The Ripple Effect Of Suing A Microsoft
MonsieurEvil
Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">Not as simple as people might think</div> <a href='http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/17/technology/17SOFT.html' target='_blank'>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/17/technolo...ogy/17SOFT.html</a>
Another interesting article, this time about how somethign as simple as suing a big company for patent infringement can lead to massive problems in a loosely-regulated enterprise like the Internet. Shows how self-immolating lawsuits can be for the entire economy.
Since it's a registered NYT site, I'll reprint it here:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Setback for Microsoft Ripples Through the World Wide Web
By STEVE LOHR
Watching Microsoft be sued - by the federal government, states, class-action plaintiffs and aggrieved rivals - has become a common pastime in the computer industry. The enjoyment of the industry spectators is usually all the greater if the world's largest software company loses, and loses big, in court.
Last month, Microsoft suffered a stinging setback in a patent-infringement case when a federal jury awarded $521 million to a former University of California researcher. But this time, the rest of the industry is not smiling.
To comply with the court ruling, Microsoft has informed a handful of software companies and the World Wide Web Consortium, the leading Web standards organization, that soon it will probably make changes in its Internet browser, the on-ramp to the Web for 90 percent of computer users. The impact, according to industry executives and Web experts, could be disruptive and costly for other Internet software companies and big commercial Web sites.
``The ripple effect of this could be very dramatic,'' said Daniel Weitzner, director of technology and society activities at the Web consortium. ``What you have here is the adjudication of a private lawsuit between two companies, and no one thought about the rest of the Web.''
The technology in question enables a browser to summon programs automatically over the Internet. The programs that use this technology include those for playing music, videos and animations and exchanging documents over the Internet. The technology was not only used by Microsoft in its Internet Explorer browsing software, but has become a standard feature in the software for coding Web pages, called hypertext markup language, that has been ratified by the Web consortium.
The court ruling and its potential impact, according to Mr. Weitzner, points to the larger issue of the need to keep the basic software of the Web free of patent royalties.
The consortium, which includes representatives from the major software companies and many university researchers, adopted a royalty-free patent policy in May after three years of debate. ``If you try to charge individual companies for patents on Web standards, you risk balkanizing the Web and breaking it,'' Mr. Weitzner said.
Indeed, Microsoft and I.B.M. are expected to emphasize their commitment to the royalty-free patent approach to certain security and transaction software for Web services, an emerging beyond-the-browser technology that supports machine-to-machine communication over the Internet. The two companies, which are often rivals, are demonstrating their cooperation on Web services at an event today in New York where Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman, and Steven Mills, a senior vice president in charge of I.B.M.'s software business, will act as hosts.
Last month's court decision came in a suit filed in 1999, well before the recent industry consensus on keeping the Web's basic technology open and free of royalties. The plaintiffs' allegation in the suit was that Microsoft illegally appropriated their technology, so it was not Microsoft's to contribute to an open standard.
A federal jury in Chicago found that Microsoft's technology infringed on work done by Michael Doyle, the founder of Eolas Technologies in Chicago, while he was an adjunct professor at the University of California at San Francisco. The University of California is the other plaintiff in the suit.
In the trial, Microsoft asserted that its technology, called Active X, was developed internally and tried to show that similar research predated Mr. Doyle's work. The jury was not convinced.
Microsoft has vowed to appeal the ruling, but the appeals process could take 18 months or more. In the meantime, the court ruling says that Microsoft should pay Eolas $1.47 for every copy of the Windows operating system containing the browsing software that is shipped. Microsoft ships more than 100 million copies of Windows a year. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Another interesting article, this time about how somethign as simple as suing a big company for patent infringement can lead to massive problems in a loosely-regulated enterprise like the Internet. Shows how self-immolating lawsuits can be for the entire economy.
Since it's a registered NYT site, I'll reprint it here:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Setback for Microsoft Ripples Through the World Wide Web
By STEVE LOHR
Watching Microsoft be sued - by the federal government, states, class-action plaintiffs and aggrieved rivals - has become a common pastime in the computer industry. The enjoyment of the industry spectators is usually all the greater if the world's largest software company loses, and loses big, in court.
Last month, Microsoft suffered a stinging setback in a patent-infringement case when a federal jury awarded $521 million to a former University of California researcher. But this time, the rest of the industry is not smiling.
