Re: Microsoft Claimed IP, License Terms, etc.

Hadmut Danisch wrote:

> Claiming a patent on such a minor and trivial 'invention' is unworthy
> of any serious software company. Given the fact that Bill Gates was 
> still talking about making e-mails expensive and digital stamps a few
> months ago, Microsoft must face the question why they didn't invent 
> anything on their own, but need to abuse such trivial
> 'microinventions' to hijack other people's ideas. 
>
>  
   I was about to ask regarding that too. I thought that there was a 
set of requirements to determine if something was patentable.
   Something to the efect that it has to be implimentable - You are not 
supposed to be able to patent ideas only implimentations of them, the 
fact that software is so close to the
pure expression of the underlying idea is one of the strong arguments 
against software patents.
   I think some of the other requirements are no published prior art, 
uniqueness, novelty, usefullness, and non-obviousness.
   I think Hadmut's reference to this being a trivial micro-invention, 
is approximately equivalent to saying that it is obvious.
   I am also not sure how verifying the PRA actually even constitutes 
an invention much less a patentable one.
   But if Microsoft is filing 20,000  patent applications a year I 
would imagine that an awful lot of them have to be  pretty trivial.
   Software patents are an evil aspect of life that has to be dealt 
with atleast until it becomes more obvious that they have failed - not 
in the theoretical sense of being a bad idea
   but in the practical sense of having become totally unworkable.

   There are not things I will give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt 
on. But my guess is their massive patent portfolio effort is more 
deffensive than offensive. 
   I do beleive they are capable of using IP to try and disadvantage 
FOSS. As evil as that sounds it is also legitimate. The purpose of 
patents is to prevent the competition from
   capitolizing on your invention. To Microsoft FOSS is the 
competition. But for the most part Microsoft's IP record has been mostly 
defensive and not offensive.
   Further, trying to actively use IP to disadvantage FOSS is a 
dangerous and counterproductive step. The FOSS community may or may not 
have deep pocket litigation
   resources depending on the particular issue. But the prior art 
research resources available to FOSS are enormous. Someone somewhere at 
some time must have atleast discussed
   some form of verification of Sender addresses in a public mail list 
or newsgroup.