Balthaser wins patent for online rich media The US Patent Office once again issues a patent for the obvious, ignoring prior art, and setting off a new wave of patent lawsuits. The USPTO is severely undermanned to handle the deluge of patent applications that are increasingly complex and technical. This quote from Balthaser makes me want to vomit;
"The patent covers all rich-media technology implementations including Flash, Flex, Java, AJAX and XAML and all device footprints which access rich-media Internet applications including desktops, mobile devices, set-top boxes and video game consoles," Balthaser added. "Balthaser will be able to provide licenses for almost any rich-media Internet application across a broad range of devices and networks."
Patent office issues final rejection of NTP patent This is the patent NTP was using to shut down Blackberry. There were actually five patents involved and each one of them has been invalidated by the USPTO after the fact. However, several companies spent years and millions of dollars in appeals before finally getting the patents invalidated due to "prior art". Prior Art is a legal term for examples of technology that existed before the patent was filed. It looks like Blackberry is now safe to proceed with its business.
There are many examples of patenting the obvious, patenting processes, and overly broad patents. You might recall the EOLAS patent, which reminds me of the deadly virus, but is actually a patent that covers the way browsers respond to ActiveX controls. This one cost Microsoft $520M plus legal expenses. Again there was prior art but the USPTO ignored it. The result is that consumers now need to click on an ActiveX control widget rather than have it automatically invoke.
Here is another one covering the use of XML. Scientigo, tiny company in North Carolina, has two patents (No. 5,842,213 and No. 6,393,426) covering the transfer of "data in neutral forms." These patents, one of which was applied for in 1997, are infringed upon by the data-formatting standard XML, Scientigo executives assert.
All software companies and web developers use XML in some way. This patent, if enforced, would have disastrous effects on web development. Once again the big software companies will need to spend millions defending against patents that never should have been issued in the first place. Only the lawyers benefit in this lunacy.
The message to software developers at big companies is clear. Patent everything you create, no matter how obvious or simple. The company can decide not to enforce the patent, but at least it will provide protection against other "patent trolls" who are always trying to extort money.
IBM, Microsoft, HP, and other big technology companies have always used their patent portfolio as a defensive mechanism. They very rarely take the offensive and sue another company. More commonly patents are used as bargaining chips to offset claims from another patent holder. Sad, but this is the way the game is played.
This is precisely why software developers across Europe try hard not to get software patents in the EU:
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
It's sad that they are a reality in the US. May well be that the biggies only use them as a defensive mechanism (although you cannot shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding) but they are behind the ones lobbying _for_, not against, software patents in Brussels.
Posted by: Philipp Schumann | February 23, 2006 at 07:00 PM