To comply with the court ruling, Microsoft has informed a handful of software companies and the World Wide Web Consortium, the leading Web standards organization, that soon it will probably make changes in its Internet browser, the on-ramp to the Web for 90 percent of computer users. The impact, according to industry executives and Web experts, could be disruptive and costly for other Internet software companies and big commercial Web sites.
``The ripple effect of this could be very dramatic,'' said Daniel Weitzner, director of technology and society activities at the Web consortium. ``What you have here is the adjudication of a private lawsuit between two companies, and no one thought about the rest of the Web.''
The technology in question enables a browser to summon programs automatically over the Internet. The programs that use this technology include those for playing music, videos and animations and exchanging documents over the Internet. The technology was not only used by Microsoft in its Internet Explorer browsing software, but has become a standard feature in the software for coding Web pages, called hypertext markup language, that has been ratified by the Web consortium.
The court ruling and its potential impact, according to Mr. Weitzner, points to the larger issue of the need to keep the basic software of the Web free of patent royalties.
The consortium, which includes representatives from the major software companies and many university researchers, adopted a royalty-free patent policy in May after three years of debate. ``If you try to charge individual companies for patents on Web standards, you risk balkanizing the Web and breaking it,'' Mr. Weitzner said.
Indeed, Microsoft and I.B.M. are expected to emphasize their commitment to the royalty-free patent approach to certain security and transaction software for Web services, an emerging beyond-the-browser technology that supports machine-to-machine communication over the Internet. The two companies, which are often rivals, are demonstrating their cooperation on Web services at an event today in New York where Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman, and Steven Mills, a senior vice president in charge of I.B.M.'s software business, will act as hosts.
Last month's court decision came in a suit filed in 1999, well before the recent industry consensus on keeping the Web's basic technology open and free of royalties. The plaintiffs' allegation in the suit was that Microsoft illegally appropriated their technology, so it was not Microsoft's to contribute to an open standard.
A federal jury in Chicago found that Microsoft's technology infringed on work done by Michael Doyle, the founder of Eolas Technologies in Chicago, while he was an adjunct professor at the University of California at San Francisco. The University of California is the other plaintiff in the suit.
In the trial, Microsoft asserted that its technology, called Active X, was developed internally and tried to show that similar research predated Mr. Doyle's work. The jury was not convinced.
Microsoft has vowed to appeal the ruling, but the appeals process could take 18 months or more. In the meantime, the court ruling says that Microsoft should pay Eolas $1.47 for every copy of the Windows operating system containing the browsing software that is shipped. Microsoft ships more than 100 million copies of Windows a year. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
Seriously though, you expect technological Plebians to mediate a case of this...techno-jargon filled?
I'm surprised MonsE doesn't have a wise-crack comment for the jury.
Serisouly though anyone who thinks the lawsuits against them are really legitimate needs a reality check, what basically happened is that MS created an operating system that became the standard and they got sued because they had 100% ownership of their own product.
Other corperations felt threatened by them and decided to break them up, don't believe me look at the ownership of a company like GE compared to the ownership of MS before the lawsuits. Huge corperations are always broken down into many fronts so no one company can be miles ahead of another (when at the top of the corperate food chain that is)
It would be like if every office building in the US suddenly needed a copy of HL for every computer and Valve got sued for being a monoply.
There is a difference between devloping technology and IMPLEMENTING and MARKETING it.
ok end of my rant.
Serisouly though anyone who thinks the lawsuits against them are really legitimate needs a reality check, what basically happened is that MS created an operating system that became the standard and they got sued because they had 100% ownership of their own product.
Other corperations felt threatened by them and decided to break them up, don't believe me look at the ownership of a company like GE compared to the ownership of MS before the lawsuits. Huge corperations are always broken down into many fronts so no one company can be miles ahead of another (when at the top of the corperate food chain that is)
It would be like if every office building in the US suddenly needed a copy of HL for every computer and Valve got sued for being a monoply.
There is a difference between devloping technology and IMPLEMENTING and MARKETING it.
ok end of my rant. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
First of all, that lawsuit has nothing to do with this law suit. Second, Microsoft had ILLEGALLY MAINTAINED its monopoly, thats what got them their slap on the wrist.
And the last part of my post had to do with this case I'll repeat it.
there is a difference between developing technology and <i>implementing</i> and <i>marketing</i> it
[edit]And as for the lawsuits, more power to em, I say. Anything to dismantle the oppresive capitalist establishment.[/edit]
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Um... there are ANTITRUST laws that state just that. Well ok, so they don't say that you have to be broken up, just that what you're doing is illegal.
