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Supreme Court rules against Microsoft in major patent case

techflash.com

11–20 of 57 posts

Re: Supreme Court rules against Microsoft in major patent case

#11
A few silver linings for accused infringers:

1. It could have been worse -- as correctly pointed out by carussell, the Supreme Court decision merely validates the the way courts have been deciding cases for the past 25-plus years;

2. The Supreme Court's opinion [1] urges judges to give specific instructions to the jury that it is allowed to take into account the fact that prior art introduced at trial was not considered by the patent examiner. That will be useful for defense counsel -- you can never know whether a given judge will agree to give such an instruction, so it'll be quite helpful to be able to refer the judge to a Supreme Court "suggestion" on that point;

3. The concurring opinion of Breyer, joined by Scalia and Alito, emphasizes that the clear-and-convincing standard applies only to proof of facts and has nothing to do with the ultimate legal question of validity. That, too, will be useful in trying to get the trial judge to give the jury a specific instruction on that point.

[1] http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/10-290.pdf

Re: Supreme Court rules against Microsoft in major patent case

#12
post #3

That is a scary ruling. It basically strengthens software patents (and all patents for that matter). But in particular solidifies that once you have a patent, you aren't likely to get them overturned in court. If you can invest in a patent troll -- now is a good time.

If you look at the details of the case, you will see that this was NOT a patent troll. i4i had started work to integrate their product with MS Office and started negotiations with Microsoft for licensing; then Microsoft in effect said "no thank you" and proceeded to implement the same (patented) technology on their own. While I am opposed to software patents, and despise patent trolls, I believe that this case should…

@aroberge - that is absolutely correct. Part of the reason that MS were hit so hard is precisely because they knowingly and willfully infringed.

Re: Supreme Court rules against Microsoft in major patent case

#13
To me, the scariest part was:

U.S. solicitor general, which represents the federal government, filed a brief in support of i4i, saying that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office should not be second-guessed by a jury.

The Patent and Trademark Office absolutely should be second-guessed by a jury. Judges and juries are the only sanity-check the whole system has at this point!

Re: Supreme Court rules against Microsoft in major patent case

#14

It's so ridiculous theyre essentially patenting generic syntaxes for representing documents that anybody "skilled in the art" would come up with in 5 minutes. It would have been much better for small developers if Microsoft won this. It's funny how this is treated as a win for the little guys, who can't afford massive patent portfolios nor litigation battles like Microsoft.

"It's so ridiculous theyre essentially patenting generic syntaxes for representing documents that anybody "skilled in the art" would come up with in 5 minutes." now - sure but then? - apparently not as extensive litigation demonstrated. And that 'non-obvious' nature back then - that's kinda the point, hindsight effect is a powerful thing

Re: Supreme Court rules against Microsoft in major patent case

#15
post #3

That is a scary ruling. It basically strengthens software patents (and all patents for that matter). But in particular solidifies that once you have a patent, you aren't likely to get them overturned in court. If you can invest in a patent troll -- now is a good time.

If you look at the details of the case, you will see that this was NOT a patent troll. i4i had started work to integrate their product with MS Office and started negotiations with Microsoft for licensing; then Microsoft in effect said "no thank you" and proceeded to implement the same (patented) technology on their own. While I am opposed to software patents, and despise patent trolls, I believe that this case should…

If Microsoft stole trade secrets or violated copyright or broke a contract, Microsoft should be sued on those grounds, not on a bogus patent.

Re: Supreme Court rules against Microsoft in major patent case

#16
This article, and much of the reporting on this case, is very confused as to what it's actually about.

The case actually has to do with a feature called "custom XML" which was introduced in Office 2003 (I think?) and basically allows databinding between Office docs and XML files with some custom schema. You have some data represented in XML, and it shows up in a Word doc presented in a certain way. Then you can edit the Word doc through the Word interface, and the data in the XML will match your changes. So the idea is to let you use Office as an editor for structured data. I dunno how well it worked in practice.

The actual patent claim was over some detail of how the databinding relationship was represented in the file format. This has nothing to do with the XML formats introduced in Office 2007 (.docx etc.)

Re: Supreme Court rules against Microsoft in major patent case

#17

I think i'd feel a little more sorry for Microsoft if it weren't using software patents to fight Android. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870346610457552... (search for "patent fee")

AKA dictator abhors war, vows to fight to death to protect viewpoint.

Re: Supreme Court rules against Microsoft in major patent case

#18
This is an abomination. This patent clearly fails the obviousness test (that is, if somebody is capable of reading the patent all the way through without being disgusted and embarrassed for the "inventors"). Unfortunately, most of the software patents are like this: the Patent Office is clearly failing us. Math formulas are not patentable, and software is just that: math.

Seems like our only hope is if somebody powerful and famous, with a big software patent portfolio, can sacrifice it for the good of the industry and advocate for banning software patents. Steve Jobs and his position against DRM in music comes to mind as a similar move. Wouldn't it be great if leaders of the industry get together and petition/lobby for this change? One can only dream...

Re: Supreme Court rules against Microsoft in major patent case

#19

It's so ridiculous theyre essentially patenting generic syntaxes for representing documents that anybody "skilled in the art" would come up with in 5 minutes. It would have been much better for small developers if Microsoft won this. It's funny how this is treated as a win for the little guys, who can't afford massive patent portfolios nor litigation battles like Microsoft.

"It's so ridiculous theyre essentially patenting generic syntaxes for representing documents that anybody "skilled in the art" would come up with in 5 minutes." now - sure but then? - apparently not as extensive litigation demonstrated. And that 'non-obvious' nature back then - that's kinda the point, hindsight effect is a powerful thing

Which is exactly why if you're in favor of software patents you should at least be in favor of a shortening of the duration. 20 years is an eternity for software.

Re: Supreme Court rules against Microsoft in major patent case

#20
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the details of the case, you will see that this was NOT a patent troll. i4i had started work to integrate their product with MS Office and started negotiations with Microsoft for licensing; then Microsoft in effect said "no thank you" and proceeded to implement the same (patented) technology on their own. While I am opposed to software patents, and despise patent trolls, I believe that this case should…

@aroberge - that is absolutely correct. Part of the reason that MS were hit so hard is precisely because they knowingly and willfully infringed.

Except that the big idea -- transform the XML and present it in Word -- is obvious.
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