Has patent law broken down?
p2pnet.net news:- Britain’s The Economist calls the $1.52 billion in damages a US court has ordered Microsoft to pay Alcatel-Lucent a ’scrap’.
The award, the largest ever in a patent case, was ordered because Bill and the Boyz are said to be using Alcatel-Lucent audio technolgy in their Windows Media Player, including the version Vista, without paying for it.
“Distributing recorded music has changed a bit since Thomas Edison introduced the wax cylinder at the end of the 19th century,” says The Economist. although it doesn’t point out that attitudes haven’t changed much since then.
As p2pnet noted with respect to product protection measures, recently, “In 1917 Thomas Edison, charging 60 cents for one of his cylinder recordings, had printed on the cover, ‘No license whatsoever is granted to ayone to use this patented record for making duplicates nor for any other purpose except for the reproduction of sound upon an Edison Phonograph’.”
Nor, says the OpEd, do patents seem to have advanced much either.
Current technology, “faces stiff competition from the MP3 file, the most popular method for sending music files around the internet,” it says, going on:
“But, while the technology has moved on, the patent system that is supposed to protect it, is badly in need of reform. A reminder of this fact came on Thursday February 22nd, when an American court decided that Microsoft should pay out $1.52 billion … for infringing patents related to MP3 technology held by Alcatel-Lucent.”
However, “the most significant outcome of this case may be what it says about the use and abuse of patents,.” says The Economist, adding:
“The risk now, with the hefty award against Microsoft, is that many more firms will consider launching similar cases as the potential rewards are evidently so great. Microsoft, for example, has filed a counter-suit against Alcatel-Lucent for infringing its messaging patents. Microsoft has also in recent years been building up its arsenal of patents. That may indicate a breakdown of a system that has helped to deter the big tech firms from fighting each other and that provided the conditions for rapid and wide innovations. On the other hand, making patent law more effective could encourage precisely the sort of innovation that will deliver the next generation of devices, whatever they may be, for music distribution.”
Also See:
The Economist – A scrap over patents, February 23, 2007
$1.52 billion – Microsoft scores patent World’s First, February 22, 2007
p2pnet noted – Steve Jobs on DRM, February 7, 2007
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February 23rd, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Does this affect ogg vorbis?
February 24th, 2007 at 4:51 am
Has patent law broken down?
Certainly.
The patent system was a unmanageable before software patents were “invented” simply because there were too many patents and they became unmaneageble for inventors and for the patent office….. like copyrights are currently unmaneageble, although for different reasons.
But now the mess is multiplied because of the invention of software patents, which are nothing more than simple solutions that are “discovered” (not invented) when a problem was being solved by a programmer.
You give 100 programmers the same problem and many of them will discover the same solution, the best one, the common sense ones. Now, all of the programmers have the right to go to the patent office and patent their 100 solutions, many identical, to the same problem. Kinf of ridiculous.
But that is not all.
I use to be in the software development business. My small software company developed several DOS program that we sold to industrial firms. Among the reasons for getting out of the business was software patents. It is scary to know that you cannot do a patent search for software and whatever you do may already be patented and could ruin you if you are sued.
Patent law, like copyright is supposed to promote the creation of new things. With me patent law had the oposite effect. I stopped making new software applications. Just like copyright law is suppressing culture and speech.
Of course, one of the unstated purposes of patenets is to muzzle competition. On that it is working as planned.
BTW, the real inventor of file compression, I think was Pkware, back in the 80’s. MP3 is file compression. I bet that Pkware (or whoever “invented” file compression), never made nearly as much money as Alcatel-Lucent (ironically a company from Europe, where software patents do not exists) made in an instant in a courtroom from someone’s alleged infringement.
Wierd!
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
February 24th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Nope as ogg vorbis is free of know patent issues!
Also what are going to get from open source projects.
February 24th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Microsoft wanted software patents in Europe. Now there cry like a baby because it issue with USA patent and it usage in Europe.
Well you can not have both ways Microsoft!
Software patents are bad idea that why open source where so anti-software patent in Europe. Microsoft where very pro for patents in Europe.