Paul Allen launches patent broadside on world+dog Billionaire Paul Allen on Friday became the latest tech titan to launch a major patent offensive, filing a far-reaching complaint against Google, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, and seven other companies over technology that was developed almost a decade ago. The complaint (PDF), filed in federal court in Washington state, asserts …
He won't win. The companies involved won't win. The court system will be bogged down with it for months, if not years. The lawyers involved however, must be pissing themselves laughing at the thought of the pay cheques they'll be getting.
His personal worth is in the region of $13.5bn according to Forbes. What a tit. Like he's not rich enough already?
Obtaining revenue from patents usually involves deals done to keep the dispute out of court, rather than by bankrupting one of the protagonists. This works a bit like protection money paid by a shopkeeper to a gangster to prevent "bad things from happening". A bankrupt patent protagonist doesn't pay license fees, just as a burned out shop doesn't pay protection money - they serve as a warning to the others.
It's purely about using the patent system as a tool to jam up the competition--sideways and twice on Sundays. The problem here is that patent law has been completely corrupted. The way patents are used these days, it's almost impossible to believe that patents were actually intended to ENCOURAGE technical innovations.
Could it be that the oft whispered about day of patent armageddon is upon us? I look forward to Steve Wozniak launching his arsenal of overly broad and ambiguously worded patents covering stuff tjat people have already been doing for decades.
As for Microsoft, it is hard to believe that they arent the ones behind this, being historically too gutless to attack OSS and Linux out in the open it would appear that Allens mob of trolls may be the next SCO, albeit a SCO with a Lot more cash on hand, assuming Allen is keen to flush his own pile down the toilet with the rest
"I look forward to Steve Wozniak launching his arsenal of overly broad and ambiguously worded patents covering stuff tjat people have already been doing for decades."
Woz's brain may have been a bit scrambled in a plane crash but as a trained engineer I *strongly* doubt he'd be dumb enough to think that most (substantially more than 50%) of *all* software* patents are no more than UPPTO issued BS.
*Except the kind relating to any form of comfortable apparel of course.thanks to Gary Trudeau for that one.
"Alerting users to items of current interest"
Has anyone else actually try to read this? It's utterly incoherent. No wonder the patent office rubber stamped this, they didn't read it either.
It's absurd to pretend that this work could have been the basis for any innovation. What a waste of human effort to spend time composing or even reading this monstrosity. Hell, it's a waste of 1 and 0 bits even if there were no humans involved. Which is more revolting: that mr allen feels entitled to collect royalties on the work of others, or that the USPTO is on his side?
Agreed. Even if we set aside the debate over the value of software patents, it's incredible that any patent examiner who wasn't simply nailed to his perch could have done anything but stamp a big red "Rejected" on the front page of each of the four applications after reading the first few paragraphs. I've read a lot of patents, and I've never read so much vacuous, pointless twaddle as these.
For a truly special mirth-moment :oD
Can we get El Reg to add 'VPT' to it's descriptive arsenal ? Let it be added to the fabulous vocabulary that regularly gives us Bulgarian Airbags as a memetic reference?
Cos Vacuous Pointless Twaddle really does hit the spot on so many levels.
37 out of 10 for that combination of words
I read it, and although I can say it is explicit and not too hard to understand (sorry, I didn't think it was incoherent), it is extremely broad.
That particular patent seems to cover *any* search feature that includes some sort of recommendations engine based on external user input.
It describes some examples which seem too broad and generic. For instance, one user finds an interesting site and rates it, then when a second user searches for web sites, depending on the categorization of his search criteria, he is presented with recommendations correlated from the other user.
Obviously this applies to most all current web search implementations, hence the inclusion in the complaint of Netflix, Google, Apple, and most other web application giants (sans Microsoft, of course).
It is up to the court to determine if this patent describes an obvious device or a practical invention. It does include specific formulaes for rating and correlating interest, but those would too narrow to apply to the implementations of Netflix, Google, Apple, et al.
-dZ.
"Obviously this applies to most all current web search implementations, hence the inclusion in the complaint of Netflix, Google, Apple, and most other web application giants..."
