isn't selling your viewing history? Last time I looked, I was paying them...
Do you believe that your ISP isn't selling your browsing history (if they aren't actively injecting ads into your browsing experience)? Last time I looked, I was paying them...
Do you believe that your grocery store isn't selling your purchase history (unless you're willing to pay 10% more
Re:Slashdot's new anti-Microsoft position (Score:4)
Re:Slashdot's new anti-Microsoft position (Score:4)
It's the other way around : Android comes with the Google apps, gmail, calendar, Google search as default, etc.
I cannot believe you just actually wrote that. Google goes so far as to send C and D letters to small time modders to make sure that their proprietary apps are not included without paying up. You basically have it completely backwards. Furthermore you are double clueless as there are quite a few phones that come equipped with Bing as the default search and they are still "Android certified". You are spreading FUD.
Re:Slashdot's new anti-Microsoft position (Score:5, Insightful)
I also submit that if Google had procured the patents in question, not only would we know what they were, they would probably not be using said patents in an offensive to gain market share.
Re:Slashdot's new anti-Microsoft position (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, yes, the surely-objective opinions of "WinSuperSite"...which find that Google is stifling competition by providing an open-sourced smartphone kernel to anyone who asks, and is oppressing the poor, abused coalition of every other smartphone vendor who banded together specifically to pay an exorbitant price for smartphone-related patents and immediately as a group set about suing over Android devices (exclusively). Curiously, they did this when Android's marketshare started to make theirs look rather foolish. Yes, they just want to protect their intellectual property, such as the milestone achievement "No. 6,339,780 placing a loading status icon in the content area of a browser." By precisely duplicating the functionality of "placing a loading status icon in the content area of a browser", Google is oppressing competition, necessitating the actions of Microsoft in demanding license fees in excess of their own product's cost for infringements that they refuse to disclose before being paid.
TL;DR: give me a break.
anti-competetive (Score:5, Insightful)
Patents were intended as the alternative to a trade secret. The way it was supposed to work is that rather than keep everything secret (like the old medieval guild system did) you documented how you built something and in return you got the rights to that device for a limited amount of time. Thus others could see how you did it and either license it from you for a fee or else figure out an alternative way of doing it, and after the time had expired then the information was publicly available.
As for the claim of "bogus" or "largely questionable" patents, are you seriously arguing that "placing a loading status icon in the content viewing area of a browser" (ie, put the status icon where it's actually visible when zoomed in) isn't obvious? Or loading the text first and then the images? Or using handles to change the size of selected text area (how else are you going to do it when you can't click and drag?).
Re:Slashdot's new anti-Microsoft position (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitalism: "That don't befront me, as long as I get my money next Friday."
Fanboys...just shut the fuck up. Your chosen side isn't any better than the other.
Re:Slashdot's new anti-Microsoft position (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH there is another type of patent troll. A patent troll who is rather incompetent at creating or marketing a specific device or process but still wants to profit off the production of the device. This is MS. MS has had years to bring smartphones to market. They have not done so. They have had years to work within the market to produce a product people want. They have not. So now they are pushing trivial patents to profit off other peoples works. This is not what patents are for.
If MS were to sue someone because they were copying key points from Xbox, there would be no issue. But people are not. Firms are using industry standard methods to develop a mobile device. Using filename, icons, and redenering techniques that MS did not develop, but merely copied from others and was the fist to patent.All they want is a share of a market that they do not have the skill to get. As a result the consumer is being asked to pay more than would otherwise be necessary. Does this sound familiar. It should because it is how MS operates. By getting a cut from ever sale even if MS has no input into that sale. Can any say naked PC?
It's time. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's time. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are no totally innocent corporations out there, and I'll always favor independent booksellers, but looking at the Nook in contrast to Amazon's censorship of the Kindle and exclusivity deals for Kindle content, B&N's commitment to bricks-and-mortar stores, and now the company's decision to stand up to Microsoft, I really am finding myself a fan of B&N.
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Me too, unfortunately they don't sell outside the US or i'd be buying a Nook.
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And aside from all this, the Nooks are great products. I bought one myself back in January of this year and I love it.
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I suppose you missed the instances where they "unsold" content that they sold? If remotely destroying content you already sold because you later discover it has portions you don't like isn't censorship, then what the fuck is?
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Tell me, how is amazon SUPPRESSING media by simply refusing to sell it? Is refusing to promote or sell something "suppressing" it?
