Samuel Johnson famously quipped that the prospect of death by hanging helps to concentrate a man's mind.
Likewise, nothing is more effective at focusing attention on the arcane subject of patent law than a $1.52 billion jury verdict--in a case that could affect everyone who uses digital music.
I refer, of course, to the recent verdict in the patent infringement case brought against Microsoft by Alcatel-Lucent. It will come as no surprise that Microsoft regards the decision as erroneous. For several reasons, including the fact that Microsoft already paid to license the technology at issue in the case, we are confident the verdict will be reversed.
If not, many companies face potentially calamitous repercussions. Because the case involves MP3 software that is widely used for recording and playing digital audio, almost every leading provider of digital media software, devices or content could be affected, along with their many millions of customers.
Regardless of the ultimate outcome in the courts, however, we are worried that policymakers and the public may draw the wrong lessons from this and other recent patent controversies, such as the dispute last year that threatened to shut down the BlackBerry wireless e-mail service. Excessive and sometimes frivolous suits might lend credence to the idea that patent litigation is getting out of hand, or even that patents should be abolished.
Abolition is favored by some prominent software developers, who flaunt patent infringement. At a recent Tokyo conference, for example, Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, noted evidence that "Linux infringed 283 different software patents." He defended such violations on the grounds that "proprietary software is evil."
Obviously, we disagree. Protection for software patents and other intellectual property is essential to maintaining the incentives that encourage and underwrite technological breakthroughs. In every industry, patents provide the legal foundation for innovation. The ensuing legal disputes may be messy, but protection is no less necessary, even so.
So, in an increasingly digital age, what should be done to make the incentive system work better for everyone--innovators, consumers, competitors and nations?
At Microsoft, we are in the unusual position of having one foot on each side of the divide on patent law and litigation. On one side, we are among the largest holders of intellectual-property rights. While many companies and governments have slashed funding for basic research, we continue to invest heavily in long-term R&D. As a result, we filed more than 3,000 new U.S. patent applications last year alone.
Like other companies, we also pay for rights to use others' innovations in our products. In the past three years, Microsoft has invested more than $1.5 billion to acquire such rights.
On the other side, our popular products and financial strength make us a favorite target for patent litigation. We typically spend close to $100 million a year defending against dozens of patent claims simultaneously.
Although we generally win the vast majority of these cases, being a perennial patent defendant is not much fun. Yet, it has given us some insight into how a properly functioning patent system needs to strike a balance that serves innovation, economic growth and the needs of consumers.
We believe that one of the best ways to strike that balance, and reduce unnecessary patent litigation in the process, is through widespread licensing of patented technologies. Licensing is the means for sharing intellectual property so that it can be further developed and widely adopted for the benefit of consumers and society.
Three years ago, Microsoft announced a corporate-wide policy to license our innovations to all comers on commercially reasonable terms. We have concluded many licensing agreements, some with direct competitors.
For example, recently we reached a broad collaboration and patent cooperation agreement with Novell, a leading provider of Linux and other open-source software. This agreement not only resolves potential patent disputes between our two companies, but also protects Novell's customers from being drawn into such disputes.
Our work with Novell reflects a recognition by both companies that new technologies require new, creative approaches to intellectual property. Microsoft would like to see more leaders in more industries working together to resolve potential disputes amicably through licensing instead of litigation. And we would like to see everyone participate in the patent system, playing by the same rules.
Despite our latest legal tussle, Microsoft is not giving up on the patent system. We disagree with Alcatel-Lucent's claims, but we all benefit from its right to make them.
Biography Brad Smith is general counsel at Microsoft.
Brad Smith made the claim that Richard Stallman noted evidence that "Linux infringed 283 different software patents." This number comes from a study who's author Dan Ravicher says in response to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's claim of 283 patent infringments "He misconstrues the point of the OSRM study, which found that Linux potentially, not definitely, infringes 283 untested patents, while not infringing a single court-validated patent."
He then goes on to claim that Stallman defended these violations by saying that "proprietary software is evil." If Linux developers had no regard for patent law and were borrowing freely from proprietary software, there would be a lot more than 283 possible infringements.
When Richard Stallman says that "proprietary software is evil" he means it in the same sense as "taxation without representation is evil". Free software proponents have very high regard to this kind of law and that's why they want to change it, just like the founding fathers of the US of A highly regarded the law of the king and therefore have not settled to breaking laws they didnn't like but instead replaced them with new and better laws.
While I agree that patents, in many cases, can have a positive effect in protecting the new and innovative designs of developers. However it can also be used to stranglehold an industry, like say when Microsoft patents verb conjugation, creating multiple files from one (winzip), installing software on a computer and my personal favourite the patent for the 'double-click'.
For more please visit "http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/p.spronck/ RidiculousPatents.htm" and for the entire list go to "http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser? Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2F search-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=Microsoft& FIELD1=ASNM&co1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=ptxt"
Patents are a broken system, and while required, need to evolve with the times.
Whan MS's attorney Brad Smith says "we would like to see everyone participate in the patent system, playing by the same rules" what he refers to are the rules of "intelectual feudalism". There is no room for individuals in their world unless they are backed up by rich huge corporations. Linux is OK for them as something distributed by Novell that can play by MS's rules, and they can live with other Linux distributors' as well as any other project as long as there are corporations that can close multi-million $s licensing deals. But there's no room in their world to individuals that are not backed up by huge companies. That's feudalism, were only the nobility can own property. Others may work for them...