Absolutely, and it is rather unlikely that the developers for any of the defendants have ever seen or used this patent. It's totally absurd for anyone to hold a monopoly on the idea of displaying statistically correlated products to users.
"It is up to the court to determine if this patent describes an obvious device or a practical invention."
Since the USPTO and courts have a very poor track record with their handling of business/software patents thus far, it is difficult to have any confidence in them. If the USPTO had any sense of right and wrong, these types of patents would have been voided from the get go.
Those of us in software field plainly see the USPTO has outlived its usefulness, it's affect in the marketplace contradicts it's mission statement. The artificial software roadblocks are an impediment to progress because the benefits don't come close to justifying the overhead and harm.
"It is up to the court to determine if this patent describes an obvious device or a practical invention. It does include specific formulaes for rating and correlating interest, but those would too narrow to apply to the implementations of Netflix, Google, Apple, et al.
-dZ."
It's time for all software patents to be invalidated immediately unless, and only unless, they are tied to an implementation on a specific machine as a way of enabling the machine to perform the function...
software running on a general purpose personal computer should NOT be patentable at all... only stuff like software that enables something like an MRI scanner to function where it is tied to that particular machine and even then, the patent should only run for ten years at most... plenty of time to make money out of it before the machine (+ software) becomes obsolete
Er, so CNN's online news is next??? 'Push' SMS's to your mobile from your service provider about special offers???
Oh, for God's sake.. These are sooo vague, it's amazing they got in. However, 'prior art' should relieve Mr. Allen of a few million to his lawyers.
Greedy fuc*ker!
Prior art, eh? There must be a few Town Criers spinning in their graves.
And how dare anyone give an opinion or, heavens above, a rating, on the pies from Mrs. Miggins' Pie Shop.
It would be nice to see if Microsoft 'licensed' these patents a few years back because if they haven't one has to wonder exactly why Allen hasn't pursued such a flagrant case of abuse of the patents he holds..
It appears that the USA can't even be trusted to handle their own ideas properly.....
The patent trolls will feed off the innovators (or at the very least the ones who try to innovate).
When there are no innovators left, they'll feed of each other (your patent infringes on my patent).
And when the number of trolls reaches critical mass, they'll get sucked into the vacuum of their own arses and vanish altogether.
By that stage, the true owners of the earth, bacteria (they were here when the earth started, and they'll the be only ones left when our sun goes nova) will take over the earth. And any remaining lawers...
And I for one, welcome our new bacterial overlords....
Though they keep pushing back the origins of life on earth life was not quite here from the beginning. That massive collision with a mars size planet that merged with ours would be tough even on the cockroaches. Your point about scum sucking lawyers creating a virtual house of cards economy that will soon topple on us all is well taken though.
Paul Allen is shareholder of Microsoft, and he is suing Microsoft competitors. Looks like Bill Gates announced new Jihad.
Bill Gates is also a patent troll, he and his buddy Nathan Myhrvold (also ex-Microsoftie) have a company called Intelectual Ventures, which is biggest patent trolling company in the world.
http://www.intellectualventures.com/Home.aspx
They buy patents from failed companies and then use their proxies to sue companies that compete with Microsoft. When. Looks like this time proxy is Paul Allan. Bill Gates set the target, and then trolls attack. Later they spin it like it has nothing to do with Microsoft...
Scum of the earth.
what a wonderfully vague and odd little website you linked to! My favourite bit is in the products and services section: ..."with more than 30,000 Intellectual Property assets currently under management and thousands more being added every year" ...odd phrasing from a company that are trying to pass themselves off as "inventors"
Interestingly though, the names Edward Jung and Nathan Myhrvold are top of the list - but Gates is nowhere to be seen.
Surely the output from a firm that invents things, as opposed to actually produces things is their Patents and with Patents (a.k.a. inventions) being their product surely that belongs on their products and services page.
Not wanting to piss on too many prejudices but if Allen's firm paid for research into software that eventually went on to become Google, then they deserve a return on their investment.
