The warning sound of TomTom
Summary
Topics
The TomTom claims cover such things as a multitasking computer on which you can run programs, in a car. A wireless internet-connected computer, in a car. And how to create long file names in the MS-DOS filing system — a fix introduced in Windows 95 because MS-DOS is a direct descendent of 1974's vintage 8-bit CP/M operating system. A direct descendant? More a bastard child: MS-DOS helped itself freely to many of CP/M's design concepts, in some detail.
But those were the days when Bill Gates could say that software patents had the potential to put the industry at "a complete standstill" and with good reason. If the sort of protection Microsoft now claims for itself had been available to CP/M then, Microsoft would never have created its monopoly, nor amassed a fraction of its power.
See also:
- Has Microsoft fired its first shot in the patent war against Linux?
- Linux gets ready to fight Microsoft
- Bang the TomTom slowly
- Microsoft sues TomTom - involves Linux
Now it has, the rules have changed. Microsoft is perfectly happy, while proclaiming openness and interoperability, to find a company in dire financial straits and then threaten it with expensive legal action over what any self-respecting programmer would identify as a hackish kludge — something that advances the art of computer software not one bit.
Microsoft has taken an interesting path to the point where it now finds itself comfortable reducing the rest of the industry to that "complete standstill". When it first decided in 2003 that its FAT filing system should be licensed, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith told us that revenue generation wasn't the idea: "Fundamentally, that's not why we are doing this. We are doing this to work better and promote better collaboration with the industry."
We can talk all day as to whether this is an attack on Linux (Microsoft denies this while repeatedly citing the OS in its claims), an attempt to frighten others into settling without going to court to test the patents, or a cynical move, driving TomTom into the ground to facilitate a purchase. Working better and promoting better collaboration, however, is not on the menu.
The patent system is not just broken, it is poisonous. It works by fear, using the civil courts as cudgels in the hands of bullies. In the process, it despoils its main purpose: what valid, proportionate claims Microsoft may have in the rest of its case against TomTom hardly matter.
Everything in this case is a perversion of how intellectual property should be used, commercialized and shared. We salute TomTom for standing firm, and urge the rest of the industry to find and stick to a fairer, more sensible way of dealing with shared IP.
This article was originally posted on ZDNet.co.uk.
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Ask your employer if they would agree with you, and see if you are still employed there come Monday morning.
So I will modify the statement accordingly:
I guess you believe that it is acceptable to honor patents unless they are Microsoft's patents, then it is OK to infringe on them.
Where we live, we would label you a "hypocrite".
hippocrite: Hypocrosy of hippopotamus proportions.
Anyone old enough to remember "sniglets"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniglet
Mike, you might want to watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YExl9ojclo
It's instructive on the course of events since the Novell-MS agreement.
So keep astro-turfing, Mike. It makes for great entertainment.
http://www.nextdaypets.com/images/smilie/spew.gif
ROFLMAO!!!
really, if you have a specific way of implimenting a wireless
computer in a car, then I'm sure that design might be unique
and worth protecting, but just the idea of something as self
evident as a computer in a car? Come on. Who granted that
as a patent. That like patenting the idea of using hot burning
logs to heat food!
"vehicle computer system on OPEN platform" and "generating driving instructions" .. why dont MS just go all out and patent "making bread" and sue the whole world.
I wonder who allows such broad sweeping patents? and by definition "open platform" shouldnt be allowed in a patent.
this article just convinced me to buy iMac
Shane
The real issue is surely not the infringement of the patent, but rather if the patent has any validity at all. It was said above that Microsoft could patent making bread and sue us all - except the gluten intolerant perhaps - but it's by no means an exaggeration that the US patent office would quite happily grant a patent on virtually any imaginary future technology no matter how broad ranging that application is. Using energy to move matter (as in teleportation) probably already patented in the US, similarly faster than light travel, time machines etc.
Now if a private individual patents some idea that later becomes a new technology he's labelled a "patent troll" but if a US company does it they're an "innovator".
It's absolute rubbish, if the patent is for an idea that is nothing more than a future guess at how technology might progress then it should be thrown out, if it's too general it should be referred back to be specific. In the UK the patent office say you can only patent something which actually exists in some form or other.
It's really time the US patent office grew some balls and practised the art of saying "no (be more specific)" and then we might find this whole stifling of innovation vs patent trolling debate can finally be dissipated into history.
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