Are Patents Too Broad?

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In 2003, Eolas won a historical $520 million (plus interest) court case, which established that it owns the patent on self-executing applets on a web page. Despite Microsoft appeals both to the US Patent Office and the Supreme Court the patent has been held to be valid. Now that Microsoft has run out of legal remedies it has no choice but to comply with judgment, and modify Internet Explorer 6 (IE 7.0 already has this built in). Sure there are script-based developer workarounds, but the whole Fargo of the thing is that it's pretty damned ugly.

Essentially what Eolas' patent says is, "No matter how you make it happen, if an applet (very broad definition) starts automatically on a web page, we own the patent on that, and you have to license the technology from us -- that is, IF we decide we like you."

I realize this is an oversimplification, but that really is the essence of this whole deal, in a nutshell. And of course, as we all are well-aware, Eolas isn't the only company winning lawsuits along these lines.

Bottom line is, you can get a patent on a lot of stuff that really shouldn't even be considered patentable. The Patent and Trademark Office simply doesn't have the resources and staff with a level of training to oversee this whole process properly. Basically a bunch of overworked bureaucrats look at your application and if there isn't anything that looks like it came before yours did, well, technology be dammed, you are probably gonna get a patent. Now what's wrong with this? Well, you can get a patent on something because you use the technology in your business and your product and you have a legitimate need to protect your investment. But, you can also get a patent on something that you do not use in your business, and which you may never expect to use - JUST to have the power over somebody that might use something like it later.

Getting patents on whatever you can just so you can do "patent parking" and legally terrorize legitimate businesses has become the new "domain parking for extortion" scheme.

Basically what Microsoft has to do now, since the legal remedies have been exhausted, is make applications that run in a web page "Not work" until the user enables them. Among the applications that will be affected by the change are some of the most widely used programs on the Internet, including the Adobe Reader, Apple QuickTime Player, Macromedia Flash, Microsoft Windows Media Player, Real Networks RealPlayer and the Sun Java Virtual Machine. Can you believe this utter horseshit?

I think I remember something like last week I read that some yo-yo announced he's got a patent on RSS. Gimme a fewkin' BREAK! RSS?

Folks, is this ludicrous, or am I just off base? I think this has just totally gotten out of hand.
Peter has been active on the C# and other MS newsgroups, has had samples at gotdotnet.com (now codegallery.com) that have been downloaded over 56,000 times, and has written numerous articles for eggheadcafe.com, for which he is a co-founder, and MSDNAA sites. He has also been a technical reviewer on books from Prentice Hall, Manning and other publishers. Peter was a Microsoft MVP for 10 years. Peter was born and raised in New York City, and after a stint as a jazz musician playing contrabass with the Robert Hunt Trio, migrated to sunny Florida, where he was hired as a rookie Financial Consultant at Merrill Lynch in Orlando, specializing in Corporate Services. It was at Merrill that Peter realized computers and technology were his forte. He spent his last few years at Merrill developing real – time computerized trading and and stock charting program using advanced technical analysis indicators, some of which are his own inventions. In 1997, he moved on to architect and serve as lead developer on a number of innovative web-based and middleware solutions for the healthcare and financial services industry.

Comments

  1. peterbromberg7:09 PM

    Jonathan,
    you just said it more eloquently than I could ever have. And yes, it makes me very mad that there isn't a fair playing field out there.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous10:40 PM

    Jonathan,
    Technically that's not true though... a patent isn't valid unless you have built and commercially offer a working implementation of the ideas presented in the patent. If Eolas didn't actually have an implementation then Microsoft wouldn't be in this legal position. My guess is they do have an implementation but it's very simple and hardly marketed at all. After all the quality of the implementation or marketing effort isn't the question here, it's who came up with the idea first.
    But I do agree that this particular case is verging on ridiculous -- automatic plugin startup isn't a new idea and barely an idea at all, it happens whenever I turn on my PC for a start.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous7:16 PM

    You are completely off base. The problem with the patent process is the large corporations such as HP which has over 400 patents on black printer ink alone. and RIM/microsoft/IBm, which willfully violate the patent rights of individual inventors because it has been cheaper to violate a patent then to pay the inventor until recently. Also the ability to commercialize an idea is not an essential requirement for innovative thinking. Nikola Tesla (perhaps the greatest inventive genius of the modern world) was not a bussinessman but the world is a better place because of his mind. Similarly individual inventors often come up with the most innovative ideas only to have large corporations steal it away because they cannot afford to go to court. I know because I obtained a patent through four years of hard work. I designed my invention and did all of the patent legal work myself and paid all of the patent fees myself only to find that the cost of commercialization is completely beyond my means.

    ReplyDelete

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