The patent system is fecked up because it needs some really, really , really clever people to dissect and investigate patents that are filed and those people are off inventing and creating stuff. Not pawing over other peoples inventions.
I can't wait for IBM's response.... Yes I know that they are not presently involved, but if this the true patent armageddon they soon will be.
p.s - Linux is safe from IBM's patents - Microsoft is not.
http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/158-jim-zemlin/299092-ibms-open-source-patent-pledge
In the end there will be nothing left and we may get reform of this alice in wonderland style patent sytem.
A terrorist is a vague shadowy threat meant to scare the sheeple into giving away rights. A billionaire lawyer on the other hand is much more likely to destroy humanity. Humans always fear those that are a different than us but in actuality those that the greatest danger to you look almost exactly like you but have more money/power/influence.
What's the difference between a billionaire vexations litigant and a terrorist? That's easy: One is a nasty, evil, lowlife who hides his strategy for as long as humanly possible, strikes without warning, works to instill the maximum amount of fear, loathing, and horror in its victims, and grabs up any possible spoils of war after doing the most damage possible......and the other one is a terrorist.
So Paul Allen has been sitting on these patents for a decade or so, all of the mentioned companies have been reasonably stable in thier core operations for at least the last few years. Any chance that Mr Allen is helping out his former brainchild and attempting to hamper the competition and allow Microsoft to get its hulking beaurocratic innovation engine going at last before it gets permenantly left behind????
Also, how anyone can glean anything from the description of the browser patent I dont know, what a bunch of garbled wishy washy.
Shocker!
Paul Allen is one of the super rich guys who pledged to give a sizable part of his fortune to charity. It logically follows that the larger the fortune, the more money that will be available to make the world a happier, Windows 7-based place.
He's doing it for the children - won't anyone think of the children?
Looking at the long list of infringments and companies....
It's obvious he's doing this on purpose. He's making a mockery of the current patent system. He wants to FAIL - hence set a precedent.
I hope it puts a stop to blood-sucking companies like Apple who file patents en masse. It's just ridiculous! It's the small start-ups that lose out in the current system.
Anyone questioning his motives can clearly see it isn't about making more money. Afterall, isn't he a part of the group, including Bill Gates, who are donating half of their fortunes to charity?
:)
The problem lies in the U.S. Patent office in that is manned bu less than intelligent examiners or he rules it is governed by are too lax.
What shear stupidity is: "Alerting users to items of current interest"? I don't think a search engine alerts anyone, it simply provides indexed tags. Alerting sounds more like an alarm clock so when a time point is reached it alerts you. How does Google 'alert' a user when the user initiated the requested search.
Then you get Apples 'let us do it all over again" where the try to patent common practices or even others ideas.
The United Nations should establish a conference so every patent office is using the same criteria.
The patent eco-system is crazy, but its like smack for big companies, they want the patents so they can use them to defend other patents and avoid getting wiped out in court financially.
Once Paul Allen shuffled up to the patent office looking shady back in 1980 something and asked for his first patent application with shaky hands, from that moment he was a hooked patent junky. What can he do now only assert the patents or they are worthless. If he manages to get off the killer habit then he will end up like Steve Wozniak but without the original kudos.
......that hes trying to do us all a favour? (Or favor for the septics). I don't believe that he can be serious with these patents. Surely he can't really believe that he can defend a patent on "Using my unused attention capacity". So maybe he is trying to ignite a revolt against the patent system by highlighting it's stupidity. Or am I too optimistic?
As a second thought, if he can patent "Using my unused attention capacity" can I patent "Suing his unsued capacity?"
If you do not enforce a patent for over 5 years and wait till its extremely widely used you should AUTOMATICALLY lose it. Seriously it is not like these companies he is suing are new or just instituted these "ideas" They had these patents for 9 years.
6,034,652, WTF it describes a TV in a department store playing a DVD, or before it was patented a VHS tape. And 6788314 wtf its the same thing as the previous one except they changed people to users at the very end.
Patent trolls should start getting HEAVILY fined by the USA for wasting time of the patent office, and the court systems.
