
Patent troll claims it invented the Windows 8 and Windows Phone “tiles” - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/patent-troll-claims-it-invented-the-windows-8-and-windows-phone-tiles/
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kstrauser
It sounds like SurfCast owns some pretty valuable intellectual property. Good
for them!

Of course, I wonder if they've been paying taxes on that property. If not,
then Maine Revenue Services might be interested in the fact that a local
corporation has been evading their taxes.

On the other hand, if SurfCast is willing to attest to the Maine Revenue
Service that their property has no value and should not be taxed, then I'd
like to see Microsoft introduce that into court as evidence that SurfCast
can't have suffered financial harm.

So which is it: is SurfCast filing a baseless lawsuit over valueless property
or are they tax evaders?

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politician
Are you suggesting that IP owners owe (real estate) property taxes?

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jlgreco
That would have some interesting consequences. Could I suddenly owe lots of
taxes if I get a really great business idea that I think is worth a lot?

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mdonahoe
Only if you patent it, granting you exclusive right to that idea.

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jlgreco
What if I copyright something?

The text I am typing right now is under copyright by default, if I write
something particularly brilliant here, can I expect to owe a good deal of
taxes?

If not, why not? Both are intellectual "property", and both _clearly_ can have
very real value. Why should unpublished books be any less taxable than un-
implemented patents?

~~~
kstrauser
Good question. Why not, indeed? If you're stating that a property has a cash
value, such as by selling it or suing for that amount in real damages, then
why shouldn't you have to pay taxes to the government that protects your right
to copy it?

Ideas aren't a naturally limited resource. It takes government intervention to
declare that an idea is owned by one specific party. It seems only fair that
the beneficiary of that intervention should be expected to support the
government that makes it possible.

By the way, I have no problem whatsoever with property rights. Although I
think software patents are BS, if the government says they exist, then they
exist. I just don't think it's fair that these non-practicing entities are
paying their fair share to support the system that's netting them a paycheck.
Why would I have to pay taxes on a rent house that I lease out, but they don't
have to pay taxes on a patent that they lease out?

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jlgreco
I don't think that claiming damages implies a worth that should necessarily be
taxable. If I am in an automobile accident and my spine is destroyed, I don't
think anybody would suggest that since my spine is worth something to me that
I should have been paying taxes on it.

Paying taxes to ensure copyright protection would basically have the real
world effect of pealing back default copyright. No works would be protected
unless the creator went through the trouble of registering^Wpaying tax for
that work.

I don't think society would be better off without default copyright, so
copyrighted works must remain effectively untaxed "properties".

The problem I am having here is that you are conflating physical property with
intellectual "property" just because you want to go after patent trolls. What
you are proposing would not be limited in effect to the people _you_ dislike
though.

If Bob Handyman were to invent a new type of, say, catalytic converter, in his
garage, this would be of immense value to the automotive industry. This would
therefore be an _incredibly_ "valuable" patent. (And Bob would of course have
to patent his new invention, unless he were a fool.) ..But under your proposal
he would then be responsible for a _massive_ tax that he could _never_ dream
of paying. And if he didn't pay this tax, automotive companies would then be
free to use his invention without giving him anything?

That is crazy.

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meaty
There was a piece of DOS software in the late 80's called HyperPad which had
tiles and used them to display status and launch applications. I can't find a
single screenshot of it though unfortunately.

I'm sure that is probably slightly "more prior" art.

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jotux
<http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue115/406-1.jpg>

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loumf
_Never shipped a product, only started describing its tech as "tiles" in
2011._

The word "tile" is used prominently in the patent.

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adrianonantua
I think we all agree that software patents just gotta go (specially the ones
regarding UI). The real question is how to make that happen. Perhaps having a
big player like Microsoft targeted by a troll will help.

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mrich
They have been targeted many times, and paid quite some millions (billions?)
over the years [1] [2]. The thing is, the big players like Microsoft all have
large patent portfolios and are using them to keep up the oligopoly, they have
no interest in abolishing the system.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/10/company-that-
won-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/10/company-that-
won-585m-from-microsoft-sues-apple-google/)

[2] [http://www.inquisitr.com/112717/microsoft-
loses-i4i-patent-l...](http://www.inquisitr.com/112717/microsoft-
loses-i4i-patent-lawsuit-supreme-court-awards-290-million/)

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bitwize
Prior art: Windows 1.0.

Microsoft even once gave a demo of how fast QuickBASIC compiled code was by
writing a program that split the screen into quarters and showed different
