Microsoft fined 521 millions
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The things people do patent! :rolleyes: But then again, MS recently tried to patent something equally fundamental (only they failed).
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Jesus
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi -
The things people do patent! :rolleyes: But then again, MS recently tried to patent something equally fundamental (only they failed).
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Jesus
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhijdunlap wrote: The things people do patent! And there is no such things in Europe, at least at the moment. Copyright is enough and should be the sole tool to protect your code and products. Software patents only stifle innovation. That's why Microsoft has engaged in patenting as much as possible, only to make sure to lose as little lawsuits as possible. For instance, here is what Bill Gates said back in 1991[^] : "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. I feel certain that some large company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object orientation, algorithm, application extension or other crucial technique. If we assume this company has no need of any of our patents then the have a 17-year right to take as much of our profits as they want. The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can." The .NET CLR is patented. Enough said.
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:rolleyes: I can't wait to see what the opensource advocates say about this. Matt Newman
Sonork: 100:11179 "Whoa, that ruled! What function key do I gotta press to get that to happen again?" - Strong Bad -
:rolleyes: I can't wait to see what the opensource advocates say about this. Matt Newman
Sonork: 100:11179 "Whoa, that ruled! What function key do I gotta press to get that to happen again?" - Strong Bad -
jdunlap wrote: The things people do patent! And there is no such things in Europe, at least at the moment. Copyright is enough and should be the sole tool to protect your code and products. Software patents only stifle innovation. That's why Microsoft has engaged in patenting as much as possible, only to make sure to lose as little lawsuits as possible. For instance, here is what Bill Gates said back in 1991[^] : "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. I feel certain that some large company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object orientation, algorithm, application extension or other crucial technique. If we assume this company has no need of any of our patents then the have a 17-year right to take as much of our profits as they want. The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can." The .NET CLR is patented. Enough said.
Stephane Rodriguez. wrote: Copyright is enough and should be the sole tool to protect your code and products. Software patents only stifle innovation. I think ANY sort of patent does. Don't even get me started on the subject of seed patenting. :mad: As you said, copyright is a totally different story.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Jesus
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi -
I just ranted on this in the SoapBox. The patent in question is nausiatingly bogus. It claims to be an invention, but is really just an extremely obvious idea with no particulars, just vague obfuscated professor speak. If you're in the mood to get REALLY annoyed. Go to the patent and then read the referenced patents. (Do note that many companies, IBM and Microsoft in particular, file lots of these bogus patents just to stop from getting sued over the obvious.) http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='5838906'.WKU.&OS=PN/5838906&RS=PN/5838906[^]
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I just ranted on this in the SoapBox. The patent in question is nausiatingly bogus. It claims to be an invention, but is really just an extremely obvious idea with no particulars, just vague obfuscated professor speak. If you're in the mood to get REALLY annoyed. Go to the patent and then read the referenced patents. (Do note that many companies, IBM and Microsoft in particular, file lots of these bogus patents just to stop from getting sued over the obvious.) http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='5838906'.WKU.&OS=PN/5838906&RS=PN/5838906[^]
I have just read the patent claims. The patent is describing how a web browser can take advantage of MIME ids in a web browser to start the execution of an external application, plug-ins à la Netscape, and to provide a communication vehicle between the web browser and the application for interaction purposes (hypermedia). Perfectly valid IMHO. MS came later with a COM-oriented implementation of this, ActiveX components, and MIME is still used to recognize content type (tweak this registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ MIME \ Database \ Content Type) and soon your internet experience will be near zero). But in all those prior years MS has taken advantage of the forementioned mechanism to allow external components to interact with the browser and the user.
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I have just read the patent claims. The patent is describing how a web browser can take advantage of MIME ids in a web browser to start the execution of an external application, plug-ins à la Netscape, and to provide a communication vehicle between the web browser and the application for interaction purposes (hypermedia). Perfectly valid IMHO. MS came later with a COM-oriented implementation of this, ActiveX components, and MIME is still used to recognize content type (tweak this registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ MIME \ Database \ Content Type) and soon your internet experience will be near zero). But in all those prior years MS has taken advantage of the forementioned mechanism to allow external components to interact with the browser and the user.
I disagree since the root claim was obvious. Moreover, similar concepts were being using in hypermedia applications prior to 1994. Simply because the applicatants used MIME ids, instead of some proprietary id mechanism, doesn't make it worthy of a patent.
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I disagree since the root claim was obvious. Moreover, similar concepts were being using in hypermedia applications prior to 1994. Simply because the applicatants used MIME ids, instead of some proprietary id mechanism, doesn't make it worthy of a patent.
What ever happened to British Telecoms patent claim for the 'hyperlink' ?
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I disagree since the root claim was obvious. Moreover, similar concepts were being using in hypermedia applications prior to 1994. Simply because the applicatants used MIME ids, instead of some proprietary id mechanism, doesn't make it worthy of a patent.
Joe Woodbury wrote: I disagree since the root claim was obvious. I don't think so but may be that's just me. MIME was initially designed and used for emails, RFC1049[^] (1988), an extension of original ARPA RFC822[^] (1982). It's only later that MIME got reused for non email purposes, and web browsers in particular. I don't see all this as being obvious in any way.
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:rolleyes: I can't wait to see what the opensource advocates say about this. Matt Newman
Sonork: 100:11179 "Whoa, that ruled! What function key do I gotta press to get that to happen again?" - Strong BadThey are not laughing too much because they themselves are at risk of this sort of thing as well. What's the difference between a C++ programmer and God? God knows he's not a C++ programmer : anon