

Aussie inventor in $388m Microsoft damages win - KiwiNige
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2009/04/15/1239474914416.html

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dhouston
Patent link:
[http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&dq=uniloc+...](http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&dq=uniloc+registration)

didn't serial-code-based shareware registration schemes exist before the 1993
filing date? certainly shareware and the concept of "registering" did -- maybe
the novel part of the patent is the idea of an identifier tied to your
environment as a constituent part of the serial #?

~~~
inerte
I hate software patents, but the article mentions its author presented to MS,
and the company knowingly infringed it.

 _Knowingly_ , I guess, it's the key here. MS knew they were doing "something
illegal", but decided to go anyway.

Of course, neither I or the article present any proof, as an internal
corporate email saying "Yay! Let's do it anyway", but if we assume the judge
gathered enough evidence to show this was done, then damages are owned.

USD 388m worth? No idea.

~~~
wglb
With patents, you are not allowed to infringe, knowingly or not.

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cubicle67
"Other inventions patented by Richardson include ... an open standard for
online forums"

er, what?

~~~
buro9
Hard to know what this is, I couldn't find it anywhere.

Looking at his blog though: <http://ricrichardson.blogspot.com/>

Down on the right hand side it says "PC Online" and the title tag states "Open
standard for online forums. Beta tested with advertising community".

Looking at the rest of the claims he makes, nearly all are obvious at the time
that they were made.

Obvious is defined as "would another developer given the same problem create
the same solution", if so then there has been no inventive step and the patent
should be dismissed. This is before even considering prior art and other
things... the guy is a joke.

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vijayr
_but the Uniloc damages fee only amounts to about eight days of profit for the
company_

Thats nearly 50m USD profit PER DAY. few companies can match that I guess.

------
ozanonay
Please note that that's 537m worthless Australian dollars. The award was for
USD388m.

~~~
shimi
"worthless Australian dollars" That's not cool mate

~~~
ozanonay
I'm Australian. My salary is in worthless Australian dollars.

Also I said this to point out that the title was misleading, and it's now been
fixed. Humour was evidently an inappropriate way to bring it up.

~~~
KiwiNige
I wouldn't call the Aussie dollar worthless.

------
ktharavaad
I hate software patents, but in this case since its being used against
microsoft instead of them using it to bully linux vendors, it makes it a
little easier to swallow.

~~~
yason
No, it's as immoral as always. Information has no other place than being free,
even information that doesn't necessarily produce things that are deemed good.

(It's a juicy case, that assuming there was any kernel of ingenuity to the
actual patent Microsoft just made the Windows world a slightly worse place by
using this patented antipiracy technology. It's kind of two evils battling
against eachother. But it's no different to other patent litigations, really.)

I'm a huge believer in that people don't invent truly new things because of
money but because they have to -- a man always has some vague feeling that
just keeps finding a way out until it materialises into an idea.

It's also given that the one who gets the idea rarely is the one who actually
benefits from it. That may hurt some people but in the end it's better for
everyone to have the idea pop out from one place and let other forces build
the necessary machinery required to market and distribute the idea to
everyone.

Patents should be banished at once.

~~~
nopassrecover
The idea of patents is to allow innovation that wouldn't otherwise occur
right? I can't see any examples of ideas historically that wouldn't have been
made in the absence of a patent. And to patent an idea rather than an
implementation...

The exception would be investors stealing an idea they see and the solution
would be contracts but I doubt investors would sign these.

~~~
yason
That's the idea of patents as I've understood it.

However, I guess it hasn't worked well even before our times when trivial
programming solutions, plant seeds, indigenous herbs, and probably soon-if-
not-already DNA are being patented.

I happened to browse through the history of steam engine on
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_steam_power> (because pg mentioned
it in <http://www.paulgraham.com/revolution.html..>. :)) and one thing caught
my eye: each time some significant steam engine related patent expired the
steam engine business expanded and spread rapidly.

New ideas were combined with the previously patented ideas and new constructs
became commonplace. I think that companies and patent holders, too, realise
that patents are rather useless and they would all be better off without them.
That is because nobody has successfully lobbied for longer patent periods in
the last 100-200 years or so.

In contrast, the copyright has been extended tremendously because companies
can actually make money because of it and have lobbied for decades to keep
Mickey Mouse off the public domain. Makes me wonder.

~~~
nopassrecover
Yeah the idea that you need a patent that extends well beyond the life of both
the company and inventor to have any motivation to invent things is
ridiculous.

