7 ms·

Aussie inventor in $388m Microsoft damages win

13 points by KiwiNige 18y ago

ozanonay 18y ago
Please note that that's 537m worthless Australian dollars. The award was for USD388m.
- shimi 18y ago
  "worthless Australian dollars" That's not cool mate
  - ozanonay 18y ago
    I'm Australian. My salary is in worthless Australian dollars. Also I said this to point out that the title was misleading, and it's now been fixed. Humour was evidently an inappropriate way to bring it up.
    - KiwiNige 18y ago
      I wouldn't call the Aussie dollar worthless.
- KiwiNige 18y ago
  Fair enough, title is now fixed
- nopassrecover 18y ago
  Our "worthless Australian dollars" were trading 0.2c off equal until the US failed hard.
  - sanswork 18y ago
    And now it's almost 30c off equal. I don't see why people get all defensive about their currency.
    - nopassrecover 18y ago
      It was a retort to the insinuation that Australian currency was worthless ergo the country is worthless.
ygcfububyuf 18y ago
Presumably we are all in favor of software patents as long as the are used against MSFT?
dhouston 18y ago
Patent link: http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&dq=uniloc+registration http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&dq=uniloc+... didn't serial-code-based shareware registration schemes exist before the 1993 filing date? certainly shareware and the concept of "registering" did -- maybe the novel part of the patent is the idea of an identifier tied to your environment as a constituent part of the serial #?
- inerte 18y ago
  I hate software patents, but the article mentions its author presented to MS, and the company knowingly infringed it. Knowingly, I guess, it's the key here. MS knew they were doing "something illegal", but decided to go anyway. Of course, neither I or the article present any proof, as an internal corporate email saying "Yay! Let's do it anyway", but if we assume the judge gathered enough evidence to show this was done, then damages are owned. USD 388m worth? No idea.
  - wglb 18y ago
    With patents, you are not allowed to infringe, knowingly or not.
ktharavaad 18y ago
I hate software patents, but in this case since its being used against microsoft instead of them using it to bully linux vendors, it makes it a little easier to swallow.
- yason 18y ago
  No, it's as immoral as always. Information has no other place than being free, even information that doesn't necessarily produce things that are deemed good. (It's a juicy case, that assuming there was any kernel of ingenuity to the actual patent Microsoft just made the Windows world a slightly worse place by using this patented antipiracy technology. It's kind of two evils battling against eachother. But it's no different to other patent litigations, really.) I'm a huge believer in that people don't invent truly new things because of money but because they have to -- a man always has some vague feeling that just keeps finding a way out until it materialises into an idea. It's also given that the one who gets the idea rarely is the one who actually benefits from it. That may hurt some people but in the end it's better for everyone to have the idea pop out from one place and let other forces build the necessary machinery required to market and distribute the idea to everyone. Patents should be banished at once.
  - nopassrecover 18y ago
    The idea of patents is to allow innovation that wouldn't otherwise occur right? I can't see any examples of ideas historically that wouldn't have been made in the absence of a patent. And to patent an idea rather than an implementation... The exception would be investors stealing an idea they see and the solution would be contracts but I doubt investors would sign these.
    - yason 18y ago
      That's the idea of patents as I've understood it. However, I guess it hasn't worked well even before our times when trivial programming solutions, plant seeds, indigenous herbs, and probably soon-if-not-already DNA are being patented. I happened to browse through the history of steam engine on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_steam_power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_steam_power (because pg mentioned it in http://www.paulgraham.com/revolution.html.. http://www.paulgraham.com/revolution.html... :)) and one thing caught my eye: each time some significant steam engine related patent expired the steam engine business expanded and spread rapidly. New ideas were combined with the previously patented ideas and new constructs became commonplace. I think that companies and patent holders, too, realise that patents are rather useless and they would all be better off without them. That is because nobody has successfully lobbied for longer patent periods in the last 100-200 years or so. In contrast, the copyright has been extended tremendously because companies can actually make money because of it and have lobbied for decades to keep Mickey Mouse off the public domain. Makes me wonder.
cubicle67 18y ago
"Other inventions patented by Richardson include ... an open standard for online forums" er, what?
- buro9 18y ago
  Hard to know what this is, I couldn't find it anywhere. Looking at his blog though: http://ricrichardson.blogspot.com/ http://ricrichardson.blogspot.com/ Down on the right hand side it says "PC Online" and the title tag states "Open standard for online forums. Beta tested with advertising community". Looking at the rest of the claims he makes, nearly all are obvious at the time that they were made. Obvious is defined as "would another developer given the same problem create the same solution", if so then there has been no inventive step and the patent should be dismissed. This is before even considering prior art and other things... the guy is a joke.
vijayr 18y ago
but the Uniloc damages fee only amounts to about eight days of profit for the company Thats nearly 50m USD profit PER DAY. few companies can match that I guess.

