Microsoft Hit With $388 Million Piracy Patent Charge

[JMcEntegart]

Microsoft has been ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to software company Uniloc Inc, which specializes in the protection of infrastructure as well as software and games.

Microsoft Hit With $388 Million Piracy Patent Charge : Read more

 

[tester3000]

sucks of microsoft. Their own anti-piracy stuff came back to bite them. That's what you call karma

 

[tester3000]

Sucks to be microsoft*

 

[christop]

I'm sure that's pocket change for them..

 

[christop]

I'm sure that's pocket change for them..

 

[JMcEntegart]

[citation][nom]christop[/nom]I'm sure that's pocket change for them..[/citation]

It's apparently 8 days of profit for MSFT but these days, money is money, right? And if the judge triples it? That's a big chunk of change.

 

[pile]

That is what is wrong with this country. Stupid high judgments like that. Everybody wants to take what they dont deserve. I hope it is overturned. Microsoft wont have to pay for it. we wil. They will just raise their prices.

 

[jj463rd]

Microsoft should go back to using Safedisk like they did with Windows 95,98,ME,NT,2000 etc.(like EA is planning on doing now) and abandon viscous DRM schemes.Just get rid of the activation crap.

 

[jsloan]

im not sure, the us patent system is broken, needs major reform

 

[average joe]

Just reading the patent it doesn't seem fair for Microsoft to get bitten by this.

How do you patent the concept that a user has to enter a software key which is used to establish the software is valid?

Who are they going to sue next... Star Dock, Atari, Blizzard?

"May or May not include an algorithm that generates a registration number.. "

These guys are clearly patent trolls. Dropping vague patents into the system and filing for extensions until a product comes out the looks like it might match the description. Then filing the patent and suing everyone on the planet.

 

[Guest]

MS gets a taste of its own medicine. They are the leader in bunk generalized patents & suits.

 

[jsloan]

ok ive read the patent, its bogus as far as im concerned, such systems existed way before this one. so if something existed in lets say dos days does this mean if someone then patents the same thing for windows they have a valid patent, this is nonsense, infortunately the jury is made up of morons and the patent system is one major legal nightmare.

what ive noticed is that patents are being issued to opportunistic individuals for ideas that previously existed, but where not patented.

 

[martin0642]

This is just stupid, patenting software is tantamount to parenting the process by one spreads butter on a cracker. You can't parent an idea or a concept without linking it to a specific implementation, and unless someone copies your specific implementation it's not infringement.

Ideas make the world go round, we really need a new patent system.

 

[martin0642]

I have a basic issue with this patenting method, because an OS is simply instructions. Just like a recipe for cooking, someone took time to develop the method and the process, but the actual work is carried out at the individuals home, by the individuals equipment, and the cost of replication of said instructions is 0.

Trying to apply physical laws to non-physical objects is doomed to failure.

 

[Guest]

I think it's just plain stupid to have patents.
It's perfectly possible to come up with a valid idea, that,unknowingly has already been patented somewhere.
Especially with stupid companies like apple and sony, patenting hundreds,perhaps even thousands of items per year; they don't even use!

I could ask for a patent today that, if anyone uses a crayon and holds it before the sun to see it's colors it's beautiful!
Let's patent that, so everyone can pay me royalties if they use this methode!

the amount and especially type of patents are insane. I mean a while ago I read a company patenting a double layer of wall in notebooks!
Are you serious? If my processor is giving off too much heat to eg: the palmrest, and my hand gets too warm,it's only natural to put an extra conductor and perhaps isolator layer in between!
It's like a car going to patent wheelplugs, or convertible, or perhaps a turbo.

 

[jsloan]

software, like music and books, should be limited to copyright. that's how it used to be. now with all these patents for things its a legal and financial nightmare. doesn't xerox parc then have patent for windowing systems, gui, object oriented languages, mouse, ect... if so we are all toast. what about ibm for os, computer languages. see the problem... its like someone writes a rap song and then noone else can without paying the first rap song author.

 

[trinix]

yeah, it's getting out of hand. Sure I'd like M$ to suffer a bit and feel the other side of those patents, but at the moment there are more patent lawsuits than their are good things invented. At this time, patents are destroying the market and that was never the intention of the idea of protecting ideas.