Science fiction has these scenarios of humans creating robots and then robots taking over their world. well, humans created corporations and corporations took over their world. It doesn't mean that no humans can be in control. Some humans can be in positions of power by having control of corporations, but that's almost the only way. Corporations are parasites that depend on humans to survive, and this allows a few humans to get into a position of power, but only by playing by the rules of corporations, including "participation in the patent system, playing by the rules".
Now he tells us that: Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, noted evidence that "Linux infringed 283 different software patents." He defended such violations on the grounds that "proprietary software is evil."
Obviously he tries to make us think that those Linux thives are spying on MS and others and stealing their idea. But what actually is happenning is exactly the opposite. These patents are intelectual "property" of MS and others only inasmuch as anything you produce in a communist regime belongs to the state and anything you produce in a feudalistic regime belongs to the king that assigns rights to this property. So what really happens is that the patent office (the king's clerk) assigns a franchise to MS or someone else that is written in legalese pig-latin that that asigns all possible revenue from applying a certain process to the holder of the franchise (patent) for the next 20 years. Then someone has the same idea. They use their own idea to build something. If it's unsuccessful then nothing happens. If it's successful then they are notified by the holder of the license that whatever they produced is not theirs because the king has decided to confiscate it and they have to hand it over.
Patents are a sort of feudalistic regime that can work in limited circumstances. With millions of patents that no one is able to know about they are obstacles more than incentives. And they mainly serve nowadays to protect the feudalistic regime that MS and some others favor.
Now go watch Antz or Bug Life (a legally purchased copy, of course. What were you thinking?)
Search on an engine and you will see that .Ogg files have now a better compression, kipping a greater quality sound than MP3 format. And they are totaly FREE OpenSource.
The fact that some people have created ogg and made it publicly available (i.e. licensed their "intelectual property" to the public by "putting their work in the public domain" or something similar) does not mean that there is no patent infinged by implementations of ogg. If ogg became more popular surely someone would pop out of nowhere and claim that they infringe on his patent and everyone should pay up.
That's what happened to MS. They licensed Fraunhofer's institute patents that affect their MP3 codecs, but now it turned out that there are more patents affecting their covered that they did not license. And this is exactly the claim against software patents: There are so many minute components that are included in software and that their inclusion is straightforward and usually also trivial or just natural (in that when they are coded they are just the natural solution to the small problem tackled within a much bigger project) that it is impossible to innovate without a very high probability that some patents would be infringed upon. So MS licensed Fraunhofer Institutes patents but that doesn't constitute "licensing MP3 technology". You cannot license the technology. You can only license patents affecting the technology, and it doesn't cover any patents you haven't thought about. the only full protection is to license every single patent there is (or at least go over all of them and license all but those that eveidently cannot be related to your work) and even MS cannot do this.
I don't believe that it is possible for ogg to do what it does without (unknowingly) infringing on some patents that are either legally valid or require years of litigation and many millions of $$s to invalidate.
When I read an article like this by someone from Microsoft (By employment, and by continual usage of the term "we"), it makes me questing the nature of the article.
I wish C/Net would watch closely to ensure that articles are not used to push single sided arguments.
It's a "perspective" article which is effectively a guest editorial. So yes, it was written by a MS employee which should have been evident from the very beginning if you'd have known what CNET meant by "perspective".
Sounds like you got your legal degree from the Mafia, Brad. You mention the Novell agreement which at this point is nothing more than racketeering and extortion. As of this date Microsoft has not come forward with any code that infringes on existing patents yet is threatening Linux distro's and consumers of infringement and strong arming Novell into a $40+ million payout to your racket. But maybe Microsoft will take it's own fall this time and not setup some puppet (SCO) to take that fall. Defending developers rights is one thing, erroneously defending those rights to create a corporate racket is another.
So M$ wants patent "reform". What might that look like? Well, one "reform" <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5867383.html" target="_newWindow">http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5867383.html</a> proposed by the "software" industry, (that is to say, the immediate small group of executives who control large software corporations and their lawyers), as represented in this instance by the BSA, would instantiate a system that
"award(s) damages 'based on the proportional value of patented invention(s) alone, not on the cumulative value of all features included on a large product, which, for a computer, can be thousands and thousands of features.'"
So here will be the situation:
MS will rip off small developers, blind as they have always done. The small developers will then have to find a lawyer interested in litigating against the inexhaustable money of MS with the following contingency "incentive": if the lawyer wins against M$ , he or she then starts litigating exactly what "proportional infringement" took place. That would involve, oh things like the testimony of domain experts hired by MS who will claim that the infringing feature only constituted .00000007 of the utility of ONE PART of the program which itself was only 1/50th of the overall program utility which, in turn, was only of interest to a tiny fraction of their buyers. You and your lawyer can then enjoy arguing with them over each and every calculation, statistic, study, sales figure, industry poll and anything else that MS comes up with.
Yeah, that's patent reform all right. That's getting tough.
Small business IS the major growth engine and what small business needs is NOT software patents. The prosperity you
cite was created in a non-patent environment- how can people forget this?- and software will devolve into a "big three"
industry if patent thickets become a necessary prerequisite for entry to market.
