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Patents Microsoft Software

Alarm Raised After Microsoft Wins Data-Encoding Patent (theregister.com) 46

Posted by BeauHD from the potentially-dire-situation dept.
Microsoft last month received a US patent covering modifications to a data-encoding technique called rANS, one of several variants in the Asymmetric Numeral System (ANS) family that support data compression schemes used by leading technology companies and open source projects. The Register reports: The creator of ANS, Jaroslaw Duda, assistant professor at Institute of Computer Science at Jagiellonian University in Poland, has been trying for years to keep ANS patent-free and available for public use. Back in 2018, Duda's lobbying helped convince Google to abandon its ANS-related patent claim in the US and Europe. And he raised the alarm last year when he learned Microsoft had applied for an rANS (range asymmetric number system) patent.

Now that Microsoft's patent application has been granted, he fears the utility of ANS will be diminished, as software developers try to steer clear of a potential infringement claim. "I don't know what to do with it -- [Microsoft's patent] looks like just the description of the standard algorithm," he told The Register in an email. The algorithm is used in JPEG XL and CRAM, as well as open source projects run by Facebook (Meta), Nvidia, and others. "This rANS variant is [for example] used in JPEG XL, which is practically finished (frozen bitstream) and [is] gaining support," Duda told The Register last year. "It provides ~3x better compression than JPEG at similar computational cost, compatibility with JPEG, progressive decoding, missing features like HDR, alpha, lossless, animations. "There is a large team, mostly from Google, behind it. After nearly 30 years, it should finally replace the 1992 JPEG for photos and images, starting with Chrome, Android."
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Alarm Raised After Microsoft Wins Data-Encoding Patent More

Alarm Raised After Microsoft Wins Data-Encoding Patent

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  • XML (Score:5, Informative)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Friday February 18, 2022 @05:47PM (#62281807) Homepage

    Microsoft also has other patents, such as the entire XML format. Having the patent and enforcing the patent are two entirely different things. A lot of these large orgs acquire these patents defensively so asshat patent trolls cant bog them down in litigation, and instead essentially "release" the patent to the public for free (such as with the XML patent)

    • Re:XML (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Catvid-22 ( 9314307 ) on Friday February 18, 2022 @05:58PM (#62281847)
      Isn't Microsoft already a member of some audiovisual technology consortium committed to "open" patents? So it's either it will go that way (the patent will be shared) or the present system is already broken to begin with. That said I'd say it's better for a Big Company with other revenue streams to win the patent than for a small company whose primary income will be that patent. You can after all still launch a symbolic boycott of Microsoft products and just hope the bad publicity will force them to "free" the frivolous patent (rather than lose money selling XBoxes and Office licenses). Good luck trying to shame a patent troll.

      • Re:XML (Score:4, Informative)

        by darkain ( 749283 ) on Friday February 18, 2022 @06:06PM (#62281875) Homepage

        100% exactly this. The way the summary reads, there is a pretty damn good chance this patent applies to the AV1 codec. Microsoft is one of the founding members of AV1: https://aomedia.org/membership... [aomedia.org] - and along with this, they're part of the AV1 patent pool, freely sharing the patents that encompass the AV1 encoding/decoding/storage technologies.

        • Re:XML (Score:4, Informative)

          by dearexperts ( 9393741 ) on Friday February 18, 2022 @09:36PM (#62282299)

          100% exactly this. The way the summary reads, there is a pretty damn good chance this patent applies to the AV1 codec.

          It absolutely does not apply to AV1 in any way at all. rANS was evaluated by AOM but ultimately not selected because of technical shortcomings that make all ANS variants poorly suited for hardware encoders.

      • Re:XML (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Deathlizard ( 115856 ) on Friday February 18, 2022 @06:52PM (#62281997) Homepage Journal

        They are a member of the Open Invention Network.
        https://www.openinventionnetwo... [openinventionnetwork.com]

        Whether or not they submit the patent to the network remains to be seen.

