Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Sued Several More Times for Patent Infringement

Business plan



Summary: Numerous new lawsuits are launched against Microsoft, which is accused of patent violations in different areas (Implicit Networks, NetView, and Eleven Engineering as plaintiffs)

TECHDIRT has this new post which it titled "Live By The Patent, Get Sued By The Patent"

Brian writes in to let us know that a patent holding firm, with a long history of suing a bunch of big name tech firms is now suing Microsoft as well, claiming that every copy of Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 violate its patent 6629163 on "Demultiplexing a First Sequence of Packet Components to Identify Specific Components Wherein Subsequent Components are Processed without Re-Identifying Components."


Microsoft knew what it was getting itself into. Groklaw has just found this recent article where Microsoft shows algorithms as mathematics (a fact they later deny when lobbying for software patents).

For 70 years, mathematicians have been stuck on the Halting Problem: Computers occasionally hang on one line of code and fail to move on to the next, and no one can reliably predict when that will happen. (The result is the unending hourglass or pinwheel of death.) But a few years ago, Microsoft researcher Byron Cook and his colleagues did the unthinkable — they hacked a fix. When Cook tried to describe the workaround, however, he found it impossible to explain with existing mathematical symbols.


Anyway, here is more information about Vista 7 violations which leave Microsoft vulnerable. Microsoft getting sued for software patents infringement was inevitable (there are over 50 patent infringement cases pending against Microsoft, which make up a large proportion of the whole). "Implicit Networks" is the plaintiff and it seems to be all about patents, not products.

Implicit Networks launched a law suit against Microsoft in a California district court, alleging the software giant had breached a patent it owns.


There is another new patent lawsuit against Microsoft, this time from NetView Technologies which has real products.

Founded in 2000 by Robert Handsaker and Gregory Rasin, Belmont, Mass.-based NetView Technologies Inc. is a business-software maker whose flagship product is a product designed to manage employee incentives by tracking sales, sales quotas and compensation. The company’s software uses Microsoft’s widely popular Excel spreadsheet product.


More information can be found here:

A Belmont software company has filed suit today in U.S. District Court in Boston against Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), claiming the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant infringed its patent on a business method for extracting data from spreadsheets.


With over 50 patent cases (and growing) under its wing, Microsoft is likely to come under great pressure. Microsoft had to lay off many lawyers and lower the legal budget by a staggering 15%, so will it be able to keep up? It wanted software patents and Microsoft boosters like Alexander Wolfe defend the practice in relation to a Fog Computing patent, joined by other shills like Maureen O'Gara [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Gavin Clarke wrote about this patent last week and O'Gara cites colleagues from the Microsoft community. There is also Dan Lyons, who is cursing Microsoft's competition this week, but that's another story altogether.

A third new lawsuit dawns upon Microsoft, this time coming from Canada, just like i4i [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. Microsoft will be one among three defendants though.

Bloomberg News and the San Jose Mercury News are reporting that Eleven Engineering Inc. [http://www.elevenengineering.com/home/], a maker of microprocessors for home entertainment systems, has claimed the controllers for the Xbox 360, Wii and PlayStation 3 game systems incorporate wireless features patented by the company, and that the three game companies are using the technology without permission.


Here is information about the claimant:

Eleven Engineering, based in Edmonton, Canada, said it is a global leader in digital wireless technologies - supplying component and semiconductors to electronics companies.


Other such lawsuits are threatening Linux devices (Nook) and a Canadian giant, RIM, is currently facing a BlackBerry embargo due to patents.

Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry phone, is facing a patent-infringement complaint with a U.S. trade agency that may result in the devices being banned from the U.


How on Earth are all these lawsuits beneficial to the industry as a whole, including customers? They are not. The Against Monopoly Web site has this new essay decrying the obsession with intellectual monopolies. To quote just a portion. [via Jose X]

To cut a long thing short, the moment I realised that there is a conflict between rights to intellectual property and rights to physical property, I also realised that something is wrong about the whole thing. Such a contradiction usually means that something is wrong with the premises of the person facing the contradiction - me.

Restricting a person from giving physical shape to an idea he has in his mind is clearly a violation of his Liberty and Property Rights. However, this is precisely what implementation of IP means. IP proponents typically tent to retort saying that what I am calling "violation of Liberty and Property Rights" is actually implementation of the property rights of the owner of the idea/pattern that is the subject of the IP.

If it is true that in the name of protecting Intellectual Property Rights, one is actually violating the Liberty of some individuals, in effect one is also saying that the holders of Intellectual Property have an undefined lien on the Liberty of the individuals of the other part. Translated, this gives some individuals the right to enslave others by virtue of being holders of Intellectual Property rights. This made the notion all the more bizarre to me. It was in direct contradiction of the most basic principles of Objectivism that no man may claim the right to initiate force against another.


Even Microsoft knew that patents are detrimental, but that was before it became a monopoly in constant need for intellectual monopolies that cement its dominant position. Here is how it came about.

“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."

--Bill Gates (when Microsoft was smaller)

Recent Techrights' Posts

Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
let's revisit the subject
Links 10/06/2025: Jaws at 50 and US Democracy Crushed Very Rapidly (Martial Law Seems Imminent)
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VII: Washing Their Hands After Corruption and Abuse
"Tragedy or comedy?"
Culling Bad RSS Feeds of Bad Sites
Not throwing out the baby with the bathwater
 
IBM's CEO Roasted, Sizzled and Grilled for Dumb and Inconsistent Vapourware Promises
It looks like being a chronic liar is what it takes to lead the company once synonymous with computing
IBM's Goal Is Not (and Never Was) Computer Users' Freedom
More than 1.5 decades ago I found IBM to be an "ally of convenience" because of OpenDocument Format (ODF)
Wayland Shows the IBM/Red Hat Way of Doing Things
IBM is trying to 'kill' X
GitHub is Proprietary, Controlled by Microsoft, and GPL Violation Warehouse
"IRS tax filing software [will be] released to the people as free software" ... In general this is good news
Slopfarm Catastrophe
Seems like BetaNews (or BetaNoise) has just suffered a major data loss and restored the site from a week-old backup
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VIII: Illegal Working Conditions
How many people need to die for these people to get their massive salaries?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 10, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Links 10/06/2025: Apple Hype and Physical Attacks on Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/06/2025: Loon Lake, Farming, and Forth
Links for the day
If 'Microsoft v Techrights' is Dealt With by a 'Microsoft Court' (or a Court Outsourced to Microsoft)
More on that later
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 09, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 09, 2025
Gemini Protocol Turns Six in 10 Days From Now
If you haven't tried it yet, then give it a go today
Live as You Preach
technology is fast becoming dysphoric
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Addition Addiction and Nitride
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Science, Hardware Projects, and Democracy Receding
Links for the day
Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025