Sun fended off Apple, Microsoft IP lawsuit threats
Revealing a bit of previously hush-hush history that's relevant today, Sun Microsystems' former chief executive says that Apple CEO Steve Jobs threatened to sue Sun for infringing on its intellectual property in 2003 for a user interface design.
Jonathan Schwartz, former Sun CEO
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)And that's not all: Microsoft's Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer also tried to get Sun to license Microsoft Office patents for use in OpenOffice, a move that would have made open-source distribution of the competing product impossible, Jonathan Schwartz said in a blog post Tuesday.
The anecdotes will be of interest at handset maker HTC, which Apple sued last week for patent infringement. HTC, though, is a newer and smaller company that some believe lack the intellectual property arsenal possessed by companies such as Sun.
Jobs delivered his threat to Sun personally, Schwartz said, calling his office to say the graphics in Sun's operating system 3D interface, Project Looking Glass, were "stepping all over Apple's IP," and that if Sun commercialized it, "I'll just sue you."
The meeting with Microsoft followed the same pattern.
"As we sat down in our Menlo Park conference room, Bill skipped the small talk, and went straight to the point, 'Microsoft owns the office productivity market, and our patents read all over OpenOffice,'" Schwartz wrote. "Bill was delivering a slightly more sophisticated variant of the threat Steve had made, but he had a different solution in mind. 'We're happy to get you under license.' That was code for 'We'll go away if you pay us a royalty for every download'--the digital version of a protection racket."
In both cases, Sun countered with its own patent portfolio.
With Apple, Schwartz raised the similarities between Apple's Keynote presentation software and Concurrence, software from Schwartz's start-up Lighthouse Design, which Sun acquired. And he pointed to Sun's operating system patents, relevant given its Unix history and the fact that Apple's Mac OS X uses Unix technology. "Steve was silent," Schwartz said.
With Microsoft, Sun's rebuttal involved Microsoft's .Net programming foundation and Sun's earlier Java. "Microsoft is no stranger to imitating successful products, then leveraging their distribution power to eliminate a competitive threat...So when they created their Web application platform, .Net, it was obvious their designers had been staring at Java--which was exactly my retort. 'We've looked at .Net, and you're trampling all over a huge number of Java patents. So what will you pay us for every copy of Windows?'" Schwartz said. "It was a short meeting."
Microsoft did make some headway, though, in its effort to capitalize on open-source software and its own intellectual property. It alleged in 2007 that Linux and other open-source software projects violate 235 Microsoft patents, and it has signed several patent agreements with companies for related technology.
Schwartz agrees with those who see Apple's suit against HTC as something of a proxy war against Google, whose Android operating system is used in several HTC phones, most notably the higher-end Nexus One. "I feel for Google--Steve Jobs threatened to sue me, too," Schwartz said in the opening line of his blog post.
Schwartz's company was able to defend itself, and indeed ultimately Sun used its patent portfolio to extract a lot of money from Microsoft. "I understand the value of patents--offensively and, more importantly, for defensive purposes. Sun had a treasure trove of some of the internet's most valuable patents--ranging from search to microelectronics--so no one in the technology industry could come after us without fearing an expensive counter assault. And there's no defense like an obvious offense."
HTC may be a little guy, but he suggested Apple's attack may backfire.
"For a technology company, going on offense with software patents seems like an act of desperation, relying on the courts instead of the marketplace," Schwartz said. "I wonder who will be first to claim Apple's iPad is stepping on their IP?"
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank, or contact him through Google Buzz. 
w/ Apple, it was over Sun's Looking Glass project... which IIRC never made it to market.
w/ Microsoft, it was over OpenOffice, which is not only in the market, but is gaining ground as I type this, and has been for years now.
One of the two companies got its way, while the other got nothing but frustration.
Oh, and something else I noticed: I find it laughable that you would castigate Apple, who simply wanted to have its alleged IP left alone, but you left out Microsoft, who made a blatant move to get a "protection racket" (in Schwartz' own words) going. Fanboy much? ;)
IP isn't about making it to market. Its' about the right to market.
Apple offered the "just go away and die" option.
MicroSoft offered the "scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" in rackateering form. option.
At least Sun had the balls to say. "Nice Try, but if you want to walk down this path I'll be happy to capatalize on all your hard work with court enforced IP rackateering of our own".
If only Sun had turned down Oracle....