EDIT: Oh yeah and its based on marketshare (or something) and not money directly.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And the last part of my post had to do with this case I'll repeat it.
there is a difference between developing technology and <i>implementing</i> and <i>marketing</i> it<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
ok... and that matters how? That's not rhetorical, I'd really like to know how that applies.
EDIT: Added:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And THAT'S why we should all use Opera.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Or Mozilla, or Galleon, or Konq, or whatever. Problem is that it is not known exactly how this will affect them either.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
[edit]And as for the lawsuits, more power to em, I say. Anything to dismantle the oppresive capitalist establishment.[/edit]
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Software patents suck dude, they suck huge donkey balls. They suck so much that I'm not sure I even want to see them used against M$.
[edit]And as for the lawsuits, more power to em, I say. Anything to dismantle the oppresive capitalist establishment.[/edit]
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Software patents suck dude, they suck huge donkey balls. They suck so much that I'm not sure I even want to see them used against M$. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I didn't mean just this particular case, I meant generally in dealing with all of the lawsuits against Microsoft and all the other big companies that other people may consider "frivilous"(spallign). Lawsuits against big companies FOR NEARLY ANY REASON=good. Heck, if this guy starts getting too rich, someone should sue him too. And eventually everyone will be sueing everyone and we'll realise that this is dumb and we'll move on to an economic system where that can't happen.
Keep using your computer to tell us all about this by the way. It was created and shared by your argo-collective, right? Oh wait, no, your bourgeois capitalist parents gave it to you.
Bleh, I'm outta here.
If I was Bill gates I would Nuke there HQ and teach them a lesson.
Thats freaking insane 1.47 bucks times say 500 million or more coppies thats 735 million bucks.
Thats almost 1 billion bucks!
If I was microsoft I would tell them to go **** them selves.
The world doesn't think just how important Microsoft is to everything.
If not for them we wouldn't be were we are today!
Microsoft should stop takin it on the chin and start saying **** YOU.
We are not going to take this **** anymore. You have already ruined this company once, you have to STOP THIS ****!
I can see companies like Microsoft becoming there own government.
thats the plot in so many movies and games.
Where the Uber corperate leaders left the country and became its own goverment with more money than half the world!
Keep freaking with these guys and ruin them some more... STUPID ****
We are the 2nd largest food company in the world and the largest Dairy and bakery company in the world.
We have HUGE NET PROFITS and keep getting bigger.
This job pays my bills and puts food on my table. If it got sued and ppl had to be fired all because of some greedy ****, I would be so MAD!
Who need 500 million bucks!
GRRRRR
Why don't we all just sue everyone until we ruin the worlds providers.
and this spells bad things for the E-Economy, namely because the guy who made Napster could now sue Kazaa or Morpheus because he had a similar idea first!. Oh no, Opera could sue Mozilla for being a 3rd party browser!.
Probably using a command line interface and a mouse with a single button.
The competion between MS and Apple and everything has meant that Operating Systems have been constantly evolving and as a result so has the hardware. So no MS = not much research into alternatives.
And I like the fact that MS programs are on a mac. Because I hate the Mac interface, it seems like too much work to do anything......
Yeah. He laid down the SMAQ there quite nicely though.
Why does everyone seem to hate Microsoft. I admit that I'm no fanboy, but I far from hate them.
Still glad? Web browsing is going to be so much fun without any content. And of course, this precedent means that Eolas can now sue Opera, Netscape, Mozilla open source, and anyone else that uses plugins as well. No one is safe...
<a href='http://news.com.com/2100-1023_3-5079580.html' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/2100-1023_3-5079580.html</a>
I find this to be a case of an out of touch legal system (not antiquated, I believe the law system is for the good of both society and industries such as this, but they are always slightly behind the times, and especially in a fast moving field such as the internet) which has made a mistake when weighing up legal rights of the induividual vs. cost to business and the affect this will have to millions of people (all who have a legal standing in this argument, which has been overlooked).
Microsoft generally tries to do the right thing. The right thing is often making money, as is everything else in a capitalist society, but I have also seen Microsoft offer a lot to computer users in terms of products and compatability. Other than the whole Sun/Microsoft Java fiasco, they have been generally good at integrating useful third party code into their products. Of course, this is just a personal view, I am sure you Linux hippies can point out every lawsuit ever with Microsoft and its monopolistic tendencies, but hey, at least you can install their software without ramming the primary power inducer to provide a negative bit hash, eh? <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Now all we need to do is to get Macromedia Flash to stream from a CD, Macromedia Fireworks to import EPS correctly, Macromedia Director to be able to include Macromedia Video without dieing, and Macromedia Coldfusion not to suck when doing anything, and then we can laugh at Microsoft and their inability to do things right.