If so, MSNBC is censoring because they dont espouse republican viewpoints as well as democratic ones, and fox is censoring because they dont promote viewpoints that support the democrats. Everyone must support, sell, and spread all viewpoints at all times, or else they are censoring. Is that how it works?
The "outrage", as you put it, is because inflationary language like this
Ugh. (Score:2)
NetworkWorld/InfoWorld/PCWorld/that whole cabal of sites are just horrible.
Anywho, it's nice to see a relatively big name standing up to bullies.
And lo, Nokia, how far you have fallen.
Re: (Score:3)
The N900 was nice though.
Nokia used to be better. They were fostering Qt, after all, and Qt is awesome.
This is just...absurdly evil. 90s Microsoft, cartoonish evil. How did they possibly think this was a good idea?
Re:Ugh. (Score:5, Funny)
The N900 was nice though.
Nokia used to be better. They were fostering Qt, after all, and Qt is awesome.
This is just...absurdly evil. 90s Microsoft, cartoonish evil. How did they possibly think this was a good idea?
Perhaps the chair struck back and in his delirium Ballmer thought it was a sane strategy.
Have to say, it smacks of the sort of desperation Microsoft (under Bill Gates) sought to destroy Java.
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And .NET isn't. Which is what a sufficiently large number of business applications are now written in that major companies can't switch from Windows to a competing operating system.
The threat from Java was that everyone would use it, and use its platform-independent standard library instead of the Microsoft lock-in created by a preponderance of applications using the Win32 API. When Java first arrived they tried to kill it by including a non-standard JVM with Windows, so that applications written in Java fo
Re: (Score:3)
Only if by "business practices relating to windows" you mean designing an incompatible JVM, including it with Internet Explorer, making ISVs agree to not include Sun's JVM with their applications, misleading Java developers into thinking that developing for Microsoft's JVM would produce cross-platform applications and threatening Intel that they would support AMD 3DNOW! if Intel wouldn't stop developing a high-performance cross-platform JVM.
But don't take my word for it, read section II(B)(5) here [resource.org]. The head
the thought plickens (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:the thought plickens (Score:5, Interesting)
Good for B&N (Score:5, Funny)
First, B&N chooses an open format, ePub, for the Nook.
Second, they make the Nook easily rootable.
Third, they tell Microsoft to go fuck themselves.
I'm feeling better and better about choosing Nook over Kindle every day.
Re: (Score:3)
Doubt it. B&N got on the Internet bandwagon early, with a decent strategy.
Borders botched their initial online presence (I think they either went through Amazon(!) or Target), and never really recovered.
B&N has both internet dead tree sales, as well as their brick&mortar. They're not dying anytime soon.
Re:Good for B&N (Score:5, Insightful)
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The DRM is optional; specified by the publisher.
And I've heard rumors that this DRM is easily removed by a couple of easy-to-find scripts...
The MS TAX..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The MS TAX..... (Score:4)
This is the only way Microsoft can make any money on OPEN SOURCE.
and of course the best kind of money made is from someone else.
Microsoft isn't so much an innovator as a parasite. Rather like in that Cloverfield film. Here it suddenly is, it all its glory, exposed.
Maybe unfounded... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Unfortunately (Score:2)
Re:Unfortunately (Score:4, Insightful)
"Hey, a notification icon might be a neat idea" is a valid patent in your universe? Really?
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
recognize that they are valid patents that are being infringed on.
Yeah, and those 99 percenters also realize that there are reams of prior art and these patents are pure junk. I'd "infringe" a patent too if it was pure crap that had no right being granted in the first place. These "innovations" are not the property of MS. They were ideas thought of long before MS decided to rape the system by getting them attached to a piece of paper.
Up in the sky .. it's a bird .. it's a plane .. (Score:5, Funny)
It's like my new super hero is kicking arse and taking names and has a big B&N crest in his chest.
Well played, Barnes and Noble!
Microsoft can't compete in the market... (Score:5, Insightful)
.
Those who can compete, do; those who can't, litigate.
Re:Microsoft can't compete in the market... (Score:5, Interesting)
This seems like a really foolish thing for a convicted monopoly to do. I could see a clear case being made that Microsoft is leveraging their postion in the PC market to dominate in the mobile phone market. That and the NDAs alone should really get the justice department hopping mad. Well that and an election and the fact that Google is more loved than Microsoft and people are in a "mega corps bad" mood these days and an election is coming.