      • Do I need to mention IBM, they collect patents to control competition. Same as Oracle and let's not forget Microsofts usual approach of embrace, extend, extinguish.
      • its better to not have a patent on your sisters public panties at all - legalism is 9/10ths of troll-power
        "we did NOT buy crothub to patent your free stuff!"
        now sports - i should stay away from the world until windows 12 is forced to go offline after the ukrainian feint triggered a nukewar with joe that turned europe into a giant EMP

  • Patents are supposed to be novel. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Martin S. ( 98249 ) on Friday February 18, 2022 @05:50PM (#62281815) Journal

    How can this patent be novel if others are already using it; it cannot, therefore this patent should never have been accepted.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by TypoNAM ( 695420 )

      This is what happens when the patent system is changed to first to file instead of first to invent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • Re:Patents are supposed to be novel. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Friday February 18, 2022 @06:36PM (#62281963)

        This is what happens when the patent system is changed to first to file instead of first to invent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        and also when it’s entirety staffed by rubber-stamping monkeys.

        • Re:Patents are supposed to be novel. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday February 19, 2022 @04:07AM (#62282837)

          and also when it’s entirety staffed by rubber-stamping monkeys.

          No. You could staff the entire patent office with Nobel laurates. With 3.2million patent applications being filed globally even they will rubber stamp what they receive when faced with the resulting workload.

          Practical arguments on the validity of patents take months. Unless you want a system that can easily be bogged down by a single person let alone a corporation a certain amount of rubber stamping is to be expected.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sebby ( 238625 )

            and also when it’s entirety staffed by rubber-stamping monkeys.

            No. You could staff the entire patent office with Nobel laurates. With 3.2million patent applications being filed globally even they will rubber stamp what they receive when faced with the resulting workload.

            If the system is setup to have so many they can't possibly handle it all, then the system is obviously broken, and they're incredibly stupid for keeping it going.

            And Nobel laureates wouldn't bother working there because they know it's beneath them, which is why only monkeys work there.

            • If the system is setup to have so many they can't possibly handle it all, then the system is obviously broken, and they're incredibly stupid for keeping it going.

              It's easy to be an armchair critic without proposing a viable alternative.

              And Nobel laureates wouldn't bother working there because they know it's beneath them, which is why only monkeys work there.

              Do you not understand the literary device I used or are you on the spectrum?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Sebby ( 238625 )

                or are you on the spectrum?

                Are you some kind of bigot that has problems with people on the spectrum?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Sebby ( 238625 )

                It's easy to be an armchair critic without proposing a viable alternative.

                I've proposed simple solutions in the past: make the PTO and the examiners personally responsible for costs when a patent is found to be invalid - that's right: if they don't do their job right (which are paid for by both taxpayer and applicant money), they deserve the repercussions of their fuckups (which often now have to be fixed up by the courts, which, *tada* the taxpayers and often innocent victims of patent trolls have to pay to clean up).

      • No, that's just for establishing priority. The patent office should still do its fucking job to assess criteria like prior art. It wasn't doing it before first-to-file.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by markus ( 2264 )

          Prior art unfortunately doesn't necessarily means what common sense would dictate. If prior art hasn't applied for (and been granted) a patent, it frequently will be ignored by the patent examiner.

      • No, it isn't. The only difference between first-to-file and first-to-invent is how you handle the situation when two different people/organizations both apply for patents for the same invention at the same time. First-to-file does not in any way eliminate the ability to use prior art to invalidate a patent.

      • Re:Patents are supposed to be novel. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Friday February 18, 2022 @09:09PM (#62282253)

        This is what happens when the patent system is changed to first to file instead of first to invent:

        First, pretty much the entire world used first to file - the US was the lone exception to first to invent. In fact, the US started initially with first to file. You know, Alexander Graham Bell and a little thing called the telephone was filed hours before Elisha Gray, and only because Bell's patent attorney did a little conniving to get the patent examiner to look at Bell's patent first.

        But that has absolutely zero to do with anything - first to file and first to invent only occur when there are competing patents for the same thing. And it results in a huge mess because someone can file a patent in the rest of the world and the US can grant someone else the same patent, because the latter invented it first. But that patent is only valid in the US because it was filed after the first one.

        It has nothing to do with patenting something already in common use The US has a weird rule that allows one to show off a patented item BEFORE the patent is applied for - you get up to a year of making your invention public when you must file your patent. In practically all the other countries, this doesn't apply - the instant your method is public, it's no longer patentable. The international patent agreements work around this where something might be released as patent pending by setting the filing date to the original filing date - so you file the patent, release the product, then apply to the rest of the world for the patent, with the original filing date set to the original patent, before public release.