* Microsoft in this case was trying to "license" something that they had no proven right to. They made their threats over assertion, and nothing more. They backed off quickly when they realized that Sun could make the same threats in return (and given Microsoft's history, Sun's charges would likely stick - let alone mentioning the monopoly specter).
* "IP isn't about making it to market. Its' about the right to market. " - I can agree mostly to the premise but wasn't what I was getting at. Even if we were to assume full agreement, Sun apparently did not bring it to market for some reason, which wasn't mentioned.
* That said, take a peek at the image here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass . Notice that it looks way the hell too similar to OSX in lots of aspects? If I were Apple, I'd wander over there and demand a stop to it as well. (that said, underneath they are two completely different animals).
* I'm not really sure that having license agreements instead of lawsuits is a good idea. Bear with me for a moment and consider: Patent trolls make their income off of licensing under threat of litigation - it is their entire raison d' etre
* all of this said, I want to make something clear: IMO, Software Patents suck, and should only have copyright protection, not double-dip into both copyrights and patents. The sooner the USPTO abolishes software patents, the better off we will all be.
Actually, Looking Glass didn't make it because it was too early for most desktop computing horsepower when it was previewed. That, and a lot of the advanced technology components were of the "ok: why do I want/need that" variety (seriously: why would I want to put virtual post-its on the back of 3D-spinnable windows?). In many ways, if you want to see a deployed Looking Glass, look at many aspects of Aero.
The utter irony of it all is that Xerox could easily have sued Apple (into non-existence) "back in the day" over their blatant ripoff of Xerox's windowing and input systems.
Often times, people who spuriously points out someone as being a fanboy are fanboys themselves.
P.S. I'm not a fanboy for Microsoft products.....................I didn't even know such a thing existed.
Grow up, please.
Patent system is broken (recent patent on multi touch to apple). Hope they fix it soon.
* It's not like Sun is much more than an OS and software company, any more. Google already has an OS (a few, actually) that they're very happy with.
* Most recent generations of "Sun" hardware have been Fujitsu-made on the SPARC side. Google already designs and makes the most optimized servers for their business model.
* Storage, which Google has a voracious appetite for, wouldn't have been helped through a Sun acquisition as Sun's storage division has *always* been a joke (they even manage to regularly screw the pooch on OEM storage).
Even IBM bowed out on Sun as, in the end, Sun brought little to the table for them. The only thing that a Sun acquisition would have brought IBM is taking the third-place UNIX systems vendor's worth of market share.
Neither $teve Job$ nor $cott McNeely are on the Forbes list of top US philanthropists.
Both are billionaires many times over yet if you do the math, to miss the list they'd have to have given away less than 1% of their wealth.
On the flip side you have Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Sergei Brin, Mike Lazaridis (RIM) and giving back. The list goes on. Not one person from Apple. Not one from $un.
Good riddance.
Only a fool would not "brag" to the IRS and give up their deductions on their income tax return.
Odds are that Jobs has no idea how much he gives to charities, and his accountants handle it all fo him.
Bill Gates is not bragging. His charities are a personal mission for him and his wife to help the less fortunate.
Too bad Jobs is too greedy to think about anyone else but himself and his corporation.
When doing charitable giving, what you give is not enough, yes not even Bill and Melinda Foundation, so you try to influence governments and institutions to help you give more and have the biggest bang for the buck. You can't do that in secret.
If Jobs is giving to charity, it might be small enough to be able to hide it.
Or, we can give Jobs the benefit of the doubt that maybe, like Bill Gate before he started the foundation, maybe he is just waiting for the right time, the right amount of money to start giving. Maybe when he feels that he can devout enough time to it, then he will start giving.
"So if I make a million or a billion I have to give it to others. No one gave me anything. " -- opportunities where given to you that the hungry kids in the street never will have the opportunity.
If you have a lot of money, what good is it if you don't use it? Yes, you would feel guilty not for making money, but for not helping others in need that at the time when you have the capability of giving.
The IRS may know. You are not required to disclose your philanthropy unless you are also taking it as a deduction.
Besides, using $ for the letter 'S' is simply immature and purile. Using such derogatory and childish tactics derails any chance someone might take your comments seriously.
Besides, you're just a big ol' poopyhead, so there! :)
Then why are you complaining about our patent system?
a) If a company in America put another company out of business with silly patent lawsuits that will mean I can't buy their products.
b) This erosion of patent law is slowly creeping to other countries, if big business can transform the patent system in the No1 country in world, it won't take them long to roll this out to smaller countries.
