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Apple and Google Included in Suit Over Embedded Interactive Media in Browsers
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The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if MS doesn't actually own a lot of these patent holding companies. They could put up a half hearted attempt at trial, but loose on purpose, and it would set a precedence, and make it more difficult for MS's competition to go to trial. IANAL.
Crap like this is why the whole notion of patent law needs to be seriously rebuilt for this age. Patent litigants are turning into commercial concerns unto themselves, doing absolutely nothing to enable, foster, or even protect the true innovation this economy requires.
EOLAS: Hey Microsoft, let's settle this.
Microsoft: No.
EOLAS: Settle or we produce people/companies to prove a lot of your patents are invalid under 35 USC 102, 103, and/or due to inequitable conduct before the Patent Office, we will subject your patents to reexaminations, and/or take you to court to show how invalid all your patents are.
Microsoft: O.K. let's settle.
They're both listed as plaintiffs:
EOLAS TECHNOLOGIES, INCORPORATED
and REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
If you want some interesting reading, just pull up the list of heavy hitters that filed amici curiae.
Good. It's about time Apple has to pay for all the intellectual theft and damages it has caused to other companies.
If MS paid them money, then stopped using the "infringing" technology, and their best other solution was complicated, then maybe the patent had some novel techniques. Remember, MS lost the case initially, the settled.
I only had a quick look at the patent, but it appears they've been granted a patent for all client server applications running within a web browser.
There is no problem with patents in general, but the problem is too many have been filed and accepted for what are just common sense developments and usage of pre-existing technology.
Eolas didn't invent the web browser, embedded software, client server systems, interactive software. All they did was put it together on a few sheets of paper and file it as a patent.
The other issue is the size of the payments involved in some of these lawsuits. If someone does come up with something revolutionary they obviously deserve to be rewarded for it but there needs to be common sense limits or everyone suffers.
There is no problem with patents in general, but the problem is too many have been filed and accepted for what are just common sense developments and usage of pre-existing technology.
Eolas didn't invent the web browser, embedded software, client server systems, interactive software. All they did was put it together on a few sheets of paper and file it as a patent.
The other issue is the size of the payments involved in some of these lawsuits. If someone does come up with something revolutionary they obviously deserve to be rewarded for it but there needs to be common sense limits or everyone suffers.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7C144 Safari/528.16)
I just read EOLAS's original press release (97) about their victory and damage payout against MS and couldn't help but laugh when I read " EOLAS expects to pay a dividend to our shareholders after winning $500 mil from MS".
I just read EOLAS's original press release (97) about their victory and damage payout against MS and couldn't help but laugh when I read " EOLAS expects to pay a dividend to our shareholders after winning $500 mil from MS".
Legal merits aside (I'm not a lawyer or a legislator), what many of the so called "Patent Troll" companies do is to purchase patents from little guys who would have no hope of ever getting a nickel off the the big guys (see the Ford intermittent windshield wiper guy, for example). So the little guy gets some cash (and maybe a piece of the action, depends on the deal), and a set of professionals pursue legal remedies.
If the original patent is invalid for whatever reason, the biggies will figure it out. If not, then money is owed.
There is nothing in patent rules that state that you need to actually try to build your device or process. If I invent and patent a way to get zero point energy for free from empty space, but the device cost a billion to build, I might not start up a company to build them. If someone else uses my idea (say, Enron in the old days), then they should pay me. If they refuse (like Ford et al in the aforementioned case), then I guess I get to sue them.
The whole problem here is with software patents, not patents in general. The supreme court has already ruled that you cannot patent an algorithm. Somehow though software patents continue to be handed out to people. It is insane.
Their case against MS should have been tossed, and this one should be tossed as well. Software patents should not exist. You can't patent math and language.
The argument for software patents is that many mechanisms that used to need wires and gears can now be created using general purpose machines (computers, process control, etc.) and software replace the physical mechanism.
The argument should not against software patents in general, but over broad or convoluted ones. Especially those that use novel terminology to avoid patent search engines that all the "biggies" use to try to avoid infringing.
"The process causes every binary digit to be transfered to the next higher order flip flop, then that result combined with the original register binary content, then the result transfered to the next higher order flip flop." (Oh, shift, shift, add, shift to multiply by ten).
You are confusing copyright with patents here. Lack of software patents doesn't mean Word would enter public domain immediately or anything... But what it would mean is that once a version of Word is out there, new features are free game for others to play catch-up with or improve upon. They still have to do that work, and in the case of software, I'd be fairly confident that as long as you have competition of some kind, companies would be kept on their toes to try to be innovative so they would have features the others don't during the important early sales period of a new release.
