Visto Wins $7.7 Million in Damages
,----[ Quote ]
| Besides Seven Networks, Redwood Shores-based Visto has sued rival
| Good Technology Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Research In Motion Ltd.,
| the maker of the ubiquitous BlackBerry device that helps keep
| workers connected to their jobs even when they are out of the office.
`----
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/061220/visto_patent_award.html?.v=4
Related:
Big businesses boast of patent benefits, for small businesses
,----[ Quote ]
| A report published by an EU task force on intellectual property claims
| that small businesses benefit from a patent system, despite lacking
| almost any participation by the small business community.
|
| Instead, the report, titled IPR (intellectual property rights) for
| competitiveness and innovation, was written up almost entirely by
| large corporations and the patent industry.
|
| [...]
|
| The report does note objections from the likes of patentfrei.de and
| Sun Microsystems, which were recorded at some length in the report.
| But this does not appear to have impacted the conclusion of the
| report in any way
|
| [...]
|
| Jean-Pierre Laisne, of ObjectWeb, an open source software community,
| said that he found the report useless: participants were told that
| all their contributions would be recorded but at the end only
| those of Business Software Alliance and Microsoft were used.
`----
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/99155/big-businesses-boast-of-patent-benefits-for-small-businesses.html
Commerce Secretary names Schramm to innovation panel
,----[ Quote ]
| He will be part of a lineup that includes the Microsoft Corp. CEO
| Steve Ballmer, 3M CEO George Buckley, UPS Chairman and CEO Michael Eskew,
| IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano and Wal-Mart Stores Vice Chairman John
| Menzer.
`----
http://biz.yahoo.com/bizj/061206/1386414.html?.v=2
Do Windows users have an "undisclosed balance-sheet liability" too?
,----[ Quote ]
| Who can tell what infringes what any more? Also, I wonder if we should
| even care. Patents were originally created to protect the little guy
| who invents a gizmo, tries to sell it, but sees another company come
| along, copy the gizmo, and make all the money selling their version.
| But today's application of patents to software is completely warped
| and twisted from that noble idea of fairness and reward for hard
| work... Countries that see what we're doing and avoid it will be
| at a competitive advantage. While we sit around gazing at our
| navels, they will be free to let developers develop, collaborate,
| and innovate in peace...
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=216
NT influenced by Unix
,----[ Quote ]
| (Gates:) "And through Windows NT, you can see it throughout the design.
| In a weak sense, it is a form of Unix. There are so many of the
| design decisions that have been influenced by that environment. And
| that's no accident."
|
| In light of the recent saber rattling about Linux and patents, the "There
| are so many of the design decisions that have been influenced by that
| environment" sentence is particularly interesting if these patent
| threats include things that are prior Unix art. "In a weak sense, it
| is a form of Unix" is also telling. I said before that I don't think
| that's the case; I think the patent stuff is talking about things like
| Samba and Mono, but even there the "influenced by that environment"
| could be important in the court of public opinion if not in actual
| law.
`----
http://aplawrence.com/Unixart/gates_quote.html
Microsoft's stolen code and IP infringements
,----[ Quote ]
| Soon, MS-DOS 6.0 was released, including the Microsoft DoubleSpace
| disk compression utility program. Stac successfully sued Microsoft
| for patent infringement regarding the compression algorithm
| used in DoubleSpace...
|
| F. Scott Deaver, owner of Failsafe Designs, says Microsoft is guilty of
| the "outright theft" of his product name and intellectual property
| (IP)...
|
| Alacritech sued Microsoft in Federal District Court on August 11,
| 2004, alleging that Microsoft's existing and future operating
| systems containing the "Chimney" TCP offload architecture uses
| Alacritech's proprietary SLIC Technology architecture...
|
| In April 2001, Intertrust initiated a lawsuit against Microsoft. The
| lawsuit ultimately accused Microsoft of infringing 11 of Intertrust's
| patents and almost 130 of the company's patent claims...
|
| Visto Corporation has filed a legal action against Microsoft for
| misappropriating Visto's intellectual property... "Microsoft has a
| long and well-documented history of acquiring the technology of
| others, branding it as their own, and entering new markets," said
| Mr. Bogosian...
|
| Telecoms company AT&T accused Microsoft of infringing its patent for
| a digital speech coder in its Window software in a lawsuit it filed
| in 2000...
|
| The likelihood of Microsoft having to pay millions of dollars in
| damages for infringing the contested Eolas patent for web browser
| technology increased last week when the US Patent and Trademark
| Office reaffirmed the patent's validity...
|
| A bitter fight has broken out between Symantec and Microsoft.
| Symantec claims that Microsoft stole code from Veritas software...
