patent

Dual-licensing with patents: It's bound to happen

Pierre notes it is "only a matter of time before an open source company decides patents could be used to solidify open source dual-licensing schemes." I think he's right. In fact, I've seen this very issue rear its ugly head within my own company as I've thought through ways to partner with Microsoft and other proprietary companies.

It would be very easy to do as Novell did: Enter into an agreement to make a version of one's software "safe" from patents. It makes Microsoft happy. Presumably it makes one's users happy ("I'm safe from...my vendor and its partners?!").

But it doesn't fix the downstream problem, and it doesn't fix the broken software patent problem. It trades off FUD to make a sale. Myopic and ultimately damaging to one's customers, one's peers, and oneself.

This isn't even remotely intended to be a criticism of any one company or group of companies. It's rather an acknowledgment of an issue that is going to become more and more pronounced over time.… Read more

Microsoft's Ray Ozzie commits to more open source

Ray Ozzie took the stage of Microsoft's Most Valuable Professionals conference earlier today and made some interesting comments on Microsoft's open-source ambitions. He says all the right things, but leaves a bit too much unsaid:

My position toward open source generally is that it's a part of the environment. It's very useful for developers to be able to get the source code to certain things, to modify them. Microsoft fundamentally, as a whole, has changed dramatically as a result of open-source as people have been using it more and more....… Read more

Does Seagate own the patents to the flash hard drive?

Seagate Technology just might have a few patents that make the rest of the storage industry squirm.

Earlier this week, Seagate, the world's largest hard-drive maker, announced that it was suing STEC, alleging that the company violated four of its patents and other intellectual property.

The patents largely revolve around how a manufacturer would take flash memory and make it into a functioning hard drive. Seagate's hard drives store data on magnetic platters. There is more to the drive than the platters, however. Getting the data off of the platters and into a processor requires interfaces, controllers, and … Read more

Aristocrat case raises requirements for means-plus-function software patent claims

The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Aristocrat Technologies will require software patent drafters to take more care to describe the algorithms covered by their software--or risk patent invalidity. ( See Aristocrat Technologies.) The court held that expert testimony that a programmer would know how to write code to perform a given function cannot supplement an incomplete patent disclosure when software claims are written using "mean-plus-function" format. Means-plus-function format means that something is claimed by the function it performs rather than by a specific structure--for example, a means-plus-function claim might recite a "means for fastening paper together" … Read more

Should software patents have shorter life spans than other patents?

There are a lot of strong opinions with respect to software patents. Many people are highly critical of them because they feel that copyright alone is enough protection for software. The argument goes that copyright is a better fit than patent law.

For example, copyright is self-executing. That means that you get a copyright in your program as soon as you write it. In contrast, a patent is obtained only after filing and prosecuting - and in the process spending a lot of money on - a patent application.

Moreover, copyright is supposed to protect a specific expression - not broader ideas found in that expression. One major argument against software patents is, that in order to maintain the lightning pace of software innovation, developers must to be free to use general concepts pioneered by others so long as they don't copy the actual code.

… Read more

TiVo patent win against EchoStar upheld

Updated at 11:45 a.m. PDT with Dish Network's statement.

Another court has upheld TiVo's patent suit against EchoStar Communications.

A U.S. Appeals Court on Friday denied EchoStar's appeal on an earlier court ruling that said the company's Dish Network digital video recorders violated a patent held by TiVo. The ruling was first reported by Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection blog.

Friday's appellate court decision comes two years after TiVo's initial victory, in which a court found that EchoStar's DVRs (digital video recorders) "willfully infringed" on TiVo's patented … Read more

Big tech companies accused of overstating patent problems

Editor's note: This story was updated at 3:25 p.m. PDT to add a response from the Coalition for Patent Fairness, which represents large software, hardware, and Internet companies. ARLINGTON, Va.--A handful of patent lawyers on Friday beat up on large technology companies lobbying for a U.S. patent system revamp, arguing that their efforts could discourage start-ups, prompt foreign competitors to rip off inventions, and tear apart the economy more generally.

There weren't any Silicon Valley interests directly represented during this panel discussion at a conference here hosted by the American Bar Association's intellectual-property … Read more

Internet, consumer patents rule at auction

SAN FRANCISCO--Jonathan Bari didn't seem too nervous until the $725,000 glitch.

A woman, taking commands from someone at the other end of her cell phone, had bid $750,000 on the patent portfolio he was selling at the Ocean Tomo IP Auction last week in San Francisco. The patents covered an online authentication system for consumers devised by his old company Catavault.

The panic came because auctioneer Charles Ross registered the bid at $725,000.

"She said $750,000," he said to me. (We were sitting next to each other.) He became absolutely still. His anxiety … Read more

Inventors look for cash, recognition at patent auction

SAN FRANCISCO--Mike Voticky is here because of a bad voice mail experience.

Years ago, Voticky was finishing up a trip from Europe when he decided to check his voice mail.

"I had 24 messages," he said. "I was pissed. I had to go through all of them to get to the last one from my wife."

During the plane ride home, he sketched out a patent for prioritizing messages through a database. He got the patent and is auctioning it off at Ocean Tomo's Spring 2008 IP Auction taking place here today. He thought about … Read more