Yet another example of the USPTO failing in its basic mandate. I don't see any of those patents surviving a review - but in the meantime the lawyers will bill millions, even tens of millions of dollars defending companies from this crap. Small companies have to declare bankruptcy or sell out at cents on the dollar rather than fight these spurious claims, all because a government department has completely been bought out by the big players.
They don't get any money from the US Gov't. Not one dime. Since 1991, it was set up to survive on the fees it charges for patent and trademark filing. However, they can't adjust their fees. Congress controls the fees, and hasn't felt it necessary to grant the USPTO's request to change the fees, the way it does fees, or any other number of options. In essence, they require Congressional approval to do anything, even though they get nothing from the government, and even had some of those fees appropriated by the government for "other priorities." Needless to say, it's an overworked, understaffed agency with no real authority.
To fix the patent system (at least as a first step) simply deny any patent that's "Too lawyery" Then you'll magically have lots of extra man power at the USPTO to go over the other 6 patents to see if they're worth approving.
And why the hell are judges involved at all? Like they have the capability to understand any given handful of patents? Seems to me like the USPTO should arbitrate all disagreements, and they should go ahead and keep half of any given settlement in fees. Of course that creates a massive conflict of interest within the USPTO, but it'd be a step up from what we have now, and they'd probably be able to beef up their staff, while discouraging litigation altogether.
If you buy two, I'll give you fifty percent off on the second. If you buy three, I'll give you this nice jacket for free. If you buy four, I'll sell you this 08 Mercedes for only 3000 dollars. If you buy ten, you can have the car and this nice little bag of white powder for your nose.
Alans case has no merits at all - prior art should piss this into a cocked hat.. however it seems the SCO case has set the playground for destroying your opposition:
Just pay a lawyer a small amount to regurgitate SCO's arguments and in 10 years time Google et all will just have to give up the will to live.
Typical MS - no innovation required - just destroy a small company and steal its ideas
Embrace
Extend
Exterminate....
for those who don't remember their history isn't this exactly what happened to Microsoft on a number of occasions... their competitors, unable to actually outthink MS when they were having a good day, would result to the DoJ (Netscape, Oracle) or EU (Opera) to try and ham string them?
Just about everyone and anyone can "outthink" [sic] Microsoft even on a bad day.
Where Microsoft succeeds is through lying, deception and outright bullying. Their list of victims includes, but is in lo way limited to;
Stacker: Told them they wanted to license their code but needed to see the code to do due diligence checks. Upon receiving access to said source they immediately proceeded to back out of the deal and then cut and paste Stackers code into their own inferior copycat product. By the time Microsoft lost the ensuing court battle stacker as a business was dead.
Digital Research: DR missed the boat when IBM was fishing for a partner to produce an OS for their new IBM PC product forcing them to play catchup from the start. They produced an superior alternative OS called DR-DOS in the early nineties but Microsoft killed DR-DOS by putting checks in MS Windows to ensure that Windows would crash randomly when DR DOS was detected.
Lotus: Lotus was THE killer app on the market in the eighties with Microsofts alternative coming in a distant second. Microsoft "outhinked" Lotus by once again coding MS-DOS to detect that Lotus was attempting to load and have it crash randomly leading to the famous line "It aint done until Lotus won't run"
Mosiac & Netscape: Netscape was the most popular browser when the intenet exploded during the mid nineties at a time when Microsoft was busy "thinking" that the internet would never catch on. When they finally got a clue they were left with an embarrassing lack of a MS branded browser on their OS. They"outhinked" NCSA (Mosaic) buy signing a profit sharing deal with them promising a percentage share of all copies of Mosiac sold in return for complete and unfettered access to the Mosiac code in perpetuity. They then proceeded to leverage their monopoly in the operating system market by giving Mosiac away for free thereby destroying Netscape who had no other business to leverage their browser sales against and leaving those trusting fools at NCSA with a big fat share of ZERO.
