Company who owns patent on Interwebs goes nuclear | The Coffeehouse

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

Eolas, a company that invented claims to invent the Interwebs (sorry Al Gore) is feeling a little poor after their $585M settlement with Microsoft.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/company-that-won-585m-from-microsoft-sues-apple-google.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

I wonder how many of you thieves are stealing Eolas's valuable intellectual property.

Minh
WOOH! WOOH!

I think until the big boys are hurt by bad software patents that they will continue to hord more bad patents agains their competitors, big and small.

So, I think this is a good thing.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

I believe their patent was weak, surely there's prior art, what about OLE which predates the 1998 patent?

Of course, the patent itself is for something so obvious it shouldn't have been granted in the first place. I don't know why Microsoft gave in so easily. Let's see if Google will do the same.

bureX
Always a step ahead in stupidity.

Patenting something as complex as a video codec? Perhaps... Patenting a "cube goes in square hole" software algorithm? Retarded...

Seriously, too many patents reinventing the wheel are accepted into the patent system, and it's gonna backfire soon enough.

Duanerrr

I should patent taking the process of taking grains (wheat, barley, corn, and rice), hops, malt, sugar, and yeast to make liquid bread. I could be soooo rich!

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

In reply to bureX

#Oct 6th @ 4:33 PM

It started backfiring years ago, now we're seeing the repurcussions. In Europe it seems we're heading towards software patents being made irrelevant, and so European companies should be safe; I'll say Eolas did make a "covenant not-to-sue" with Mozilla Foundation as they're non-profit and open-source (can't say the same for Mozilla Corporation though).

Let's wait and see what happens. Whilst Google has shareholders, I feel they've still got at least a few principles and won't go down without a fight.

figuerres
???

this crap is just plain poison.... the 23 companies and any others should form a joint defense fund and sink them - totally put them out of business.

and yes imho 99% of the time software patents are issued by morons who don't have a clue ....

staceyw
Before C# there was darkness...

There needs to be a board with 10 or so software professionals that reviews and tosses out bad cases like this before they get to court.

figuerres
???

In reply to staceyw

#Oct 8th @ 12:00 AM

and the patent offices need to have a review process that involves a panel of good programmers and comp. sci. folks

so they can tell the patent office to toss crap out and not issue crap patents.

exoteric
I : Next<I>

Nice Al Gore reference there, Bass - but, for reference (source: wikipedia)

UCLA professor of information studies Philip E. Agre and journalist Eric Boehlert argued that three articles in Wired News led to the creation of the widely spread urban legend that Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet," which followed this interview.^[96]^[97]^[98] In addition, computer professionals and congressional colleagues argued in his defense. Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn stated that "we don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he 'invented' the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet."^[97]^[99] Cerf would also later state: "Al Gore had seen what happened with the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956, which his father introduced as a military bill. It was very powerful. Housing went up, suburban boom happened, everybody became mobile. Al was attuned to the power of networking much more than any of his elective colleagues. His initiatives led directly to the commercialization of the Internet. So he really does deserve credit."^[100]

Bertie

All of you thieves out there stealing Eolas's property and undermining innovation can take these simple steps to avoid further infringement:

First edit your own website and remove the following tags:

<embed>

(Note: Eolas is not responsible for the fact that doing so makes your website look like something out of Geocities circa 1996. Your sense of personal satisfaction in helping uphold the legitimacy of software patents will outweigh disappointment over the ugliness of your web sites.)

Next, delete from your computer any web browser made after 1997 or thereabouts (anything with iframe), and of those that remain, disable JavaScript, Java, and all plug-ins.

(Note: Eolas is not responsible for the fact that doing so makes nearly all web sites unusable. Your sense of personal satisfaction in helping uphold the legitimacy of software patents will outweigh disappointment over your inability to use the Internet.)

Seriously, go to the patent office site and check out number 7599985. It's a hoot — there's really not much of an exaggeration to say that Eolas owns the Internet.

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

In reply to figuerres

#Oct 8th @ 12:35 AM

This already exists. All the patent examiners for software patents are computer science professionals.

The only way things like this will stop is abloishing software patents entirely. Relying on a purely subjective, completely unquantifiable and unjustifiable metric of "obviousness" is doomed to failure (as we see).

Remember, the only way to get sued for software patents is by being a software developer. Have fun being sued. Smiley

dahat

In reply to exoteric

#Oct 8th @ 12:39 AM

I trust you got that blurb from the Al Gore page on Wikipedia? If so I think you missed the quote by Al himself where he takes credit for it's creation, specifically:

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.

And you will note that your average thesaurus will list invented as a synonym for created.

No one honestly thinks that Al invented it... the issue is with him trying to take credit for it's invention/creation.