Here's Knuth, <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.maa.org/past/knuth.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.maa.org/past/knuth.html</a> (for non-programmers) and here's his letter to Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks from 2003, which I quote not just because Knuth is a true genius and pioneer and universally revered, but because he expresses it exactly right: <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/knuth-to-pto.txt" target="_newWindow">http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/knuth-to-pto.txt</a>
He says: "I strongly believe that the recent trend in patenting algorithms is of benefit only to a very small number of attorneys and inventors, while it is seriously harmful to the vast majority of people who want to do useful things with computers."
"When I think of the computer programs I require daily to get my own work done, I cannot help but realize that none of them would exist today if software patents had been prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s. Changing the rules now will have the effect of freezing progress at essentially its current level."
"If software patents had been commonplace in 1980, I would not have been able to create TEX."[15]
and not just TEX but all internet protocols etc etc every little tiny bit of everything that you use every day. If patents had been permitted, then the internet would now be affordable to corporations only owing to the licensing costs and what's worse, that state of affairs would make sense to everyone since the "internet thing" would seem advanced-to-the-point-of-magical to the average person who never had access to it. That's the world that the people like the author of this "perspective" will, wittingly or otherwise, unleash upon us, and we'll never know the difference.
Perhaps a quote from Gates will shed light on the real intent behind software patents- from: <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2002/08/15/lessig.html?page=2" target="_newWindow">http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2002/08/15/lessig.html?page=2</a>
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...The solution is patenting as much as we can. A future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high. Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors".
What would you say if I patented a way of presenting to a jury an argument? And researching a case using the internet.
And interviewing witnesses. Why is this not patentable? It's a method of conducting business. Just imagine a world where this is permitted. What is your state? You're afraid to even look at trial transcripts lest you be judge a "willful" infringer. ALternativelyu, you spend all your time reviewing previous trials to be sure you're not infringing. A few companies get more and more patents and everyone else is left unmarketable. Get it? IS this helping the legal profession? Now I will take your voice;
Why is it that the Richard Stallman-types of the legal world of the world are so fanatical about legal patents? Perhaps they could explain why their business methods should not be patentable subject matter like all other Is it because their ox is getting gored?
You're not a software developer. You don't know how many tens of thousands of algorithms I use every day. I don't even know, but if patents become the norm, some lawyer will tell me all about it. It's as Donald Knuth said- it would bring software development to a halt. Why does he think that? Because it's true. It's OBVIOUSLY TRUE to software developers.
Where is the social utility in that? I get some small group of people may get rich, but that's NOT what the US patent system was set for. It was set up to persuade people who would otherwise secret their knowledge from the world to instead share it. If I and 50 thousand other people spontaneously "invent" the same thing when we encounter similar problems, where is the utility in the patent? Nowhere. Where is the damage? Everywhere. Why should we put up with a system that inflicts that on society? We shouldn't We aren't going to.
Furthermore you have NO evidence and a MOUNTAIN of evidence to the contrary that software patents promote the useful arts, which the Constitution clearly requires.
Let's say for arguments sake their exists a software patent so novel and useful in its conception that no one argues about those aspects of it. Let's take for example the case of client server communication way back when. What happens if we permit a patent? The person obtains lots of licensing revenue from large companies who can afford his monopoly price. What doesn't happen? All the individual creatives like Steve Jobs, all the academics who want to start their businesses, all the myriad of people whose businesses will come to employ others, all the avalanche of excitement and tinkering and improvement etc etc go away. Why? Because those individuals aren't going to sit around and read patents and try to decide if the next line of code they wrote infringes and wait to get sued by lawyers. There's far too many individual algorithms involved for that to be even logistically within their grasp. Unfortunately, these are the very people who MAKE an industry. But they're going to find another field to be creative in. They never needed patents to motivate them to take a shot at creating something, starting a company and making their fortunes, but patents will drive them off. SO the internet remains the province of the few well heeled companies....
The uber-reason that they should not be considered as patentable is that they do not promote innovation and advancement in the useful arts and sciences, as specified in the US Constitution. Absent that effect, no patent is to be issued, as per the Constitution. Patents are NOT an ENTITLEMENT in any sense of that word.
Whether or not patents promote progress in other areas is a moot point and this lawyer's assertion that patents are the engine of innovation is what's known as a circular argument, specifically, he is assuming that which he sought to prove.
You cannot just make grand statements like "patents are the engines of innovation" and have it become magically true.
AS proof that patents are not needed I offer an existence proof- the booming economy and mass creation of jobs services and abilities all of which generate economic, and even political, activity which would otherwise not exist. This was brought into existence without the use of patents.
An existence proof is the strongest proof we humans have; a thing or state of affairs exists, so there you have it, and as far as proving your case, your work is done.
But some people want to change all that. Where is their proof that things will be even better? They have none. They have a theory. They have a philosophical bias, I call it a obsession, that if a little IP is good, more IP is better.
It is the kind of classic unbalanced thinking that excites a certain kind of mind that wants to see in all problems the same solution. Those kinds of people wash out of programming. Maybe some of them become lawyers; I don't know. I am pretty sure we have some of them in the Whitehouse now. That's costing me money, too.
