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Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word

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Re: Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word

#61

Post by ghshephard »

discojesus wrote: post #36
cookiecaper wrote: post #6

This is good. We need more of these things to happen so that we can get some power behind the anti-software-patent lobby. Software patents have to become too dangerous to keep around, and that happens by things like this; right now, Microsoft and others use patents to lord over Linux and make vague threats about litigation. This is an important part of Microsoft's strategy, so software patents are important to them.…

awesome things like making it illegal to sell Word and therefore Office How about just making your open source alternative to Word and Office that much better and competing with them? * edit: downmodded without justification. Wonderful. Which just forces the quality of discussion on HN WAY down. Ironically, understanding that concept requires understanding incentives, which are the basis of patents in the first place…

discojesus - the ENTIRE point of patenting "Office/Excel/Spreashdeet/Word" processes and systems is to PREVENT open source alternatives to Word and Office.

We're talking about _patents_, not copyrights here. Nobody is suggesting that Software Copyrights aren't perfectly valid and an important part of the industry - without even having to Poll, I'm going to guess that 90% of HN residents are strong proponents of Software Copyrights. The Free-Software proponents, even those on the GPL V3 bandwagon, _rely_ on Copyrights to further their aims and ambitions.

Re: Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word

#62

Post by kelnos »

cookiecaper wrote: post #44
cloudkj wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for openness and transparency. But I do believe there needs to be some level of legal rights protection, and that it's a pretty fundamental pillar of our capitalist system. Out of curiosity, what do you (and others) think of a patent for something like Google's PageRank?

I think it's bad, because the patent wouldn't read "Google's PageRank". It would read "A system that ranks cataloged pages by their relevance to a certain search term", which would mean every other search engine would have to license Google's tech. Copyright already covers specific implementations. That's as far as it needs to go in software.

Well, not really. They'd only have to license it from Google if they implemented their search engine in a manner covered by Google's hypothetical patent.

Of course, apparently Google feels they have more to gain by keeping their algorithm secret than by patenting it.

Re: Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word

#63

Post by kelnos »

ghshephard wrote: post #60
dantheman wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What right? Copyrights & Patents are not natural in a free market; they're government creations. Remember patents and copyright only exist to encourage people to produce, not because you're entitled to profit from it. As of right now there is very little in the way of evidence that patents in anyway contribute to encouraging people to produce. Most small companies don't even bother patenting ideas because they don't…

"As of right now there is very little in the way of evidence that patents in anyway contribute to encouraging people to produce." There are untold exception to this - It's important not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Drug Patents, in particular, are incredibly important. Large Pharmaceuticals spent decades and billions of dollars on developing, trialing, and getting their new drugs approved. Why on earth w…

Somewhat hypothetical, but: how difficult is it to reverse-engineer a drug's exact composition with only the final product (the pill/vaccine/etc. itself)? If it's difficult enough to be economically infeasible, then patent protection here could be replaced by simply keeping the drug a secret.

Of course, that kills the generics market, and I suspect it's not such a difficult problem to RE a drug, but... just curious.

Re: Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word

#64

Post by cma »

cloudkj wrote: post #25
cookiecaper wrote: post #6

This is good. We need more of these things to happen so that we can get some power behind the anti-software-patent lobby. Software patents have to become too dangerous to keep around, and that happens by things like this; right now, Microsoft and others use patents to lord over Linux and make vague threats about litigation. This is an important part of Microsoft's strategy, so software patents are important to them.…

I'd argue that, rather than banning software patents outright, the process by which these patents are approved should be put under high scrutiny and changed. For a lot of large companies, the approach really is similar to throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks. Having gone through the process recently, I'm amazed at how easy it is for an engineer to conceive an idea, pitch it to a few paralegals…

Why not just fund general research like we already do, but more so?

Re: Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word

#65

Post by noonespecial »

cookiecaper wrote: post #6

This is good. We need more of these things to happen so that we can get some power behind the anti-software-patent lobby. Software patents have to become too dangerous to keep around, and that happens by things like this; right now, Microsoft and others use patents to lord over Linux and make vague threats about litigation. This is an important part of Microsoft's strategy, so software patents are important to them.…

Would it be possible (and IANAL so I've got no idea) to simply not make your products available in this whacked out district of east Texas?

