Aussie inventor in $388m Microsoft damages win

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• 17 years 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• 17 years ago

With patents, you are not allowed to infringe, knowingly or not.

ktharavaad• 17 years 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.

yason2• 17 years 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.

nopassrecover4• 17 years 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.

ZeroGravitas• 17 years ago

Unfortunately Microsoft can easily take the hit for sums that seem astronomical to ordinary people (or even ordinary businesses) and then turn round and use that as justification for their own patents.

Just like when it gets fined hundreds of millions by the EU, it can use these numbers to elicit sympathy, while I'm sure internal calculations show greater profit from ignoring the law or playing the patent game, even after subtracting these costs.

After all if they didn't profit from it, then they probably wouldn't do it.

cubicle67• 17 years ago

"Other inventions patented by Richardson include ... an open standard for online forums"

er, what?

buro9• 17 years ago

Hard to know what this is, I couldn't find it anywhere.

Looking at his blog though: 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• 17 years 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.

Aussie inventor in $388m Microsoft damages win

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