Soon, all your internets......

[uk_dave]

..... will belong to him.

The co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, is suing several high-tech giants for infringing patents held by a firm he founded in the 1990s.

(snip)

The four patents concerned essentially involve using web browsers to find information; letting users know when items of interest appear; and enabling adverts, stock quotes, news update or video images to pop up on a computer screen while the user is engaged in another activity.

The company also alleges that it helped fund outside projects including research by Larry Page and Sergey Brin that resulted in Google.

The other companies named in the lawsuit are AOL, YouTube, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax and Staples.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11117587

Which is why I like to keep my internets private and exclusive.

 

[casebro]

Sounds to me that he let his patents fall in to the public domain by not attempting to enforce them for the ensuing years.

 

[WildCat]

I really don't get a lot of these patents. They seem to be patents of the obvious, not actual innovations.

It's as if a builder received a patent on putting windows in houses, and wanted to charge all others who built houses with windows.

Now, I can see patents for a specific type of window, but not the idea of a window itself.

 

[Beerina]

It's ironic, but the poster child for "bad software patents", the Amazon 1-click purchase, is really quite a solid patent, as far as innovation goes.

Any programmer, trained (improperly, as everybody was) to put up a confirmation box, can tell you this was quite a stunning thing to do. The founder even mentions how he had to beat it through the skulls of his programmers sideways to get rid of the confirmation.

 

[geni]

I really don't get a lot of these patents. They seem to be patents of the obvious, not actual innovations.

It's as if a builder received a patent on putting windows in houses, and wanted to charge all others who built houses with windows.

Now, I can see patents for a specific type of window, but not the idea of a window itself.

Windows predate patents. If patents had been around then the first person to put a window in a house could certianly have patentented it. Whatever patents were filed on float glass would have effectively covered all modern windows though.

However I expect the cases to run into a mix of prior art and non obvious issues. Particularly considering the lawyers they are going up against (no IBM though someone is learning).

 

[GreNME]

I really don't get a lot of these patents. They seem to be patents of the obvious, not actual innovations.

It's as if a builder received a patent on putting windows in houses, and wanted to charge all others who built houses with windows.

Now, I can see patents for a specific type of window, but not the idea of a window itself.

Yup. And that's the stupid thing about all these vague patents that companies file all the time regarding UI and possible capabilities for software (and sometimes hardware). Apple and Microsoft are annoying with such stupid patents, and conversely there are a rash of smaller places or individuals who do the same and years later try to cash in when someone implements a software or technique that kinda-sorta resembles their vague concept.

Drives me up a wall.

 

[WildCat]

In a related note, Facebook is trying to trademark the words "face" and "book".

 

[Lamafarmer]

It's as if a builder received a patent on putting windows in houses, and wanted to charge all others who built houses with windows.

Windows you say?

 

[Ducky]

Yup. And that's the stupid thing about all these vague patents that companies file all the time regarding UI and possible capabilities for software (and sometimes hardware). Apple and Microsoft are annoying with such stupid patents, and conversely there are a rash of smaller places or individuals who do the same and years later try to cash in when someone implements a software or technique that kinda-sorta resembles their vague concept.

Drives me up a wall.

Don't leave out Oracle, killer of OpenSolaris.

 

[GreNME]

Don't leave out Oracle, killer of OpenSolaris.

No, Oracle is in a class of stupid+evil of their own.

 

[INRM]

Don't patents expire after a certain time? And do patents remain valid if a person has not filed them at the time they created them (if other people have made use of them for two decades for example)?

Second of all, do you think Paul Allen will win?

 

[lionking]

Doesn't Paul Allan have a bazillion dollars? Why isn't he cruising the Carribean on his mega-yacht than wasting his time in court over a suit he will almost certainly not win?

 

[INRM]

lionking,

Enormous wealth and power has, in many cases, not stopped certain people from seeking ever more wealth and power

 

[Weak Kitten]

However I expect the cases to run into a mix of prior art and non obvious issues. Particularly considering the lawyers they are going up against (no IBM though someone is learning).

Hehe, yeah. IBM often has "prior art" on the weirdest things and it seems like any time someone pokes them with a stick they get mauled for their trouble. Just because big blue is hibernating does not mean it has stopped being a big, scary bear!

 

[Horatius]

Sounds to me that he let his patents fall in to the public domain by not attempting to enforce them for the ensuing years.

If he's been paying his maintenance fees all this time, there's no way they'll legally be considered "public domain". That can happen with trademarks that are not vigorously defended, but it's well established in patent law that one can sue infringers at any time during the life of the patent - even if you leave it to the last day, and they've been infringing for the entire life of the patent.

That might be considered dirty pool by some, but it's also perfectly legal.

Don't patents expire after a certain time?

They do. If these patents issued in the 1990s, they likely have a 17 year term from the issue date, so it's quite possible they are still valid.

And do patents remain valid if a person has not filed them at the time they created them (if other people have made use of them for two decades for example)?

This gets tricky. You can file for a patent anytime after you invent something, but if it goes into public use before you do, you might be barred from getting your patent. But at least in the US, there are some ways a later filing could be awarded a patent over an earlier filing, if the later inventor can show they had the idea first. It's really a case by case situation, and is one of the more complicated and contentious procedures in the US office.

The most famous case would probably be the original Bell patent on the telephone.

On February 19, Zenas Fisk Wilber, the patent examiner for both Bell's application and Gray's caveat, noticed that Bell's application claimed the same variable resistance feature described in Gray's caveat and both described an invention for "transmitting vocal sounds". Wilber suspended Bell's application for 3 months to allow Gray to file a full patent application with claims. If Gray's claims claimed the same subject matter as Bell's claims, the examiner would begin "interference" proceedings to determine which inventor was the first to invent the variable resistance feature.

Gray's lawyer William D. Baldwin had been told that Bell's application had been notarized on January 20, 1876. Baldwin advised Gray and Gray's sponsor Samuel S. White to abandon the caveat and not to file a patent application for the telephone. Whether Bell's application was filed before or after Gray's caveat no longer mattered, because Gray abandoned his caveat, which opened the door to Bell being granted U.S. Patent 174,465 for the telephone on March 7, 1876.