Microsoft sued over Windows Live Tiles - Win 8 + Phone

[DustSailor]

Oh, and what amazing products of SurfCast do you use?

Other than having four patents for the same thing,

SurfCast | Patents

I don't think anyone is using their products.

Oh and most of the "founders" of this supposed software company are investment bankers/brokers,

SurfCast | About

And more here,

What is SurfCast and can it spoil Microsoft's Windows 8 party? | Microsoft - CNET News

CNET spoke briefly with Ovid Santoro, one of the founders of the company. We asked if patent No. 6,724,403 was acquired by SurfCast and if it was an original invention by Santoro, who has a background in investment banking and venture capital, and Klaus Lagermann, a former IBM executive and programmer. Both are listed as inventors on the patent filing. Santoro responded that he was unable to comment. He gave the same response when asked whether SurfCast makes any products other than the patents it holds. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records indicate that the inventors of SurfCast's patents have only authored those four patents.

Comcast should sue them for name infringement haha!

Uh, JK.

 

[Slartybart]

I think Eve precedes even the Beatles claim.

Unfortunately, this is the society we live in today......

Incidentally, weren't Apple (the music label associated with The Beatles) around long before Apple (technology/computers) ?

 

[lkgriffith]

Dust,

Thanks for the clarification.

The corruption is to be fixed by improving the laws defining patents and their use but not by abolishing them. It would also help to elect better judges and politicians however oxymoronic that idea may be.

I would personally agree with and accept a modification in the law that if a patent holder has not earnestly made progress toward developing a working product embodying his patent within a specific portion of the life of the patent or can't prove he has done so, it should automatically enter into the public domain. I say this as a holder of over ten patents protecting intellectual property I have created. Each patent was embodied in a demonstrable system prior to the writing of the technical disclosure and application for patent. The embodiment is mostly in software with a synthetic design of hardware to be used. The technology is being actively marketed as I write this.

I also agree that submarine patents and torpedo patent claims should not be able to be enforced. However, as the law now stands, they can be when and if found to be valid upon adjudication. Hence, the real thing to do is not to complain about or abolish patents but to work to change the laws.

 

[DustSailor]

^ I agree mate. Obviously abolishing patents would create chaos. I am all for an overhaul of the patent laws not just in our nation, but in others. And really there isn't much we can do to keep corruption out completely, but it should be something we work towards nontheless.

 

[Slartybart]

Law is a tricky thing. Take frivolous suits - of which patents are just one abuse. Who gets to decide what is frivolous and what has merit? Does a review court/judge solve the problem? I don't think it does, it only adds another layer.

The patent system has certainly been abused, "reform" has made it more expensive and more difficult to be granted a patent. I've pursued patents for over 35 years with mixed results - capital to defend my position years after filing was the greatest detriment to maintaining intellectual property.

So much for the little guy. It's heartening to read lkgriffith's post and the patents held.

I'm not confident new laws would improve the situation:
USPTO Publishes Proposed Rules Governing First-Inventor-to-File

Washington - The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today published a proposal to amend the rules of practice in patent cases to implement the “first-inventor-to-file” provision of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA). The first-inventor-to-file provision converts the United States patent system from a “first to invent” system to a first inventor to file system. The first-inventor-to-file provision, which takes effect March 16, 2013, also alters the scope of available prior art to apply against a claimed invention in determining the novelty and obviousness of the claimed invention.
​

This change really kills chances for small inventors with limited funds.
edit: I think i read that wrong - this improves chances of smaller inventors.... I think.... let me read the whole thing.

C'est la vie!

 

[lkgriffith]

What "first to file" does is increase the value of industrial espionage to find what the competition is doing and the costs of providing security to exclude said espionage. The unintended consequence, is the increase of early filing of partly baked ideas before they pass the test being made to work. So not only will it not be an improvement, it will degrade the already deplorable quality of far too many new patents.

This, to me, does not off set the saving of not having to prove you were first to invent. Time stamping your invention is cheep and almost trivial. Write a technical disclosure of your conception, send it to your patent lawyer, have him time stamp it, and keep it on file. THAT is what I have done all along either directly or indirectly since my first patented invention in 1965. It is simply good practice even in a first to file world.

The challenge is coming up with prior art. This was very demanding in 1965 but it is becoming more and more trivial in today's searchable internet world. You simply have to use one or more search engines and some creative search phrases.

The final point to be made, a patent is a grant of the right to sue someone over the use of the subject claims of the patent and nothing else. Your property is not protected as such, you have to be active and protect it yourself in court. This action is not cheep when you loose.

 

[Colonel Travis]

Law is a tricky thing. Take frivolous suits - of which patents are just one abuse. Who gets to decide what is frivolous and what has merit?

The legislators do. I used to work for a member of the U.S. House of Clowns, er sorry, House of Representatives. It is not a coincidence that because most these people are lawyers champing at the bit for any scrap of power they can get that we have screwed-up laws. It's only getting worse, unfortunately - unless reasonable, normal people like a lot of everyone here start running for office.

 

[Slartybart]

House of Clowns.... I think I had breakfast there once. Tasted funny though.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

You think patent laws are abused? Take a look at copyright laws.

 

[badtux]

Patent trolls.

As for the validity of the patent, they have a slight problem called *prior art*... as in, AOL did it in 1996 (sorry for the big picture, but a picture is truly worth a thousand words):

 

[Layback Bear]

AOL just might have something their/there. Sure does look a lot alike.