13 points by KiwiNige 18y ago

ozanonay 18y ago

Please note that that's 537m worthless Australian dollars. The award was for USD388m.

shimi 18y ago
"worthless Australian dollars" That's not cool mate
- ozanonay 18y ago
  I'm Australian. My salary is in worthless Australian dollars. Also I said this to point out that the title was misleading, and it's now been fixed. Humour was evidently an inappropriate way to bring it up.
  - KiwiNige 18y ago
    I wouldn't call the Aussie dollar worthless.
KiwiNige 18y ago
Fair enough, title is now fixed
nopassrecover 18y ago
Our "worthless Australian dollars" were trading 0.2c off equal until the US failed hard.
- sanswork 18y ago
  And now it's almost 30c off equal. I don't see why people get all defensive about their currency.
  - nopassrecover 18y ago
    It was a retort to the insinuation that Australian currency was worthless ergo the country is worthless.

ygcfububyuf 18y ago

Presumably we are all in favor of software patents as long as the are used against MSFT?

dhouston 18y ago

Patent link: http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&dq=uniloc+registration http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&dq=uniloc+... didn't serial-code-based shareware registration schemes exist before the 1993 filing date? certainly shareware and the concept of "registering" did -- maybe the novel part of the patent is the idea of an identifier tied to your environment as a constituent part of the serial #?

inerte 18y ago
I hate software patents, but the article mentions its author presented to MS, and the company knowingly infringed it. Knowingly, I guess, it's the key here. MS knew they were doing "something illegal", but decided to go anyway. Of course, neither I or the article present any proof, as an internal corporate email saying "Yay! Let's do it anyway", but if we assume the judge gathered enough evidence to show this was done, then damages are owned. USD 388m worth? No idea.
- wglb 18y ago
  With patents, you are not allowed to infringe, knowingly or not.

ktharavaad 18y ago

I hate software patents, but in this case since its being used against microsoft instead of them using it to bully linux vendors, it makes it a little easier to swallow.

yason 18y ago
No, it's as immoral as always. Information has no other place than being free, even information that doesn't necessarily produce things that are deemed good. (It's a juicy case, that assuming there was any kernel of ingenuity to the actual patent Microsoft just made the Windows world a slightly worse place by using this patented antipiracy technology. It's kind of two evils battling against eachother. But it's no different to other patent litigations, really.) I'm a huge believer in that people don't invent truly new things because of money but because they have to -- a man always has some vague feeling that just keeps finding a way out until it materialises into an idea. It's also given that the one who gets the idea rarely is the one who actually benefits from it. That may hurt some people but in the end it's better for everyone to have the idea pop out from one place and let other forces build the necessary machinery required to market and distribute the idea to everyone. Patents should be banished at once.
- nopassrecover 18y ago
  The idea of patents is to allow innovation that wouldn't otherwise occur right? I can't see any examples of ideas historically that wouldn't have been made in the absence of a patent. And to patent an idea rather than an implementation... The exception would be investors stealing an idea they see and the solution would be contracts but I doubt investors would sign these.
  - yason 18y ago
    That's the idea of patents as I've understood it. However, I guess it hasn't worked well even before our times when trivial programming solutions, plant seeds, indigenous herbs, and probably soon-if-not-already DNA are being patented. I happened to browse through the history of steam engine on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_steam_power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_steam_power (because pg mentioned it in http://www.paulgraham.com/revolution.html.. http://www.paulgraham.com/revolution.html... :)) and one thing caught my eye: each time some significant steam engine related patent expired the steam engine business expanded and spread rapidly. New ideas were combined with the previously patented ideas and new constructs became commonplace. I think that companies and patent holders, too, realise that patents are rather useless and they would all be better off without them. That is because nobody has successfully lobbied for longer patent periods in the last 100-200 years or so. In contrast, the copyright has been extended tremendously because companies can actually make money because of it and have lobbied for decades to keep Mickey Mouse off the public domain. Makes me wonder.

cubicle67 18y ago

"Other inventions patented by Richardson include ... an open standard for online forums" er, what?

buro9 18y ago
Hard to know what this is, I couldn't find it anywhere. Looking at his blog though: http://ricrichardson.blogspot.com/ http://ricrichardson.blogspot.com/ Down on the right hand side it says "PC Online" and the title tag states "Open standard for online forums. Beta tested with advertising community". Looking at the rest of the claims he makes, nearly all are obvious at the time that they were made. Obvious is defined as "would another developer given the same problem create the same solution", if so then there has been no inventive step and the patent should be dismissed. This is before even considering prior art and other things... the guy is a joke.

vijayr 18y ago

but the Uniloc damages fee only amounts to about eight days of profit for the company Thats nearly 50m USD profit PER DAY. few companies can match that I guess.