Yes the Brads of the world will be able to buy yet another house in the Hamptons and send their kids to $30,000 a year pre-school if software patents are permitted, but we're trying to make a Capitalist economic system work here folks, not reward special interests at the expense of the economy and the financial stability of the country.
I'd have to say that in some cases you are correct. A software patent is filed simply to block a competitor from developing a competing system. This is a perversion of the intent of the founders.
However, in other cases software/method patents provide motivation to innovate. I'll admit upfront that I am biased as I've recently filed a 'software' patent (actually its a system patent). My reasoning is pretty straightforward. I'm developing software that, in the professional field I'm developing this for, at least seems to be unique in its scope and functionality. In this endevour I'm not part of a large company - in fact we only have 2 people in the company and a couple of very infrequent part timeers on a shoestring budget. What the patent, even just the application for the patent, does is give us an asset that makes us a more valuable to investors. In the field I'm in there are two or three very large and very dominant players (Boeing, GE and General Dynamic sized players. these aren't the entities involved though) and the patent will prevent them from using their considerably resources to release a copy cat application which duplicates our functionality even if it avoids our design copyright. In this case at least a patent is helping to level the playing field between a couple of people literally working out of their living room and multibillion dollar mega corps. Eventually we will likely have to sell the underlying tech to one of these players but that's alright - very little gets done outside of these major players. What happening is that we are making these people treat with us as equals and that never could happen without strong IP protection on our side.
We could, as I am sure some will suggest, just do the whole thing as an open source project. Unfortunately in this field open source has made few inroads and seems unlikely to do so for some time. Our software has been shown to save lives and money and I think its a worthwhile and valuable resource that deserves protection for the people that have invested (at this point) 10 man years of time and effort.
In these cases I believe that the patent is justifiable and worthwhile. I expect people to disagree with me and thats fine (thought I would appreciate civility). I'm not really going to talk more on this though. I just wanted people to know that there are people; average, normal, everyday people, who are being helped by the patent process. All I ask is that you keep people like me and my partner in mind when you discuss this issue.
Software patents would not bring software innovation to a halt ...
Software patents would not bring software innovation to a halt ...
It wouldjust drive it to the underground. Some people that could be developing software would no doubt find other fields of interests. Not everyone is fit to the underground. But some would continue to innovate by infringing on software patents they do not know except that they know there are so many of them they cannot escape infringing. They'll have to do it in the underground which will be not as beneficial to the general public, and the real risks involved would no doubt invite some violence, not unlike production of alcoholic beverages in the undergroung during prohbition as opposed to doing the same openly when its legal.
It sounds impossible that software patents can cause people to become violent, but it's just a matter of time. There will eventually be that software developer that invests everything in developing something only to be ripped off by some corporation that happened to "own" the rights to some components that after losing everything would decide to seek revenge the classical way...
Yes if you're trying to force down the throats of the people some scheme that only some amphetamine addicted economists at the Chicago School of Economics really believe in- that is IP on every *single* thought and twit and twiddle and everything "man can conceive of" then all you're really doing is turning your most creative citizens into criminals and breeding widespread and utter contempt for the rule of law, for Congress and for business interests generally.
Do you know that if a handyman designs say, whatever, a fire pit in his backyard somewhere and some company somewhere has a patent on that design (that this guy doesn't know about) he is a criminal for making it and a criminal for using it even though it was his own thought and he didn't sell it to anyone?
That is exactly what we all are, but we just just don't know it- criminals.
So yes, you're going to breed contempt for law, for lawmakers and you're going to create a underground culture and economy of software full of "forbidden" thoughts and implementations. And you knwo what? No one will care except MS and the congressmen they have in their pocket.
Music bootleggers don't have a philosophical or intellectual or moral leg to stand on- you really shouldn't copy music you didn't pay for. But with software, programmers have all three- intellectual, moral and philosophical. IF you think stopping music down loaders is hard, wait until the general public starts to use "forbidden" software. When MS has turned everyone into, effectively a criminal, just see what happens to society then.
We're held together as a people and as a nation because we believe that our laws are fair and just and worth fighting for and worth obeying.
If you want to see what widespread contempt for law and widespread perception of lawmakers as the servants of illegitimate special interests looks like, then have a look at Somolia or Iraq.
You speak of this like software patents are a new thing. The first one was issued back in the early 60s or late 50s. if they were going to force innovation underground its likely to have happened by now.
It seems to me that without some sort of legal recourse to stop people from, essentially, stealing each other's inventions there would be a greater propensity towards violence. Not less.
US Patent, Number: 7,111,078. ?A system and method for anonymous observation and use of premium content by indirect access through portal.?
This patent claims: Internet Surfing and Purchasing in complete anonymity. The actual sites visited and purchases made are blind to all. A key patent claim is that our technology handles the transaction on the user?s behalf, the user is ensured that even their credit card company doesn't know what purchases they have made.
www.notme.com for al patent information and link to USPTO
Three Cheers for patent law, and three cheers for Microsoft =)
Just software patents. Software is already covered by copyright law anyway, so *** is up with the litigious double-dipping that software patents allow?