Judicial Oversight and Android patent licensing (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems like a really foolish thing for a convicted monopoly to do.
Microsoft started it's Android patent protection program [networkworld.com] in full, and their judicial oversight just ended [arstechnica.com] Both events are April 2011... clearly coincidence and happenstance.
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You don't understand. You see, if people use Android then they aren't using WP7. Which means that Microsoft can't weld Bing into the rafters the way they did with Windows and Internet Explorer. And how is Microsoft supposed to get a monopoly on web search if they can't leverage their operating system monopoly?
Allowing people to have a choice of search engines is clearly anti-competitive because people will choose Google over Bing. I mean how is Microsoft supposed to compete when nobody likes their products?
Wooow, just Woooow (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Loading icon in the content window of a browser
2. Compatibility of file names with current and outmoded operating systems
3. Storing input/output in a shared file system
4. Simulating mouse inputs on a device without a mouse
5. A browser that recognizes background images and displays them after the text is loaded
6. Using handles to change the size of selected text
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't #5 part of how all browsers work when you specify with and height for your images in html?
Re:Wooow, just Woooow (Score:5, Informative)
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it's highly probable that the other manufacturers didn't care about these patents being so ridiculous.
you know why? they're not really paying. they get subs in wp licenses.
(apparently, I got no source or proof of course!)
Good for them! (Score:2)
The patents in question are - (Score:5, Funny)
6,339,780
5,579,517
5,652,913
5,758,352
6,791,536
6,897,853
6,339,780
5,778,372
5,889,522
6,891,551
6,957,233
Saved you the trouble of RTFA.
Re:The patents in question are - (Score:5, Informative)
Patents asserted in litigation
These are the descriptions from the image in TFA
Re:The patents in question are - (Score:4, Informative)
1) While loading a web page, the browser displays a placeholder before an image has been completely downloaded
2) When loading a web page, the browser prioritizes the download of images
3) The OS supplies applications with a system-wide API (DLL in Microsoft speak) to display icons and keyboard shortcuts in application windows
4) Annotating a read-only file by writing the annotations into a new file
5) Putting handles on a selected text area to allow for editing
I'm not surprised that B&N calls those patents trivial. By today's standards they certainly are. Not sure however what the situation was back in 1996. Given how late they were in the browser wars, I would be surprised if 1) and 2) wouldn't be prior art. 3) sounds like they patented to have Motif in the OS rather than just the display manager. I'm pretty sure that 4) is also prior art. And lacking an Android device, I have only seen 5) in iOS so far.
So much for "Freedom to Innovate" (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought MS are supposed to be Staunch Champions of the Freedom to Innovate, hardy har har.
Ridiculous - leveraging a few patents on minor functionality which might cover .00001 percent of Android functionality into a patent royalty which is out of all proportion to the "size" of MS's "contribution" to the product AND putting onerous development requirements on Android developers to hamstring it's future progress so that they're own platform can prevail not on its merits, but on their ability to control the competition with patents.
This is *everything* that's wrong with the software patent system.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm only half kidding here. Patent lawyers have replaced Personal Injury lawyers as the scum of the earth. The entire patent system needs to be re-vamped, legislation passed outlawing patent squatting and technology stifling. And a firing squad for the patent lawyers.
I like the way we're getting open standards (Score:4, Insightful)
Something is not right! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Something is not right! (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, if I recall correctly, Microsoft hasn't revealed any of these patents until now. They've basically gone: "We're Microsoft. We're huge. You KNOW we have a warchest full of patents, and it would be an awful shame if something happened to your business that kept you from making any profit due to these patents. We can make this little problem go away, just give us [X]"
These companies don't want to put up the fight, and believe it's probably going to be cheaper, and easier just to pay Microsoft their protection money.
Now that these patents are out in the open, Microsoft licensees may just be rethinking their stance.
Trivial? (Score:4, Insightful)
where patents come from (Score:5, Insightful)
Patents can be obtained when someone invents a novel process or machine that had not been done before... that is what I would have said if you asked me about patents about 30 years ago. Today, patents are obtained by lawyers for the benefit of lawyers. Overwhelming majority of technology patents today are bogus litigation fuel. We all know 100% of all software patents are entirely bogus, yet they are wasting time and money that could go to R&D, instead it's going to the lawyers' pockets.
