Administration of protection of data accessible by a mobile device, patent No. 7,478,420, invented by Michael Wright of Sandy, Peter Boucher of Orem, Gabe Nault of Draper, Merrill Smith of Riverton, Sterling K. Jacobson of Saratoga Springs, Jonathan Wood of Orem, and Robert Mims of West Valley City, assigned to Novell Inc. of Provo.
The Cultural Gulf Between Lawyers And Technologists On Patent Law
On Wednesday I attended the Brookings Institution's conference on "The Limits of Abstract Patents in an Intangible Economy." The conference was organized by software patent skeptics, so that perspective has been well represented. But I was struck by the dramatic differences between the views of lawyers on the one hand (who made up the majority of the panelists and audience members) and the handful of technologists on the other.
This whole "intellectual property" mania is a mental illness that deserves its own entry into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It's like that great movie, "Aguirre: The Wrath of God." Give yourself a treat and watch it; it's a wonderful film that takes place after the fall of the Incan empire. Lope de Aguirre, played by the perfectly mad Klaus Kinski, leads a band of Spanish conquistadors on a quest for El Dorado, the legendary City of Gold. The quest is doomed, of course, as they struggle through hostile terrain and hostile locals, pushed onward by their own greed and ruthlessness.
[...]
The tech industry is notorious for thuggish Tony Soprano tactics. How did this come about? Pepsi doesn't make you agree to a EULA. DeWalt doesn't tell you what you can and cannot do with your own DeWalt tools that you have purchased. The fashion and automotive industries copy each other openly, and don't waste time suing each other for poaching ideas. Instead they stick to the business of trying to win customers the old-fashioned way-- by making cool things that people want to buy.
The proprietary software industry nearly succeeded in killing off the second-hand software market, and then had the two-faced gall to whine about copyright infringement-- they tolerate it when it opens new markets and shuts out the competition, but sooner or later those bad pirates have to pay up. Every other industry has a thriving second-hand market, instead of this loony game of wink-nudge "piracy", and it benefits everyone-- it opens new markets, and reduces the financial risks of early adopters and customers who buy new.
Microsoft has devoted considerable energy to trying to kill off the second-hand hardware market as well by going after schools and non-profits that use old, donated equipment, and forcing them to purchase new software licenses. Most OEM Windows PCs come with crippled versions of Windows that can't be moved to different PCs, but are locked to the original.
"Small Software companies cannot afford to go to court or pay damages. Who is this software patent system for?" —Marco Schulze, Nightlabs Gmbh
Image from Wikimedia
Comments
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-17 13:33:03
What matters is what they do with those patents. If they attack people with their patents, then yes, they would be hypocrites (since they are working with the EFF to get rid of patents afaik).
If they only use their patents for defensive purposes, then that's not hypocrisy nor is that a bad thing.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-17 13:38:44
Who from? Patent sharks/trolls? They have no products.
That's exactly what they already do. They attack Ubuntu, Red Hat and others using patents. But they use their friend, Big Mike, to do most of the scaremongering. Novell joined Big Mike several months ago ("intellectual property peace of mind").
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-17 13:49:28
However, it does protect you against other companies with real products. Until the patent system is reformed (which may require getting rid of it altogether), companies need to file for patents for their own protection, otherwise he-with-the-most-patents-and-willingness-to-use-them wins.
Uh, no they don't.
Please show me evidence of Novell attacking Canonical or Red Hat with patent lawsuits. Oh wait, there aren't any.
Yet another instance of Roy making up the "facts" as he goes.
"Big Mike" was scaremongering before they made a deal with Novell, which was not about attacking people over patents, it was about them not attacking each others customers over patents.
Get a clue.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-17 14:00:30
Please show me evidence of me saying that "Novell [was] attacking Canonical or Red Hat with patent lawsuits."
Novell uses Microsoft to do this and it fuels Microsoft's verbal attacks (FUD and extortion).
Your revisionism does you no favours.
Novell was Microsoft's golden pellet:
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-17 14:19:16
It seemed pretty clear to me that the "They" in your statement "They are attacking Ubuntu and Red Hat" was referring to Novell, and that "attacking" must have meant attacking over patents. How do you attack with patents? Lawsuits. You certainly don't flog them with the printouts.
Novell also isn't threatening anyone with patents.
(Microsoft may be, but they were doing that before - and certainly aren't doing it because Novell told/asked them to).
Yfrwlf
2009-01-17 14:20:01
When will this stupidity end.
I'm going to patent making toast while baking a flan in the oven at the same time. They're both completely and totally obvious and old separately, yet because the USPTO is a bunch of retards working for corporate interests and no one else, it'll pass through just fine.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-17 14:20:55
Novell does this with words ("IP peace of mind") and deeds (patent deal with Microsoft). It's like a whispering campaign.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-17 14:24:33
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-17 14:31:05
Shane Coyle
2009-01-17 14:34:59
This was Stafford Masie at the CITI forum, just after the deal was announced:
Yfrwlf
2009-01-17 15:18:44
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-17 15:24:01
That too raises important questions.
Yfrwlf
2009-01-17 15:42:02
Sure wish more companies would join together and say FU to software patents, among other kinds of patents...
Also wish they'd take MS to court for all the threats and for doing this racketeering in the first place. They should have to refund that "patent protection" money back to all the customers who bought it.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-17 15:44:35
Andre
2009-01-17 19:26:54
What matters is what they do with those patents. If they attack people with their patents, then yes, they would be hypocrites (since they are working with the EFF to get rid of patents afaik).
1) It doesn't work that way. "Patent defense" means litigation.
You cannot defend yourself against land mines by setting your own. Between large companies cross-licensing works, that is like an exchange of the land mine maps.
If your opponent in a litigation has not a product of its own he can litigate you to the ground because without a product he cannot infringe.
Nuclear or bio weapon deterrence does not work against terrorists who bear these arms.
II. ) The EFF project is an embarrassement, they sold out. It is a premature fix. You would not expect that from the EFF. It is a project to raise money with ans play the fool.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-17 20:11:30
--Richard Stallman
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-17 23:16:55
I'm also well aware of patent trolls, but attacks by the trolls never goes to court, they are all settled before it ever goes that far because patent trolls are smart, they know:
1. that it's best to go after the big guys, because they have money and will be a lot less likely to take things to court
2. to settle for a small amount (e.g. less than a quarter million USD, because it'd cost at least that much for the defendant in lawyer fees even if they win the case).
3. if it does go to court, there's a good chance they'll lose
Ian
2009-01-17 23:51:48
–Richard Stallman
I don't think anyone would really claim otherwise. Regardless of your position on Novell filing for patents, whether they file or not won't change the patent system without legislative change in the US.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-18 00:05:57
Ian
2009-01-18 00:29:37