real-time data displays into each quarter. You could call that prior art, even
if it weren't for Windows 1.

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jakejake
Is it possible to sue a patent troll for time and legal fees if you win the
original case?

I know they are basically shell corporations, but it would be great to see
these patent cases incurring some risk for the trolls.

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debacle
What is the risk to a company whose only asset is the patent which, should
they fail to win their case, is probably useless anyway?

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rayiner
Welcome to the problem of limited liability corporations in general. You think
it's irksome to win a judgment against a shell that has no assets in the
patent troll context, imagine it in the environmental damage, shareholder
fraud, etc, context.

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jlarocco
On the other hand, imagine losing your house, car and savings because somebody
finds a bug in your product and sues you...

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rayiner
Presumably if you're designing products that could cause that much damage if
they malfunction, you can buy insurance against any resulting problems.
Limited liability is a public subsidy for big business--it reduces the cost of
inherently risky business activity by shifting those costs to the injured
public rather than to the business owners. It's really arguable whether such
incentives are needed and whether liability insurance wouldn't be a more
appropriate measure.

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debacle
Most LLCs have assets and thus require liability insurance anyway.

The tech sector is a small slice of the business space. Lets phrase it another
way - you get a bad shipment of chocolate from a supplier, and your cookies
send a handful of kids into allergic shock from the peanuts tainting the
chocolate. One of them dies. You're likely going to be sued, and your
liability insurance is likely a drop in the bucket (enough to cover your
business assets). Do you still deserve to lose your house?

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SethMurphy
For those interested in the actual patent here is a link:
<http://www.surfcast.com/images/pdfs/US6724403.pdf>

I particularly find the following quote interesting from the last line on the
first page: "The present invention is intended to operate in a platform
independent manner."

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illuminate
In that they are interested in suing as many platform developers as possible?

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SethMurphy
No, in that a claim can be so specific and so vague at the same time.

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mdonahoe
Amusingly, they use screenshots from Windows Explorer in their patent
drawings.

See Fig. 1 in the first patent (pg 3)
<http://www.surfcast.com/images/pdfs/US6724403.pdf>

The pictures has some funny Drive names: Bambam, Fatbelly, Bigboss, Hulk.

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swang
Gee, waiting until Windows 8 releases before filing a lawsuit rather than
before hand when the damage to your "company" could have been avoided. I
wonder why that is...

Seriously though, even disregarding any previous prior art, Microsoft already
did stuff like this back in 98 when it was called Active Channel.

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tsycho
I am glad that a patent troll has directly attacked one of the software
giants. Now hopefully Microsoft with its deep pockets and legal team can crush
this troll.

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anonymfus
Microsoft lose in such cases surprisingly often. Smart Tags in Office, onclick
activation of plugins in IE...

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Dirlewanger
Yup. Fuck, they lost their right to use "Metro" to describe their now "Modern-
UI style." MASSIVE fuck up in my opinion. Microsoft should have raided the
coffers to protect using that term.

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neurotech1
Agreed it was a massive SNAFU. Metro AG is a huge corp, based in Germany, that
wasn't interested in licensing the 'Metro' trademark to MS in a settlement. I
don't think any dollar amount was mentioned for continued use of Metro.

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at-fates-hands
I know there has been a spat of these recently, but I always think about
Robert Kearns and his lifelong battle against Ford for his intermittent
windshield wiper patent.

As much as we hate patent trolls, once and a while, there is an exception to
rule which proves us all wrong.

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nitrogen
Is an intermittent windshield wiper really worthy of a 20-year monopoly?

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bduerst
Depends on how much you have invested in it.

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thirdtruck
And even then, I could spend the rest of my life on digging holes and
refilling them.

I might have _invested_ countless hours in such effort, but that does not
grant it any inherent value.

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bduerst
Did Ford try to infringe on your patent for hole digging?

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nitrogen
The value of a patent is not in whether it is infringed, but whether it is
both novel and non-obvious. Many software patents are neither, as evidenced by
the recent spate of lawsuits over patents that largely amount to "regular
expressions, but _on a PHONE!!111_."

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TopTrix
I have now realized that anything can happen in the world of ...

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lemiffe
I am REALLY pissed off. Idiotic patent trolls. GAH

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acluistic
I thought this was an article from The Onion.

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xo
Stop the madness