You sir, (and I use that term loosely) are a shill for MS and their "Profit-Machine"(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). I guess uncontrolled Capitalism is the best thing when you are on the receiving end?(This is just my Free Speech Opinion)
What a sad, sad, man you are(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). Do you not care about the rights of HUMANS?(This is just my Free Speech Opinion) I guess your "IP" (notice in quotes) is more important than Fair Use Rights?(This is just my Free Speech Opinion) Don't even try to say "no".(This is just my Free Speech Opinion) Because Microsoft, as a company, has been one of the leaders in taking away Fair Use Rights from "consumers"(This is just my Free Speech Opinion) (yeah, since when did we stop being __customers__?)(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). Microsoft DRM is the perfect example of my comments(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). Microsoft's DRM treats _me_ and every other user _as a criminal_(This is just my Free Speech Opinion)!!!! Microsoft DRM assumes that I am a criminal from my first use of this "innovative" Technology(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). In _my personal opinion_, you just care about _Corporate Profits_(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). All of the "IP" laws are _bought_ by big corporates that just, is my opinion, bribe our so called "representatives"(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). It is my Free Speech opinion that our current "IP"/copyright laws are severely tilted towards Big Corporations(This is just my Free Speech Opinion).
What ever happened to "consumer" rights? I guess you don't give a rat's ass about those do you? (This is just my Free Speech Opinion). Please spare me/us your Microsoft PR approved response(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). I have heard all of that crap too many times(This is just my Free Speech Opinion).
If you need to justify your way of making money, at the expense of others, then IMO, shame on you(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). Damn, you are the bane of society(This is just my Free Speech Opinion).
I know you will not respond to this post(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). And, if you do, you will give some _very_ stupid, "corporate approved" response(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). How sad that you, as a human, and gown man, can not form your own opinion(This is just my Free Speech Opinion).
I have been a computer programmer for more than 12 years now(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). I have programmed on Solaris, Linux, MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP/2003) and AIX(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). Each platform has given me challenges(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). However, Microsoft _always_ wants to sound as if their platform is some "god-send"(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). I have had just as many problems with programming on a "Microsoft-Only" system as I have on other *nix based systems(This is just my Free Speech Opinion).
I personally am very sick-and-tired of people like you that are willing to say _anything_ for your corporate masters(This is just my Free Speech Opinion).
Please bring back Fair-Use-Rights to PEOPLE(This is just my Free Speech Opinion)!
God Bless America, the land of the Free, Semper Fi!
I am so glad that I can assert my own Free Speech Opinion! I love America, and God Bless Gorge Bush our best President!
You, sir, have made the best comment on this subject that I have heard to date.
Intelligent, and insightful. Very well done in deed! :-)
Thank you. For once I am more intelligent from you comment and not just hearing a bunch of people "scream" about their side only. Again, well done sir!
Mozilla plans to release a beta version this year for Microsoft's upcoming Windows interface. It'll be a lot of work, but Mozilla doesn't really have a choice.
The Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 S6500 could make its debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month, according to a leaked promotional image.
The space agency powers down its last System Z machine, years after IBM stopped selling them for the mathematical calculation jobs for which NASA originally bought them.
A group calling itself Evil Shadow Team reportedly hacked into Microsoft's online store in India, stealing usernames and passwords of the site's customers.
He then goes on to claim that Stallman defended these violations by saying that "proprietary software is evil." If Linux developers had no regard for patent law and were borrowing freely from proprietary software, there would be a lot more than 283 possible infringements.
For more please visit "http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/p.spronck/
RidiculousPatents.htm" and for the entire list go to "http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?
Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2F
search-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=Microsoft&
FIELD1=ASNM&co1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=ptxt"
Patents are a broken system, and while required, need to evolve with the times.
Science fiction has these scenarios of humans creating robots and then robots taking over their world. well, humans created corporations and corporations took over their world. It doesn't mean that no humans can be in control. Some humans can be in positions of power by having control of corporations, but that's almost the only way. Corporations are parasites that depend on humans to survive, and this allows a few humans to get into a position of power, but only by playing by the rules of corporations, including "participation in the patent system, playing by the rules".
Now he tells us that:
Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation,
noted evidence that "Linux infringed 283 different
software patents." He defended such violations on the grounds
that "proprietary software is evil."
Obviously he tries to make us think that those Linux thives are spying on MS and others and stealing their idea. But what actually is happenning is exactly the opposite. These patents are intelectual "property" of MS and others only inasmuch as anything you produce in a communist regime belongs to the state and anything you produce in a feudalistic regime belongs to the king that assigns rights to this property. So what really happens is that the patent office (the king's clerk) assigns a franchise to MS or someone else that is written in legalese pig-latin that that asigns all possible revenue from applying a certain process to the holder of the franchise (patent) for the next 20 years. Then someone has the same idea. They use their own idea to build something. If it's unsuccessful then nothing happens. If it's successful then they are notified by the holder of the license that whatever they produced is not theirs because the king has decided to confiscate it and they have to hand it over.
Patents are a sort of feudalistic regime that can work in limited circumstances. With millions of patents that no one is able to know about they are obstacles more than incentives. And they mainly serve nowadays to protect the feudalistic regime that MS and some others favor.
Now go watch Antz or Bug Life (a legally purchased copy, of course. What were you thinking?)
Here's a few quotes on so called "software patents" for you
Bruce Schneier and Niels Ferguson 2003
"We don't believe that patents serve the security community."
"In our opinion, the cost of the current patent system for the IT industry far outweighs the advantages."