Given the amount of technological innovation that comes out of the US, things that retard that innovation have a GLOBAL effect.
That doesn't change the fact if you don't complain about the situation to someone in position to effect change nothing will change. People whine about it here and get all sorts of support, but lobbyists representing business or industry interests talk to elected officials, and maybe big campaign "donations" are given to get a vote a certain way. That causes all sorts of problems, but never the less it causes things to happen.
Oh, wait... you say that Sun Microsystems is now the personal property of Larry Ellison?
Ouch. Nevermind...
Ouch. I made money on that deal, but I'd rather own Sun and see what they could do when they got it turned around.
Ha ha. Me too. But for different reasons. I would be very scared of that silence. Who knows what he is thinking?
was cut short, the full quote from his blog is way more interesting. the full quote is:
"So I wonder who will be first to claim Apple?s iPad is stepping on their IP? perhaps those that own the carcass of the tablet computing pioneer Go Corp.? Except that would be AT&T. Hm."
Makes you wonder if AT&T will hold this IP patent over there head to keep exclusive carrier of iPhone or not, hmmm
EU and a lot of other countries do not allow software or software design patents, but a lot of companies in these countries hold patents in the US. Now for the big question..... so these companies cannot collect royalties in their own countries..... but they can collect in the US???? Are we missing something?
Technology is changing too fast now for every idea to be horded away and exploited. It is no longer beneficial to the economy as a whole.
You are all so anti-capitalists but you probably spent a month picking out the car you wanted to buy. All you can do is talk about how bad these guys are for not giving their money away. They can do whatever they freaking want with their money. It?s THEIR money. Maybe they like to invest THEIR money. It's called job creation.
There is a tone to the article and the comments that puts patents in a bad light. Yet I bet every one of you is taking meds that exist ONLY because patents exist. Ever eaten a honeycrisp apple? You should, they are awesome. Guess what, someone put a ton of time into developing it and afterwards patented it. It took years of research and guess what, most people don?t work for free.
People that are against intellectual property must not be very creative. I'm sure if any of you were smart enough to write a book you would want a copyright. If you designed a logo you would want a trademark.
Almost everything you enjoy in life exists because of capitalism yet you think it is the enemy. Do you think the iPod would have been developed in the Soviet Union?
Stop acting like a bunch of spoiled children. If you want to live with one type of apple, gray walls, one type of car where everyone is equally poor?move to Russia. They have a patent on making everyone miserable.
But to call people that wish to limit the absolute power of the copyright in cases where it is an obvious hindrance to the common good anti-capitalist is narrow minded. You said, "People that are against intellectual property must not be very creative. I'm sure if any of you were smart enough to write a book you would want a copyright. If you designed a logo you would want a trademark. "
But let me ask you and equally one sided and ludicrous scenario to your own, if you were dying of cancer and could not get the cure because the company that owned the patent to the cure also made a more expensive drug that only treated the cancer symptoms they wanted to sell out first. Would you not argue that the company had to at least make the cure available to spite wanting to recoup profits on the other pharmaceuticals? Would you limit what they could charge you? Would you limit the time they could bury the cure and deny it to you? Or are you that willing to die for your convictions?
Palm totally ripped off Apple with the PalmOS. Apple just sat back and watched its marketshare dwindle. Typical of Apple during that time, they set the bar to a new level, spent the millions of $$ to research and bring a product to market only to have someone come in after the fact and rip them off.
I love how everyone brings up "Oh apple ripped off Xerox parc" Well Xerox had a concept but not a working product. Apple is the one that spent MILLIONS and a failed platform (lisa) trying to bring the Mac to market only to have MS rip them off.
Do you honestly blame them? Look at their past. They innovate so much out there (Quicktime, Mpeg4, Powerbooks, Newton, Quicktime 3D, Quickdraw fx) only to have someone else come in and 1-up them. Before DirectX there was Quicktime and Quickdraw. Geez. Stop acting like Apple is some bad guy when they are only trying to protect themselves from ultimate doom. Once jobs is out of that company who knows how the winds will sway. We may never have another company like this that pushes the bar so far.
- by raywkirk March 10, 2010 3:03 PM PST
- The look and feel of a UI is not protectable. That issue was settled by the Lotus vs Ashton-Tate case in 1992.
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