Maybe I need to patent a way to access your folders from a GUI interface with a mouse. Who cares everyone has done it, maybe one or two fools will pay me money and maybe I can make the jury agree it's very important that I get the money so I can remain in my bed and think of more stupid things to patent.

 

[jsloan]

arent patents for storage, retrieval, indexing, sorting, you know b-tree, quick sort, ect valid and we better start paying them for use or stop using them? if so we are in for a world of hurt.

 

[jsloan]

the problems with jury is that they are computer illiterate, if the jury was full of professional systems programmers who knew about the internals of operating systems, computer languages, algorithms, ect then no problem, but the jury if full of joe six pack and socker moms, i guess a jury of your peers is like worthless, what does it mean to be a peer, one would think microsoft with all the cash could better defend themselves, maybe they need to fire some of their lawyers and get new ones.

 

[Guest]

Wow. Lot of M$ fanbois on this site. I never realized it.

 

[tenor77]

I hate vauge patents. They offer nothing and the filer does not have the skill or intention to actually use it. That for me is the important difference between a patent troll and someone protecting their ideas. I hope this is overturned or else they could take this "may or may not" crap to so many other companies.

As a sidenote I do support patents for software. Anyone who does not has never written a program. It takes a lot of work and creativity to write an OO program. To me a well written program is like a good song or story.

 

[ram1009]

How naive some of you sound.

 

[trinix]

We don't like M$, we just hate the patent system more.

I know there is a lot of work going into programming and protecting your interest isn't a bad thing, but what is happening now is obstruction. The problem is that there is no way to tell a patent troll from a real patent protection of good ideas for the law apparently.

The system should be changed, so people who deserve protection should be protected and people who are just out for money can't get it with this system. M$ stealing a program from a small company is bad, but a vague patent that could or could not and has or has not in it is just too much to patent. Maybe it's valid in some patents, but like this patent, it's like patenting the left side of your screen and the right side and everything in between.

 

[shqtth]

I just looked at the Pictures for this patent.

Basically it describes this:

Software generates a installation code based on system pre-configuration.
ANd this installation ID is encoded.

User give this code to the company and pays money to get unlock code.

User types in code in system, system verifies the code is ligit then if ligit unlocks the system.

If code is false, or software is never registerd, software remains in demo mode.


Basically what is happening here, is the System/software makes a fingerprint of your system in a form of a serial #. and this is passed to the company, that generates a key using that serial #. As a result the keyl # can only be used on that PC.


But what this patent talks about software, not an operating system. AN operating system can monitor hardware, software only can monitor user enviroment (what the OS tells it). THis patent talks about using information from the User environment. (Time, last modification, date etc). a User environment Does not See PC hardware!!!!!!!!. But this patent was in the time of DOS where things has more access to hardware, but still in DOS there was no unique way of identifying hardware. Nothing back there has a hardware ID, bios didn't have a hardware ID. Network drivers were not common so not like the mac address was used. Also back then bios didn't have any system specific information or IDs/serials, and hard drives didn't have any specific IDs. So that is why the patent will not mention such things, as unique hardware wasn't a reality. Microsoft's solution monitors hardware, so its things one step further. (it knows when cards have been moved around, knows when drivers are installed or media is inserted, it knows when its a different motherboard even if same chip and same make)

So technically microsoft could dispute it, as there system is on the hardware level!


http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA2&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1_1#PPA7,M1

sheet 1 of 12 to 6 of 12 describes this system.

sheet 7 of 12 and on describes the system build into the controller of the player. (or possibly when disk is played)

-------

If you think about it, creating a fingerprint and transmitting it, only to receive a new key back, is kind of like SSL. Its just a form of encrypted information back and forth. Nothing new here. It is just using the PC as the certificate in a way.

THe sad thing is this patent seems like a new cool idea back then, but now its very common place. ANd things is so different compared to back then. (very vast compared to being limited)
What is sad

 

[SecksPanther]

[citation][nom]ram1009[/nom]How naive some of you sound.[/citation]
Add your name to the list, ram1009.

The way I understand the intentionally very twisted description is: "this system relies on a code (such as a cd-key or item number) and possibly an algorithm which creates a unique registration number based on some of the user's personal information."

Maybe I'm reading it wrong (I believe it is written in a way so everyone who translates it will think they might be reading it wrong), but it looks like anything using cd-keys will fall under this category, whether they use someone's personal information or not.

Any lawyers reading the site right now? We could use some wicked translation to satisfy our curiosity.