John Carmack (id Software) 2005
"In the majority of cases in software, patents [affect] independent invention. Get a dozen sharp programmers together,
give them all a hard problem to work on, and a bunch of them will come up with solutions that would probably be
patentable, and be similar enough that the first programmer to file the patent could sue the others for patent
infringement. Why should society reward that? ... The programmer that filed the patent didn't work any harder because a
patent might be available, solving the problem was his job and he had to do it anyway. ... Yes, it is a legal tool that
may help you against your competitors, but I'll have no part of it. It's basically mugging someone."
Oracle Corporation 1994
Submission to USPTO
"Oracle Corporation opposes the patentability of software. The Company believes that existing copyright law and
available trade secret protections, as opposed to patent law, are better suited to protecting computer software
developments..."
Prof. Hasso Plattner when Chair of SAP Board
"...SAP would not need patents to protect its investments and is collecting them only as a defensive weapon to prepare
for litigation in the U.S..."
Pierre Haren, board director of ILOG 2001
"...The American experience of software patents is a disaster. Before imitating them we should rather try to see if
they won't agree to change their system..."
Robert Barr (Cisco Systems Intellectual Property Department) 2002
"...The time and money we spend on patent filings, prosecution, and maintenance, litigation and licensing could be
better spent on product development and research leading to more innovation..."
Douglas Brotz (Adobe Systems) 1994
"...I believe that software per se should not be allowed patent protection..."
Jim Warren (Autodesk) 1994
"...There is absolutely no evidence, whatsoever?not a single iota?that software patents have promoted or will promote
progress..."
Mitch Kapor 1994 (Founder of Lotus 123)
That's what happened to MS. They licensed Fraunhofer's institute patents that affect their MP3 codecs, but now it turned out that there are more patents affecting their covered that they did not license. And this is exactly the claim against software patents: There are so many minute components that are included in software and that their inclusion is straightforward and usually also trivial or just natural (in that when they are coded they are just the natural solution to the small problem tackled within a much bigger project) that it is impossible to innovate without a very high probability that some patents would be infringed upon. So MS licensed Fraunhofer Institutes patents but that doesn't constitute "licensing MP3 technology". You cannot license the technology. You can only license patents affecting the technology, and it doesn't cover any patents you haven't thought about. the only full protection is to license every single patent there is (or at least go over all of them and license all but those that eveidently cannot be related to your work) and even MS cannot do this.
I don't believe that it is possible for ogg to do what it does without (unknowingly) infringing on some patents that are either legally valid or require years of litigation and many millions of $$s to invalidate.
I wish C/Net would watch closely to ensure that articles are not used to push single sided arguments.
Well, one "reform" <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5867383.html" target="_newWindow">http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5867383.html</a>
proposed by the "software" industry, (that is to say, the immediate small group of executives who control large software corporations and their lawyers), as represented in this instance by the BSA, would instantiate a system that
"award(s) damages 'based on the proportional value of patented invention(s) alone, not on the cumulative value of all features included on a large product, which, for a computer, can be thousands and thousands of features.'"
So here will be the situation:
MS will rip off small developers, blind as they have always done. The small developers will then have to find a lawyer interested in litigating against the inexhaustable money of MS with the following contingency "incentive": if the lawyer wins against M$ , he or she then starts litigating exactly what "proportional infringement" took place. That would involve, oh things like the testimony of domain experts hired by MS who will claim that the infringing feature only constituted .00000007 of the utility of ONE PART of the program which itself was only 1/50th of the overall program utility which, in turn, was only of interest to a tiny fraction of their buyers. You and your lawyer can then enjoy arguing with them over each and every calculation, statistic, study, sales figure, industry poll and anything else that MS comes up with.
Yeah, that's patent reform all right. That's getting tough.
Small business IS the major growth engine and what small business needs is NOT software patents. The prosperity you
cite was created in a non-patent environment- how can people forget this?- and software will devolve into a "big three"
industry if patent thickets become a necessary prerequisite for entry to market.
Here's Knuth, <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.maa.org/past/knuth.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.maa.org/past/knuth.html</a> (for non-programmers) and here's his letter to Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks from 2003, which I quote not just because Knuth is a true genius and pioneer and universally revered, but because he expresses it exactly right:
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/knuth-to-pto.txt" target="_newWindow">http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/knuth-to-pto.txt</a>
He says:
"I strongly believe that the recent trend in patenting algorithms is of benefit only to a very small number of attorneys and inventors, while it is seriously harmful to the vast majority of people who want to do useful things with computers."
"When I think of the computer programs I require daily to get my own work done, I cannot help but realize that none of them would exist today if software patents had been prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s. Changing the rules now will have the effect of freezing progress at essentially its current level."
"If software patents had been commonplace in 1980, I would not have been able to create TEX."[15]
and not just TEX but all internet protocols etc etc every little tiny bit of everything that you use every day. If patents had been permitted, then the internet would now be affordable to corporations only owing to the licensing costs and what's worse, that state of affairs would make sense to everyone since the "internet thing" would seem advanced-to-the-point-of-magical to the average person who never had access to it. That's the world that the people like the author of this "perspective" will, wittingly or otherwise, unleash upon us, and we'll never know the difference.
