Microsoft Sued Over Patent Infringements

Foobar of Borg writes "The Associated Press is reporting that Microsoft is being sued over alleged infringement of three patents held by Visto Corporation. The patents in question relate to the handling of information between servers and handheld telcom devices. Jack Evans, a Microsoft spokesman, has not commented on the case itself, but has simply stated that 'Microsoft stands behind its products and respects intellectual property rights.'"

Permanent injuction? How likely is that?

[Escogido]

Somehow I have a feeling Visto is just trying to "cash in" their patents by making out-of-court agreements to settle the deal.

Its the game...

[zappepcs]

According to what I read YESTERDAY (but the story was rejected on /.) Microsoft seems to be being targeted in a preemptive way. In order to protect its IP, Visto is asking that MS Mobile 5.0 simply be prevented from being bundled with other MS products. They apparently have IP to back this up, and I hope that Visto manages to hold their own, whether that is toe-to-toe until out of court settlements are made, or in just filibustering their way to leadership position on mobile email. By keeping Microsoft out of the game (so to speak) that leaves room for other options. One thing I know for certain, Microsoft will never be kind to a F/OSS option in terms of IP licensing... perhaps Visto will.

NTP

[sangreal66]

Now we know the real reason why NTP acquired a stake in Visto yesterday.

Visto and NTP

[thebdj]

I read this the other day and posted on a comment on the story about NTP signing a patent licensing deal. The small company involved was Visto and Visto has several patents (25 total). It is quite possible the two companies are cross-licensing, but NTP may not have any patents worth sharing when the re-examination process at the PTO is complete.

Basically, Visto and NTP announced their deal Wednesday, the same day Visto filed suit against Microsoft. It also appears that NTP acquired a stake in the company as well, so they seem to have an invested interest in this case now as well. For those who have been hiding for the last while, NTP is the company who has become famous (or infamous) from their suit against RIM.

Re:Patents

[LaughingCoder]

There are these things called "Patent Libraries" that contain (now follow me here, it gets tricky) "patent information"...

You are oversimplifying. First, there can be patents filed but not yet issued -- you don't have access to them until the issue. Second, doing a "real" patent search is an expensive proposition (I'm not talking about your boss doing a 2 minute google search on a few key phrases). No company can do that type of search on every little thing that comes along.

Regarding submarine patents, I believe there have been changes made to the law to address this problem. Apparently the way submarine patents worked was the filer would stall the patent before it issued -- sometimes for many years. Then, once another company (with money) was clearly infringing they would push ahead to get the patent issued. There was no time limit on how long they could stall the process, and since the date of the original filing was the date used to decide first invention, the second company got "torpedoed" with no way of protecting themselves. The law change, as I understand it, is to now give the filer protection for 20 years from the date of filing, rather than 17 years from the date of issue.

Re:Its the game...

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Microsoft will never be kind to a F/OSS option in terms of IP licensing... perhaps Visto will.

NTP (the patent trolling company suing BlackBerry), just got recieved an equity stake in Visto (cannot find how much) like the same day Visto sues MS. OK, MS may not be the nicest to F/OSS, but you seriously think think a patent trolling company now owning a stake in Visto boads well for its contributions?

Also, here are the patents Visto says are being infringed on. OK, I haven't read the patents in detail, but just the titles make my head spin at patents being granted for this stuff:

* U.S. Patent No. 6,085,192 titled, "System And Method For Securely Synchronizing Multiple Copies Of A Workspace Element In A Network"

* U.S. Patent No. 6,708,221 titled, "System And Method For Globally And Securely Accessing Unified Information In A Computer Network"

* U.S. Patent No. 6,151,606 titled, "System And Method For Using A Workspace Data Manager To Access, Manipulate And Synchronize Network Data"

Re:Patents

[Dr. Evil]

Submarine patents were worse than that. They'd file, then they were able to change the patent before it was issued.

So...

1. You file a generic patent on some new tech which is on the horizon. E.g. securely replicating web applications for mobile users. You don't know your own implementation, that doesn't matter.
2. You wait for somebody to come up with a working implementation, filing "continuations" to your patent, stalling the issuing
3. Somebody implements the idea
4. You file continuations to cause your patent to match their working implementation
5. You stop filing continuations
6. The patent office issues your patent
7. You sue the orignal inventor for rights to their own creation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuing_patent_app lication [wikipedia.org]

Re:what a bunch of sleazeballs

[killjoe]

MS patented the clickwheel after Apple came out with the ipod and attempted extortion for license fees from Apple. MS is a vocal proponent of patents. They love patents.

If they are living by the sword then they should be prepared to die by the sword.