`----
http://www.openaddict.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?1385
Is Microsoft infringing upon Xerox, Apple and Unix intellectual property?
,----[ Quote ]
| Intellectual Property is a term widely abused in the software industry
| by firms such as Microsoft and SCO using it to scare people into not
| using certain products in favor of their own. This disparaging tactic
| has even been given a name: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD). It seemst
| hat anyone nowadays can make bold, unsubstantiated claims of IP
| infringement without actually having any proof simply to hurt another
| products reputation and destroy healthy competition. In this article,
| we will explore what intellectual property is and why every computeru
| ser should care when unreputable companies abuse legal systems in
| order to gain an unfair business advantage.
`----
http://www.openaddict.com/page.php?27
The Apple vs. Microsoft GUI Lawsuit
,----[ Quote ]
| Without warning, Apple filed suit against Microsoft in federal court on
| March 17, 1988 for violating Apple's copyrights on the "visual displays"
| of the Macintosh. (Apple also filed suit against HP for its NewWave
| environment that ran on top of Windows 2.0.)
|
| Apple's suit included 189 contested visual displays that Apple
| believed violated its copyright.
|
| Microsoft countersued, but it failed to stem the bad publicity.
| Windows' development community was terrified that any court ordered
| changes to the software would render their products incompatiblea
| nd make Windows undesirable to consumers. Borland's CEO said itw
| as like "waking up and finding out that your partner might have
| AIDS."
`----
http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/0825.html
Windows Vista vs. Mac OS X: The Copycat Olympics
,----[ Quote ]
| In Microsoft's defense, though, why wouldn't you want to "borrow" ideas
| from other successful products? Vista, Leopard, and Linux are all
| competing against each other, although in reality, each one is better for
| a different set of users. Apple may go on and on about the similarities
| between Tiger and Vista, but they're there for a reason. When
| innovation fails, then you need to try and learn from the best, and
| that's what Microsoft is doing. However, they're a little late to the
| game, and the competing follow-up usually isn't as good as the original.
`----
http://www.osweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2300&Itemid=449
All the Myth about Microsoft!
,----[ Quote ]
| * Microsoft was first with graphical user interface
|
| * Microsoft designed BASIC Language
|
| * Microsoft designed visual basic
|
| * Microsoft invented DOS
|
| * Microsoft designed the first spreadsheet - Excel
|
| * Microsoft designed the first word processor
|
| * First with Internet browser
`----
http://196.2.70.231:8080/ict_blog/open-ict-hacks/microsoft-myth
The Redmond Copying Machine?
,----[ Quote ]
| My recent video, which tweaked Microsoft for crowing about its
| "innovation" in Windows Vista (without acknowledging its huge debt
| to Mac OS X), triggered plenty of reaction. It probably comes as no
| surprise that your comments quickly devolved into "which is better"
| bickering, which will proably never end.
|
| [...]
|
| Then this e-mail message, which arrived today from a guy who says
| he worked as a Microsoft temp employee from 2003 to 2004. I've
| agreed not to publish his name.
|
| [...]
|
| "Around the corner was another grid, showing the RealPlayer
| application. This grid was the same: grid A1 was the front userv
| iew of the application, mirroring what was on the iTunes wall/grid.
|
| "Around the next corner was another grid, this one showing Windows
| Media Player version 9 !! This one was missing a few tiles in the
| grid, but you could actually see the progress as each feature [of
| iTunes and RealPlayer] was copied, square for square.
|
| "Amazing. New software is put out, a manager sees it and decides that the
| creative part of their day is making color screen captures of the
| software and presenting it to the copying--er, engineering team."
`----
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/the-redmond-copying-machine/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDNuq94Zg_8 (Vista copies Mac OS X)
|
|