Perhaps a quote from Gates will shed light on the real intent behind software patents-
from: <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2002/08/15/lessig.html?page=2" target="_newWindow">http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2002/08/15/lessig.html?page=2</a>
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...The solution is patenting as much as we can. A future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high. Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors".
And so they do.
And interviewing witnesses. Why is this not patentable? It's a method of conducting business. Just imagine a world where this is permitted. What is your state? You're afraid to even look at trial transcripts lest you be judge a "willful" infringer. ALternativelyu, you spend all your time reviewing previous trials to be sure you're not infringing. A few companies get more and more patents and everyone else is left unmarketable. Get it? IS this helping the legal profession? Now I will take your voice;
Why is it that the Richard Stallman-types of the legal world of the world are so fanatical about legal patents? Perhaps they could explain why their business methods should not be patentable subject matter like all other Is it because their ox is getting gored?
You're not a software developer. You don't know how many tens of thousands of algorithms I use every day. I don't even know, but if patents become the norm, some lawyer will tell me all about it. It's as Donald Knuth said- it would bring software development to a halt. Why does he think that? Because it's true. It's OBVIOUSLY TRUE to software developers.
Where is the social utility in that? I get some small group of people may get rich, but that's NOT what the US patent system was set for. It was set up to persuade people who would otherwise secret their knowledge from the world to instead share it. If I and 50 thousand other people spontaneously "invent" the same thing when we encounter similar problems, where is the utility in the patent? Nowhere. Where is the damage? Everywhere. Why should we put up with a system that inflicts that on society? We shouldn't We aren't going to.
Furthermore you have NO evidence and a MOUNTAIN of evidence to the contrary that software patents promote the useful arts, which the Constitution clearly requires.
Let's say for arguments sake their exists a software patent so novel and useful in its conception that no one argues about those aspects of it. Let's take for example the case of client server communication way back when. What happens
if we permit a patent? The person obtains lots of licensing revenue from large companies who can afford his monopoly price. What doesn't happen? All the individual creatives like Steve Jobs, all the academics who want to start their businesses, all the myriad of people whose businesses will come to employ others, all the avalanche of excitement and tinkering and improvement etc etc go away. Why? Because those individuals aren't going to sit around and read patents and try to decide if the next line of code they wrote infringes and wait to get sued by lawyers. There's far too many individual algorithms involved for that to be even logistically within their grasp. Unfortunately, these are the very people who MAKE an industry. But they're going to find another field to be creative in. They never needed patents to motivate them to take a shot at creating something, starting a company and making their fortunes, but patents will drive them off. SO the internet remains the province of the few well heeled companies....
How is this good for society?
Whether or not patents promote progress in other areas is a moot point and this lawyer's assertion that patents are the engine of innovation is what's known as a circular argument, specifically, he is assuming that which he sought to prove.
You cannot just make grand statements like "patents are the engines of innovation" and have it become magically true.
AS proof that patents are not needed I offer an existence proof- the booming economy and mass creation of jobs services and abilities all of which generate economic, and even political, activity which would otherwise not exist. This was brought into existence without the use of patents.
An existence proof is the strongest proof we humans have; a thing or state of affairs exists, so there you have it, and as far as proving your case, your work is done.
But some people want to change all that. Where is their proof that things will be even better? They have none. They have a theory. They have a philosophical bias, I call it a obsession, that if a little IP is good, more IP is better.
It is the kind of classic unbalanced thinking that excites a certain kind of mind that wants to see in all problems the same solution. Those kinds of people wash out of programming. Maybe some of them become lawyers; I don't know. I am pretty sure we have some of them in the Whitehouse now. That's costing me money, too.
Yes the Brads of the world will be able to buy yet another house in the Hamptons and send their kids to $30,000 a year pre-school if software patents are permitted, but we're trying to make a Capitalist economic system work here folks, not reward special interests at the expense of the economy and the financial stability of the country.
patent is filed simply to block a competitor from developing a
competing system. This is a perversion of the intent of the
founders.
However, in other cases software/method patents provide
motivation to innovate. I'll admit upfront that I am biased as I've
recently filed a 'software' patent (actually its a system patent).
My reasoning is pretty straightforward. I'm developing software
that, in the professional field I'm developing this for, at least
seems to be unique in its scope and functionality. In this
endevour I'm not part of a large company - in fact we only have
2 people in the company and a couple of very infrequent part
timeers on a shoestring budget. What the patent, even just the
application for the patent, does is give us an asset that makes us
a more valuable to investors. In the field I'm in there are two or
three very large and very dominant players (Boeing, GE and
General Dynamic sized players. these aren't the entities involved
though) and the patent will prevent them from using their
considerably resources to release a copy cat application which
duplicates our functionality even if it avoids our design
copyright. In this case at least a patent is helping to level the
playing field between a couple of people literally working out of
their living room and multibillion dollar mega corps. Eventually
we will likely have to sell the underlying tech to one of these
players but that's alright - very little gets done outside of these
major players. What happening is that we are making these
people treat with us as equals and that never could happen
without strong IP protection on our side.
We could, as I am sure some will suggest, just do the whole
thing as an open source project. Unfortunately in this field open
source has made few inroads and seems unlikely to do so for
some time. Our software has been shown to save lives and
money and I think its a worthwhile and valuable resource that
deserves protection for the people that have invested (at this
point) 10 man years of time and effort.
