3 ms·

Sues on violation of 9 patents. 1. Method and system for mapping between logical data and physical data 2. System and method for providing and displaying a we

by rfrey 16y ago

Sues on violation of 9 patents. 1. Method and system for mapping between logical data and physical data 2. System and method for providing and displaying a web page having an embedded menu 3. Method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display 4. Automated web site creation using template driven generation of active server page applications 5. Aggregation of system settings into objects 6. Timing and velocity control for displaying graphical information 7. Timing and velocity control for displaying graphical information (later patent) 8. Method and system for identifying and obtaining computer software from a remote computer 9. System and method for controlling access to data entities in a computer network Sounds like they're being sued for deploying an AJAX application.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
megablast 16y ago
And only the 4th time Microsoft has made a patent claim against another company, which is amazing considering the large number of patents they have. I wouldn't be surprised if they are starting to investigate there patents applications and possible breaches more.
- rfrey 16y ago
  I think the claim was the 4th time Microsoft had made a patent claim against a competing company. I don't know how significant that distinction is.
percept 16y ago
Ouch. Sounds like they're being sued for making money. I looked at the complaint but not the underlying patents. Seems a little generic, huh?
- benologist 16y ago
  Sued for making money .... using common practices we've probably all violated most of, repeatedly! Shameful act on MS's part.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    Patent trolling has been a key part of MS's strategy for years now. When someone without an exhaustive counter-portfolio of patents make a lot of money, Microsoft shows up with an offer to license the patents, and if the company refuses and there still seems little possibility of retaliation, they bring suit on the patents. MS shouldn't really be singled out for it, I guess, because a lot of bigger tech companies do this.
roc 16y ago
I've come to terms with the fact that even here on HN, many people still mistake a summary for a legal definition of the invention covered. But I had held out hope that this wasn't the sort of place where one could condemn patents by title alone, let alone the sort of place where a false argument like that would find approval. No point is bolstered by pretending the titles have any bearing on the legal or philosophical validity of those patents. If you have a philosophical issue with patents in general or software patents in particular, just state that and save time.
- bhiggins 16y ago
  Nice troll.
- rfrey 16y ago
  Nobody mistakes a title for a summary, or a summary for an exhaustive 40 page patent. Nobody mistakes an academic article title for an abstract, or the abstract for the text, or the text for the data, either. But that doesn't stop us from mentioning articles by title. I thought it would be helpful to list the patents since they are not listed in the original article and one has to scan a 10 page pdf to find them. I'm not sure what you would prefer. Don't list the patents? Full text? Links to full text? Please educate me on proper summarization of a patent lawsuit.
  - tzs 16y ago
    Actually, people do commonly mistake the title of a patent for the claims of the patent. That's one of the main reasons discussions over specific patents on sites like Slashdot, Reddit and...well, pretty much everywhere that programmers hang out are almost always close to worthless. Probably best to post the patent numbers along with the titles, which makes it more likely some people will look at the patents themselves and subsequently post more information as to what is or is not actually being alleged. The best way to think of patent titles and abstracts is not as things telling you what the patent covers, but rather as telling you what it DOESN'T cover. When you are trying to figure out what patents might cover some particular thing of interest, you use the titles and abstract to eliminate patents. For those not eliminated, you then need to read the specification and claims. For instance, looking at the 9 titles you posted, I can quite confidently conclude that 7 of them cannot possibly cover anything I'm currently working on.
jimfl 16y ago
It seems like anyone doing automatic software updates is in violation of "Method and system for identifying and obtaining computer software from a remote computer." When a user accesses the remote update service, an update service computer conducts an automatic inventory of the computer software on the user computer. The data collected from the inventory of the user computer software is then used to make comparisons to database entries from a database on the update service computer. The database entries contain information about computer software available on the update service computer. The comparison is conducted to identify software available from the remote update service that might be appropriate for installation on the user computer (i.e. new computer software, new versions of existing computer software, patches or fixes for existing computer software, new help files, etc.). After the comparison is completed, the update service computer makes the computer software stored at the remote update service computer available to the user.
- _delirium 16y ago
  The claims don't make it look too much better, either. Here's claim 21: A computer-implemented method of acquiring computer software for a first computer, the method comprising: establishing communications with a second computer over a network to determine whether computer software not installed on the first computer is available for installation on the first computer; responsive to determining computer software not installed on the first computer is available for installation on the first computer, presenting a list at the first computer displaying the computer software not installed on the first computer and available for installation on the first computer; from the list displaying the computer software not installed on the first computer and available for installation on the first computer, accepting a selection selected at the first computer indicating computer software to be downloaded and installed on the first computer; and to the first computer, downloading the computer software to be downloaded and installed on the first computer. The later claims clarify that upgrades count as well. I could be missing something, but sounds awfully close to a description of Debian's 'aptitude' and 'dselect'?
  - jonhohle 16y ago
    It seems from these blurbs that the server has more logic than something most distopros have. The typical unix model is to publish an index and have each commuter determine its own updates, rather than having the server determine anything about the client.