IBM & Wordperfect: Wordperfect was the defacto standard in word processing at the time that PC's were text based. During this time Microsoft's competing product was clunky, feature poor and difficult to use. Then, in their role as IBM's OS partner, Microsoft was approached to form a partnership with IBM to develop a next generation protected mode OS called OS/2. Microsoft publicly promoted the idea that OS/2 was the future of the PC causing Wordperfect Corp (and Lotus) to put their development resources into re-coding their flagship products to the upcoming GUI based OS. Secretly however, Microsoft was developing Windows 3 (a far inferior OS) and at a critical juncture pulled out of the partnership with IBM and released their own revamped office products (which would later become "MS Office") on their newly announced Windows 3. By the time that Wordperfect (and Lotus) had managed to finish redeveloping their products for a second time for the Windows platform MS had already managed to abuse their monopoly OS leverage position and their OEM networl to entrench their own products leaving WP and Lotus to wither and die.
These are not the only examples of Microsoft "outhinking" their competitors (and often times their own PARTNERS) and every person on this planet* pays the price for their brutish behavior every single day whether you like their products or not. While MS is able to retain their iron grip on the IT industry then their "customers" are forced to pay premium prices for products because their is no competition to drive the prices down.
This is a bad thing for everyone, even MS fanbois.
* Except perhaps for some tribes in the Kalahari desert. And maybe some Eskimos too.
123 for OS2 and later Windows was a pretty damn awful spreadsheet with a lot of foot shooting about it... Excel was plain better. But all the rest I agree with completely. Excel and Visual Basic (until the latter got bloated beyond all reason) were good and not uninnovative products. I suppose no-one can get it wrong all the time. But wll the rest was dross. I blame Microsoft for the fact that there has *never* been a decent GUI based word processor...
Well, well, this incompetent senile old bitch doesn't have enough money already? He has to sue on the basis of some patents covering some obvious simple stuff?
Rot in hell, you little insignificant man (and you too, Bill G, everyone knows you're really behind this idiocy anyway)
That's what a patent is, a monopoly granted upon the wording of an idea, which may be turned into licensing revenue by the successful applicant. So the office which grants patents has a license to print money.
To see how this works in practice, supposing you run a patent office which is funded based upon how many applications are made. The number of applications will always be a multiple of the number of patents granted, because if the chance of successful application are low, customers won't invest much time and money in applications, but if the chance of successful application are high, customers will increase the number of applications. So as a patent officer, are you going to grant very few, high-quality patents, in which case your funding and empire will be cut down to size, or are you going to grant many poor-quality ones, in which case your bureaucratic empire grows without limit ?
Solution: the patent examination office should not be able to spend patent application fees which should go to general taxation. Road license fees go to general taxation and road maintenance comes out of a separate budget so there is a precedent. Funding of the examination process should be assessed independently based upon the sampled quality of patents granted and excluded independently of how many patents are granted. This should require a change in the style of patent writing so that the language and presentation of these becomes clearer to engineers, as opposed to documents intelligible only to patent lawyers.
That and legislation restricting patents to exclude mathematical, business methods and software ideas better protected using copyright.
I heard that breast cancer research gets significantly more funding than prostate cancer research, even though more people die of the later. Something to do with more effective lobbying - chicks are less embarassed about the whole thing and are more effective at letting politicians know that they will use their vote to make a difference. We all sit here and complain away in the forums as it seems relatively obvious to the The Reg readers why all this patent stuff is so stupid (and is such a risk to innovation in general). But our forum posts won't really make a different other than to make us feel better by venting.
Is there any organisation that is lobbying effectively against the poor regulation and running of patent law? If so, please post who it is so I can become a supporter.
...according to an interesting take on this by Adam Curry on the most recent "This Week in Tech" podcast. ( http://twit.tv/263 )
Allen knows that the patent system is broken, and what better way to show this (and set a precedent for future BS patent troll cases) than to hit the biggest tech companies in the world with legal action, thus triggering huge teams of expensive lawyers funded by the accused to thrash it out and hopefully win (with Allen 'losing').
Allen's got plenty of money and probably doesn't need any more; his experience with cancer might have set him thinking about how he can leave a legacy that would do some lasting good in the tech world.
I really want this to be the case!
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