In these cases I believe that the patent is justifiable and
worthwhile. I expect people to disagree with me and thats fine
(thought I would appreciate civility). I'm not really going to talk
more on this though. I just wanted people to know that there are
people; average, normal, everyday people, who are being helped
by the patent process. All I ask is that you keep people like me
and my partner in mind when you discuss this issue.
It wouldjust drive it to the underground. Some people that could be developing software would no doubt find other fields of interests. Not everyone is fit to the underground. But some would continue to innovate by infringing on software patents they do not know except that they know there are so many of them they cannot escape infringing. They'll have to do it in the underground which will be not as beneficial to the general public, and the real risks involved would no doubt invite some violence, not unlike production of alcoholic beverages in the undergroung during prohbition as opposed to doing the same openly when its legal.
It sounds impossible that software patents can cause people to become violent, but it's just a matter of time. There will eventually be that software developer that invests everything in developing something only to be ripped off by some corporation that happened to "own" the rights to some components that after losing everything would decide to seek revenge the classical way...
Do you know that if a handyman designs say, whatever, a fire pit in his backyard somewhere and some company somewhere has a patent on that design (that this guy doesn't know about) he is a criminal for making it and a criminal for using it even though it was his own thought and he didn't sell it to anyone?
That is exactly what we all are, but we just just don't know it- criminals.
So yes, you're going to breed contempt for law, for lawmakers and you're going to create a underground culture and economy of software full of "forbidden" thoughts and implementations. And you knwo what? No one will care except MS and the congressmen they have in their pocket.
Music bootleggers don't have a philosophical or intellectual or moral leg to stand on- you really shouldn't copy music you didn't pay for. But with software, programmers have all three- intellectual, moral and philosophical. IF you think stopping music down loaders is hard, wait until the general public starts to use "forbidden" software. When MS has turned everyone into, effectively a criminal, just see what happens to society then.
We're held together as a people and as a nation because we believe that our laws are fair and just and worth fighting for and worth obeying.
If you want to see what widespread contempt for law and widespread perception of lawmakers as the servants of illegitimate special interests looks like, then have a look at Somolia or Iraq.
Look good?
one was issued back in the early 60s or late 50s. if they were going
to force innovation underground its likely to have happened by
now.
It seems to me that without some sort of legal recourse to stop
people from, essentially, stealing each other's inventions there
would be a greater propensity towards violence. Not less.
This patent claims: Internet Surfing and Purchasing in complete anonymity. The actual sites visited and purchases made are blind to all. A key patent claim is that our technology handles the transaction on the user?s behalf, the user is ensured that even their credit card company doesn't know what purchases they have made.
www.notme.com for al patent information and link to USPTO
Three Cheers for patent law, and three cheers for Microsoft =)
steve
/P
What a sad, sad, man you are(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). Do you not care about the rights of HUMANS?(This is just my Free Speech Opinion) I guess your "IP" (notice in quotes) is more important than Fair Use Rights?(This is just my Free Speech Opinion) Don't even try to say "no".(This is just my Free Speech Opinion) Because Microsoft, as a company, has been one of the leaders in taking away Fair Use Rights from "consumers"(This is just my Free Speech Opinion) (yeah, since when did we stop being __customers__?)(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). Microsoft DRM is the perfect example of my comments(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). Microsoft's DRM treats _me_ and every other user _as a criminal_(This is just my Free Speech Opinion)!!!! Microsoft DRM assumes that I am a criminal from my first use of this "innovative" Technology(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). In _my personal opinion_, you just care about _Corporate Profits_(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). All of the "IP" laws are _bought_ by big corporates that just, is my opinion, bribe our so called "representatives"(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). It is my Free Speech opinion that our current "IP"/copyright laws are severely tilted towards Big Corporations(This is just my Free Speech Opinion).
What ever happened to "consumer" rights? I guess you don't give a rat's ass about those do you? (This is just my Free Speech Opinion). Please spare me/us your Microsoft PR approved response(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). I have heard all of that crap too many times(This is just my Free Speech Opinion).
If you need to justify your way of making money, at the expense of others, then IMO, shame on you(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). Damn, you are the bane of society(This is just my Free Speech Opinion).
I know you will not respond to this post(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). And, if you do, you will give some _very_ stupid, "corporate approved" response(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). How sad that you, as a human, and gown man, can not form your own opinion(This is just my Free Speech Opinion).
I have been a computer programmer for more than 12 years now(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). I have programmed on Solaris, Linux, MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP/2003) and AIX(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). Each platform has given me challenges(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). However, Microsoft _always_ wants to sound as if their platform is some "god-send"(This is just my Free Speech Opinion). I have had just as many problems with programming on a "Microsoft-Only" system as I have on other *nix based systems(This is just my Free Speech Opinion).
I personally am very sick-and-tired of people like you that are willing to say _anything_ for your corporate masters(This is just my Free Speech Opinion).
Please bring back Fair-Use-Rights to PEOPLE(This is just my Free Speech Opinion)!
God Bless America, the land of the Free, Semper Fi!
I am so glad that I can assert my own Free Speech Opinion! I love America, and God Bless Gorge Bush our best President!
Intelligent, and insightful. Very well done in deed! :-)
Thank you. For once I am more intelligent from you comment and not just hearing a bunch of people "scream" about their side only. Again, well done sir!