 

[lkgriffith]

Remember that patents have a finite life time before they revert to public domain and have a definite starting point in time. Given the right circumstances, the AOL screen could simply be prior art nullifying all of the Microsoft patent except for the genuine improvement claims contained within their patent. The details might make the Microsoft patent empty or they could free Microsoft from a violation of the SurfCast patents. In addition it might nullify the bulk of the SurfCast patents as well. Any way you look at it, it is a legal muddle with much legal minutia argumentation required to untangle it.

That suggests someone did not do their homework carefully enough and simply threw a wad of stuff at a wall and hoped something would stick. I am not sure who but considering the arrogant way Microsoft has handled Windows 8 feature set, I vote for Microsoft being the careless one. It is looking increasingly likely that there was a fan in front of the wall and the wad of stuff will be coming back at them in a sticky spray.

The best outcome for the rest of us is that all patents on the subject are nullified and the tile screen concept simply becomes public domain. This would give Microsoft a choice to be genuinely creative or to be just one of the middling crowd. That just might light a fire in a place to do some good.

 

[lkgriffith]

I just verified that depending on details the life of a patent is 14, 17, or 20 years. The 14 year term is for design patents and the 20 year term is for something called priority patents. The remainder patents are process and utility patents that get the 17 year life time.

PS: Don't take this as legal advice. It is simply a statement of my current understanding of the situation. If it is important to you, consult with a qualified patent attorney.

 

[badtux]

The patent in question that the patent trolls are using was filed in 2000, so it expires in 2017 (the rule is that the patent extends from date of filing, not from date of grant). But as I pointed out, the patent in question was invalid to begin with -- AOL had implemented much the same scheme of live tile updates for application launchers in the mid 1990's prior to the filing of this particular patent, and the only people who could patent an invention at the time was the original inventor (i.e., first to invent, not first to file, was the rule). Patent trolls were trying to get that changed to "first to file" last time I paid attention but that certainly wasn't the rule in 2000.

What this all points out is that a) there isn't much in the computer field that is actual real innovation, for example the screenful of icons that Apple is suing Samsung about were actually first done in the mid 1990's by Palm with their Palm Pilot PDA (the iPhone's application chooser is a clear rip-off of Palm's prior art), and b) patents in the computer field are all about being able to punish companies, not about innovation -- I know that my own employer would have innovated regardless of patents, secure that we were capable of out-innovating anybody who created similar products from scratch and equally secure that we were capable of suing anybody who violated our copyright by simply taking our binaries and using them until they were a blazing crater in the ground. Copyrights, not patents, are what protects innovation in the computer field. Even the computer giants who long viewed patents as their way to squash any small fry attempting to enter their field are starting to change their mind about how useful patents are, they still file huge numbers of patents on obvious things per year, but they're sick and tired of all these patent trolls popping up and suing them for things that were invented decades ago but that the patent trolls filed a patent on only a few years ago.

Note - IANL, I'm just a creator in the computer field. So my opinion is just that -- an opinion -- and worth $0 in a court of law.

 

[Colonel Travis]

Going totally by memory here, but wasn't the principle reason MS won its suit against Apple when Windows came out is because the ruling stated Apple can't trademark an icon of, say, a trash can or a folder, etc.? Otherwise everything would be off-limits as soon as someone made one.

 

[badtux]

Microsoft didn't win when sued by Apple. They strung it out for years until Apple ran out of money (this being pre-Jobs) and finally agreed to a settlement where they admitted no fault. The terms of the settlement didn't require Microsoft to do anything to Windows (though they had already changed the trash can icon from being an outdoors metal trash bin to a rectangular indoors recycling bin), instead Microsoft agreed to port Office to MacOS for a certain number of years and invest a fairly large sum of money in Apple (that is, they gave Apple money, and got shares in return). Shortly thereafter Steve Jobs re-joined Apple and used that pile of cash to produce the first iMac. The rest is history.

An icon can indeed be copyrighted. If I create an icon of a trashcan, you cannot take my icon and use it in your own software without my permission. Copyrights cover implementations of an idea, not ideas, though, so you could of course draw your *own* picture of a trashcan and use it in your own software, that would not be a violation of my copyright. Patents, on the other hand, cover ideas. If I patent the idea using an icon of a waste bin to represent deletion, you cannot evade my patent by merely changing your representation of a trashcan icon to look more like a wastebasket than my metal outdoors trash container. Sure, you have a different *implementation* of my idea, but it's still my idea that you're using. Well, if I had invented that idea, which I did not, but you get the idea right?

 

[Colonel Travis]

This is what I was talking about, looked up the decision:

As we recognized long ago in the case of competing jeweled bee pins, similarities derived from the use of common ideas cannot be protected; otherwise, the first to come up with an idea will corner the market. Herbert Rosenthal Jewelry Corp. v. Kalpakian, 446 F.2d 738, 742 (9th Cir.1971). Apple cannot get patent-like protection for the idea of a graphical user interface, or the idea of a desktop metaphor which concededly came from Xerox. It can, and did, put those ideas together creatively with animation, overlapping windows, and well-designed icons; but it licensed the visual displays which resulted.

Wondering if the same principle applies with the SurfCast lawsuit.

 

[Lebon14]

^ So you encourage corporations to torture money from each other over such nonsensical things? And the reason is because a large corporation created a product you didn't like?

I just want Microsoft to learn a lesson. That is all.

 

[FuturDreamz]

^ So you encourage corporations to torture money from each other over such nonsensical things? And the reason is because a large corporation created a product you didn't like?

I just want Microsoft to learn a lesson. That is all.

Which lesson?

 

[4wd]

Funny, HP's 1983 Touch Computer