        Now, in Microsoft's case, it's hard to determine when this thing went into common use - after all, you have to look at the filing date (that's why you et "patent pending" a lot.

        The other thing is, what will Microsoft do with it. Microsoft now is a bit different than 10 years ago because the CEO is less about Windows/Office, and more about cloud, while Ballmer was trying to kill open-source. Microsoft today wants open source because it hopefully will lead to more cloud opportunities. Microsoft would want you to do Azure with Windows, but if you want Linux Azure, they'd still want to service that segment. And Windows well, it's less important because it's not cloud related - it can be used to access the cloud, but if you want to do Linux, Microsoft still wants you in their cloud.

        So 10 years ago, yes, this would definitely be used by Microsoft to suppress competition and lock up everything using it. Now, I'm not so sure - perhaps Microsoft will use it to help promote their cloud. I don't know. It's good to be extremely wary because Microsoft is still a for-profit company, but it might not be so bad especially if they pledge it to their free patent pool.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by tap ( 18562 )

          Microsoft today wants open source because it hopefully will lead to more cloud opportunities.

          Like how they supported open source web browsers like Firefox or Chromium by letting one use them as the Windows default browser. Oh wait, no, they now crush any attempt to make anything but Edge the default browser.

          Microsoft would want you to do Azure with Windows, but if you want Linux Azure, they'd still want to service that segment.

          So nice of them of Embrace Linux like that. I bet they'll offer all kind of Extended features for Linux Azure. But that's because they want experience under Azure to be better and it's just too bad these features don't work on Linux that isn't on Azure. Eventually supporting this on Linux wi

          • Like how they supported open source web browsers like Firefox or Chromium by letting one use them as the Windows default browser. Oh wait, no, they now crush any attempt to make anything but Edge the default browser.

            Don't confuse supporting open source as a concept and supporting your specific pet project. One can absolutely compete with an open source project militantly while at the same time giving back to the open source community using the same product https://github.com/MicrosoftEd... [github.com]

            So nice of them of Embrace Linux like that. I bet they'll offer all kind of Extended features for Linux Azure.

            Let me stop you there. The strategy of EEE is not to be thrown around thoughtlessly. There are very specific market circumstances which apply to EEE and precisely zero of them apply to anything you currently do with Linux. Specifical

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by tap ( 18562 )

              So they support open source, just as long as it's not a web browser. Then they use their window monopoly to limit competition. But that's not the evil Microsoft of 10 years ago, the one that broke the law doing just that before. Sure. Competition would be making a better browser, but they gave up on that. Now they just force Windows users to use it.

              Where's the source to WSL2? How about gvfs, the git virtual filesystem extension? "Support is not available on Mac and Linux". There's incompatibilities

              • So they support open source, just as long as it's not a web browser.

                And yet you didn't click the only link I posted. Kudos. I'm glad I don't need to waste my time reading the rest of your post.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      USPTO has been broken for decades. Even worse since they adopted first-to-file in 2013.
    • On the theoretical level, the fact that others were using a patented invention before the patent was granted doesn't necessarily mean that others were using it before the patent application was filed. Something can only be prior art if it was in use before the application was filed.

      In this specific case, I haven't bothered looking at the dates on the patent, so I can't say for certain.
    • The same way Amazon's one click is novel and not obvious. USPTO is completely messed up with regards to software. Pretty much anyone randomly throwing the dice to generate some new code is granted a patent.
  • donate the patent to the community to protect freedom. Naw!

  • or release it into the public domain?

  • Article describes what looks like prior art. That means MS paid for a patent that cannot be enforced. Or did I miss something?

    • Maybe you missed that the US patent office doesn't much care anymore. It's up to lawsuits to settle these things now.

      • I am aware that patent office take the money and do not perform the checks, but I hope I have not missed a news that judges disregard prior art in patent litigation.

        • ... I hope I have not missed a news that judges disregard prior art in patent litigation.

          They aren't supposed to, but it usually depends on how good the lawyers are.

  • Microsoft finally patents all ones and noughts /s

  • This looks like the RAMBUS situation all over again. Find something in the standard and patent it.

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