by rfrey 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

megablast 16y ago

And only the 4th time Microsoft has made a patent claim against another company, which is amazing considering the large number of patents they have. I wouldn't be surprised if they are starting to investigate there patents applications and possible breaches more.

rfrey 16y ago
I think the claim was the 4th time Microsoft had made a patent claim against a competing company. I don't know how significant that distinction is.

percept 16y ago

Ouch. Sounds like they're being sued for making money. I looked at the complaint but not the underlying patents. Seems a little generic, huh?

benologist 16y ago
Sued for making money .... using common practices we've probably all violated most of, repeatedly! Shameful act on MS's part.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  Patent trolling has been a key part of MS's strategy for years now. When someone without an exhaustive counter-portfolio of patents make a lot of money, Microsoft shows up with an offer to license the patents, and if the company refuses and there still seems little possibility of retaliation, they bring suit on the patents. MS shouldn't really be singled out for it, I guess, because a lot of bigger tech companies do this.

roc 16y ago

I've come to terms with the fact that even here on HN, many people still mistake a summary for a legal definition of the invention covered. But I had held out hope that this wasn't the sort of place where one could condemn patents by title alone, let alone the sort of place where a false argument like that would find approval. No point is bolstered by pretending the titles have any bearing on the legal or philosophical validity of those patents. If you have a philosophical issue with patents in general or software patents in particular, just state that and save time.

bhiggins 16y ago
Nice troll.
rfrey 16y ago
Nobody mistakes a title for a summary, or a summary for an exhaustive 40 page patent. Nobody mistakes an academic article title for an abstract, or the abstract for the text, or the text for the data, either. But that doesn't stop us from mentioning articles by title. I thought it would be helpful to list the patents since they are not listed in the original article and one has to scan a 10 page pdf to find them. I'm not sure what you would prefer. Don't list the patents? Full text? Links to full text? Please educate me on proper summarization of a patent lawsuit.
- tzs 16y ago
  Actually, people do commonly mistake the title of a patent for the claims of the patent. That's one of the main reasons discussions over specific patents on sites like Slashdot, Reddit and...well, pretty much everywhere that programmers hang out are almost always close to worthless. Probably best to post the patent numbers along with the titles, which makes it more likely some people will look at the patents themselves and subsequently post more information as to what is or is not actually being alleged. The best way to think of patent titles and abstracts is not as things telling you what the patent covers, but rather as telling you what it DOESN'T cover. When you are trying to figure out what patents might cover some particular thing of interest, you use the titles and abstract to eliminate patents. For those not eliminated, you then need to read the specification and claims. For instance, looking at the 9 titles you posted, I can quite confidently conclude that 7 of them cannot possibly cover anything I'm currently working on.

jimfl 16y ago

It seems like anyone doing automatic software updates is in violation of "Method and system for identifying and obtaining computer software from a remote computer." When a user accesses the remote update service, an update service computer conducts an automatic inventory of the computer software on the user computer. The data collected from the inventory of the user computer software is then used to make comparisons to database entries from a database on the update service computer. The database entries contain information about computer software available on the update service computer. The comparison is conducted to identify software available from the remote update service that might be appropriate for installation on the user computer (i.e. new computer software, new versions of existing computer software, patches or fixes for existing computer software, new help files, etc.). After the comparison is completed, the update service computer makes the computer software stored at the remote update service computer available to the user.

_delirium 16y ago
The claims don't make it look too much better, either. Here's claim 21: A computer-implemented method of acquiring computer software for a first computer, the method comprising: establishing communications with a second computer over a network to determine whether computer software not installed on the first computer is available for installation on the first computer; responsive to determining computer software not installed on the first computer is available for installation on the first computer, presenting a list at the first computer displaying the computer software not installed on the first computer and available for installation on the first computer; from the list displaying the computer software not installed on the first computer and available for installation on the first computer, accepting a selection selected at the first computer indicating computer software to be downloaded and installed on the first computer; and to the first computer, downloading the computer software to be downloaded and installed on the first computer. The later claims clarify that upgrades count as well. I could be missing something, but sounds awfully close to a description of Debian's 'aptitude' and 'dselect'?
- jonhohle 16y ago
  It seems from these blurbs that the server has more logic than something most distopros have. The typical unix model is to publish an index and have each commuter determine its own updates, rather than having the server determine anything about the client.