Computers and their software came this far riding on the skirts of innovation fueled by sharing, competing and communicating. This energy is being tapped today by lawyers who have nothing better to do than to sink their fangs into the arteries of innovation and suck the energy that had been fueling innovation since the 1960's.
Its not just about Android (Score:5, Informative)
That first article is pretty bad... (Score:3)
a lot of editorial comments, branding WP7 as Windows Mobile, and obvious misleading lines. The headers to the patents involved misled me to believe that the patents covered broad UI concepts with huge areas of scope with 15 years of prior art. Patent 5,889,522 for example was stated as claiming "putting known tab controls into an operating system for use by all applications rather than providing tabs on an application-by-application basis."
That sounds wicked general and its a really old UI concept that seems obvious to anyone who switched to Firefox back in the day for exactly that reason. Until you read the actual patent and discover that in reality they are claiming the implementation of the UI SDK framework that comes as part of the OS. Oh yeah, and the patent was filed back in 1994. I'm not sure how many operating systems offered tab-centric UI support in the SDKs for third party apps back then, but I'm thinking prior art will be a little hard to come by, and tabs sure as hell didn't seem like such a duh-concept back before they were ubiquitous, much less a specific object implementation of a tab control in a common UI SDK for the OS.
After reading a few of the actual claims from some of the patents, I stopped wasting my time and discarded the whole patent table. After the TFA came out and stated that Microsoft was pure evil, which was unfortunately at the very end, I felt dirty for having even clicked. What MS is doing may be wrong, and it certainly hinders innovation, but let us not pretend that one company serving its shareholders' interests is going to be evil while another company doing the same damn thing is going to be the Shining White Knight of our fantasy.
Look what happens when you play by the rules! (Score:5, Funny)
People have known for decades that it's sometime useful to give users feedback about something that takes a long time, by displaying a progress meter or at least "Please wait" or "loading" or "initializing the galaxy." When GUIs got popular, displaying it as an icon was natural. When small screens started to get more popular, it became somewhat common to eschew fixed-position widgets in favor of using the entire screen as a "content area" because there was so little to spare for scrollbars, status displays, or whatever.
Yet despite this situation, no one could figure out how to display a loading status icon in a content area. Or at least no one easily could. But then Microsoft Research applied themselves to the problem, and with a lot of insight, experiments, trial and error, hard work, and just plain luck, they figured out how to do it. I've never seen a Microsoft handheld computer, but presumably they used the novel solution in a product. But nobody wanted it, so it died. And Microsoft, too, may some day die.
The secret for how to display a status icon in a content area, could become lost when Microsoft dies. But no. Not willing to let their efforts be buried by the sands of time as a lost trade secret, they took advantage of patent law, which gave them a brief monopoly (a mere 20 years within the millennia that people have been doing mathematics) for which We The Public received public disclosure for how their invention works.
And what did Google and Barnes & Noble do? They renegged on the disclosure-for-monopoly deal!! Instead of having to figure out on their own, how to display a status icon in a content area, they dishonorably read through all of Microsoft patents, learned all the secrets ("aha! That's how to display a status icon, where the icon is in the content area! Ingenious!") and defied the monopoly.
And here you all are, blaming the victim, Microsoft. Yet without Microsoft, would you know how to display an icon inside a content area instead of outside it? Or would you be pounding your keyboards in frustration? "It doesn't compile!" or "It doesn't run right! There's my icon, but it's outside of the content area! How did they do it!" or "There's my icon inside the content area, but WTF, it doesn't say 'Loading'! How is the user supposed to know it's loading something, if I can't figure out how to make the icon say 'Loading'?!" Please, people, think of the inventors and their technical solutions. Without the monopoly, they might not have had any incentive at all, to solve the long-standing mystery.
The Nazgul ride again (Score:3)
James Watt: Monopolist (Score:3)
As far as I'm concerned, Microsoft has held back the progress of computing by possibly some 15 years from what we could have now...
Ah, (Score:2)
You mean the Windows Server model of security. :)
Re: (Score:2)
That's a wild and crazy accusation. I don't even know what you're talking about.
BRB, searching forums to find the syntax of some undocumented combination of methods I need to call via PowerShell 2 to fix an issue I'm having with cluster shared volumes...
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like Microsoft is still pursuing the security by obscurity model - and its not working out well.
I sat a .net security session at a developers conference. After 45 minutes of taking notes, the presenter hadn't repeated himself and as I realized that I put down my pen - this is why I don't develop in .net, except as stand-alone desktop apps.