Just refuse to ship by mail or retail to any address in the district in order to make sure the trolls can't force you into this venue?

It would be no small measure of poetic justice if in return for making themselves an enormous public nuisance and doing irreparable harm to the patent system, all of their residents had to drive a hundred miles every time they wanted an ipod.

Edit: Moved from the thread about this that didn't take off.

Edit: On downvote: I actually wasn't trying to make a snarky point etc. I really would like to know. Is it possible, if some venues just become too hostile, to simply not sell to them or is it an "anywhere in America = everywhere in America" kind of thing? In other words, is there any way at all to keep patent trolls from dragging you down to their funny little puppet court in nowhere-ville east Texas? Give me my -4, I'm cool with that, but could someone take a moment to answer?

Re: Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word

#66

Post by blhack »

bioweek wrote: post #50
nostrademons wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stock is supposed to reflect the discounted value of all future cash flows. In the grand scheme of Microsoft's Infinite Revenue Machine, having Word off the market for a month or so while they figure out a workaround really doesn't make much of a dent.

So no one is worried it will be off the market permanently? I thought investors were prone to panic?

Microsoft is a company made of very smart people; they're not going to let one of their flagship products simply disappear.

Re: Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word

#67

Post by ispivey »

bioweek wrote: post #50
nostrademons wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stock is supposed to reflect the discounted value of all future cash flows. In the grand scheme of Microsoft's Infinite Revenue Machine, having Word off the market for a month or so while they figure out a workaround really doesn't make much of a dent.

So no one is worried it will be off the market permanently? I thought investors were prone to panic?

No; other people read the article, and have heard the news that Microsoft plans to have a modified (compliant) version for sale as soon as this injunction takes effect.

Re: Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word

#68

Post by kelnos »

flatline wrote: post #20
NathanKP wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time legitimate software patents can help to protect small software studios and startups. It is a double edged sword.

Protection results in a racket as its ultimate end. I see small studios and startups doing just fine right now without patents, which are expensive and require a lot of specialized knowledge to apply for. Who is being protected from what by patents, exactly?

I suppose it depends on how you define "expensive," but they really aren't. I believe the application fee is on the order of a few thousand dollars (in the US only, of course; you can easily rack up a hefty fee if you need to apply in multiple jurisdictions). Doing the actual application and enumerating the claims isn't trivial, but I do know laypeople who have successfully applied for and been granted patents with minimal help from a lawyer (that's where patent applications can get expensive).

EDIT: It's even less than I thought from the USPTO side; see http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee2009september1...

Re: Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word

#69

Post by kelnos »

wglb wrote: post #38
NathanKP wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time legitimate software patents can help to protect small software studios and startups. It is a double edged sword.

One author at http://www.tinaja.com/patnt01.asp feels that the break-even point for patents is $12 to $14 million.

That's a little misleading. The article claims that the break-even point is $12-40mn in gross sales. That's a bit of a weird way to put it that doesn't really illuminate the actual cost of patenting something at all.

Regardless, suggesting that it costs $12mn to patent something is ludicrous.

Re: Court: Microsoft violated patent; can't sell Word

#70

Post by pyre »

wheels wrote: post #30
Vivtek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're far more often used as bludgeons to drain the defense coffers of small software studios and startups. By the time a patent is granted, that startup has moved on to something better - show me a single software patent that a competent programmer couldn't develop in a few weeks given the description. Not the patented mechanism (that's generally obvious and we all know it), just what the invention is supposed to…

> show me a single software patent that a competent programmer couldn't develop in a few weeks given the description. MP3.

IIRC, MPEG Layer-III isn't a single patent. So it's a bit of a misnomer to say that 'MP3' is a patent that a competent programmer couldn't come up with on their own.

On the other hand, I've heard some audio people say that MP3 wasn't necessarily anything 'new' to audio engineers/producers. It was just translating into software what people in the business already knew.

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