Please point out an instance where Apple has surreptitiously filed for a patent on an idea (ie, one that would not become highly public knowledge the moment it was filed), never developed a concrete product based on that idea, and then prosecuted a third party for infringing on it.
Anything?
Didn't think so.
This was a hypothetical situation based on the many patents filed by apple that have not as yet been brought to retail. I thought it was "explicitly" understood. Though just because I can't bring to mind a true situation where this happened, doesn't mean it hasn't or couldn't.
It's not that cut and dry. For a patent to be valid it must be proven a large enough leap from prior art that no one else would likely have come up with it themselves. The problem is that the patent law system places absolutely none of this burden of proof on the patent filer (aside from a hit-and-miss system of cursory "peer" review, you could file a patent for breathing in Oxygen and expelling CO2 and would stand a pretty good chance of it going through), and all of the burden on the patent "violator". This is why most places roll over for patent trolls: it is a lot cheaper to just pay the guy something than to pay a team of lawyers three times as much to prove that you don't owe him anything and if you pay off the patent troll then the next company (ie, your competition) has a higher burden of proof to achieve.
It's important to keep terms straight here. Patent violation is not "illegal" in the common sense; it is a patent violation. This may seem a small detail, but "illegal" acts pertain to things which are against the law, which will generally be prosecuted in the public's interest; patent violations are a civil matter, and rarely as cut-and-dry as legal violations tend to be.
One major thing to note that charges of illegality here in the US are "innocent until proven guilty"; civil charges such as patent violations are "guilty until proven innocent".
Civil cases are tried in a court of LAW, therefore, violations are against the law, or illegal.
Ummm ... that second case is very explicitly what was posited, thus the "on the other side of the world". The Internet didn't exist when the wheel was invented (although, to be fair, neither did patent law)
Well actually it wasn't explicitly posted. If the terms "second person came up with the same idea without previous knowledge and then manufactured.. etc. Since it wasn't explicitly stated, I offered the two most likely possibilities the could fit that situation.
Specifically with patent law, there is a burden on the second guy to prove that he came up with the idea on his own and not as a result of hearing about the first guy's idea.
Good, it should be that way. But that just fortifies this guy's case since he came up with it first (or so he claims).
Anyone excited about the apple tablet?
Why can't we be friends!
Quote:
Originally Posted by decimortis View Post
I have a patent for using letters that look like "e"
You're all going down!
F*CK YOU.
sorry I don't generally go for the low brow stuff, but it worked so well!!
Originally Posted by decimortis View Post
I have a patent for using letters that look like "e"
You're all going down!
F*CK YOU.
sorry I don't generally go for the low brow stuff, but it worked so well!!
They filed it in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas. To me that makes them patent trolls.
What The Foly Huck
Did he just cherry pick business names out of his college textbook to sue?
FRITO-LAY?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? WHO SUES FRITO-LAY!?!?!?
This guy is the worlds example of a frigtard if I've ever seen it.
This makes no sense. At... All...
Did he just cherry pick business names out of his college textbook to sue?
FRITO-LAY?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? WHO SUES FRITO-LAY!?!?!?
This guy is the worlds example of a frigtard if I've ever seen it.
This makes no sense. At... All...
Wait
How Are You People Typing All Of These Letters
Are You Are Using A Form Of Panel That Contains Electromechanical Plungers Triggered By Plastic Overlays Upon Which Letters Numbers And Other Glyphs Are Printed?
If So Plese Stop Stoooop This Is My Invention Where Did You Get It I Thought I Had The Only One I Made It Myself
Whose Responsible This
Arrrrrg
Just You Wait You Wait My Next Invention Will Be This Same Sort Of "keyed Board" But This Time With A Clock Radio And A Small Liquid/crystal Pixelated Panel On Which To Display Low Res Photo Slideshows
I Heard That People Like Both Of Those Things When Included In Or On Other Things
How Are You People Typing All Of These Letters
Are You Are Using A Form Of Panel That Contains Electromechanical Plungers Triggered By Plastic Overlays Upon Which Letters Numbers And Other Glyphs Are Printed?
If So Plese Stop Stoooop This Is My Invention Where Did You Get It I Thought I Had The Only One I Made It Myself
Whose Responsible This
Arrrrrg
Just You Wait You Wait My Next Invention Will Be This Same Sort Of "keyed Board" But This Time With A Clock Radio And A Small Liquid/crystal Pixelated Panel On Which To Display Low Res Photo Slideshows
I Heard That People Like Both Of Those Things When Included In Or On Other Things