Oh yes. Ignore the grammar mistakes please. I went to a British education establishment.
Probably using a command line interface and a mouse with a single button.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, Xerox had the first GUI, which Apple stole, and then M$ stole. So without MS we'd still have a GUI. Multibutton mice were hardly a concept unique to the x86 (read PC) world.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The competition between MS and Apple and everything has meant that Operating Systems have veen constantly evolving and as a result so has the hardware. So no MS = not much research into alternatives<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There would be plenty of competition between other OSs if windows had never existed simply because there were so many OSs.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->And I like the fact that MS programs are on a mac. Because I hate the Mac interface, it seems like too much work to do anything.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Um.... K, I really have no idea where thats coming from.
It would be nice if we could get some more discussion in here besides "I hate/Love MS/Windows Because.... All you Windows/Linux/BeOS/*BSD/Mac people are Borg/Cluless/Geeks/Hippies". The topic really has little to do with weather or not you like Microsoft and more to do with software patents. In other news the EU is voting on software patent stuff like on wednesday or something, after being delayed due to a whole lot of protesting (maybe it was delayed for other reasons and I wasn't paying attention, but whatever).
The only real reason MS got sued was because it deals in technology where laws relatively speaking are new, and implemented on the spot. Whereas companies that have been monopilizing for years are overlooked because that's the way it always ways....Time Warner and Clear Channel come to mind.
again I feel the sudden urge to gouge my eyes out when someone says but this company invented this first and then it got stolen from them. Invention. Implementation. Difference. Argh!
Just because xeorx had a basic concept going with a GUI doesn't mean they would have ever taken it to the level MS did, just because Apple had an OS doesn't mean they would have ever made it work as well as MS did.
And am I the only one who thinks that the Eolas guy should be happy with having already gotten 521million$ and should just go and be happy instead of threatening the future of Sky...I mean the Internet.
You know what? You're right, I didn't read that article enough to really know what it was about, I tried to figure out what was going on, and frankly, it confused me at thye time. But really, I don't care. I said my peice and I stand by it.
I support the breakdown of a system that I find to be wrong. What's teenangsty about that?
MS is sueing linux because of linux for xbox.
Teh beetles:music band is sueing apple.
MS is getting sued for something about using some other companeys java..
Read MonsE's post.
Mozilla will also feel the backlash of this if it works, so will any other Browser.
If this goes through we may end up with a "dark age of computing". Were everyone is too scared to do anything because they might get sued. Then we'll end up with the same situation we had before Windows. A whole load of people suing different OS's.
And as a result not getting anyware.
And in a counter to the OS arguement, Windows was the first OS to make people sit up and think, yes this may be useful to do stuff on. Rather than a geeky pastime playing Multi Users D&D over a network (Which incedently allowed a University to hack a nuclear power plant) The fact is without a clear "head" OS we would be stuck with large incompatability problems and not really getting anyware.
Face it, a lot of what you see and do is because Windows was the clear leader in Operating Systems. Sure it may have "borrowed" a few good ideas along the way. (Hell innovation isn't computings strong point look at games and HL mods) but they made (And I hate to use this term because I'll be using it in the wrong context most likely) an "Industry Standard" and as a result created a springboard that propelled people to write good stuff for it.
Example #1 HL2
If you want to see the immediate impact on your machine as far as activex controls are concerned, just navigate to to your windows directory and look in the "Downloaded Program Files" directory. Everything in there is at risk of no longer working... and that's just a starter. imagine if Eolas pursues that <EMBED> HTML tag rule - you are looking at potentially editing 4,000,0000,0000 internet web pages alone - as well as every single internal corporate web page as well.
Ouch.
First of all, most software only has an effective lifetime of 5 years at most, these aren't like Shakespeare's writings: they dont' have a timeless quality to them.
Secondly, this would inspire more innovation within the industry, instead of sitting on your old patents, trying to milk as much out of them as possible, you'd always be striving for something new.
But then again, I'm a big believer in R&D in industry, and that seems to be a field that's dying, and this might help. But I'm sure that the big companies would object, b/c they make most of their money making tiny changes to their existing software/products and claiming "It's new and improved. Buy it again, please."