Submitted by Back in 2007, IP Innovation filed a lawsuit against Red Hat and Novell. IP Innovation is a subsidiary of Acacia Technologies. You may have heard of them — they’re reported to be the most litigious patent troll in the USA, meaning they produce nothing of value other than money from those whom they sue (or threaten to sue) over patent issues. They’re alleging infringement of patents on a user interface that has multiple workspaces. Hard to say just what they mean (which is often a problem in software patents), but it sounds a lot like functionality that pretty much all programmers and consumers use.
That patent was filed back on March 25, 1987 by some folks at Xerox/PARC, which means that prior art dated before that date is helpful — and art dated before March 25, 1986 is the most useful. (That means art found in a Linux distribution may not help, seeing as how Linus Torvalds first began the Linux kernel in 1991.)
Red Hat has invited the community to join in the fight against the patent trolls by identifying prior art. They are coordinating efforts through the Post Issue Peer to Patent site, which is administered by the Center for Patent Innovations at the New York Law School, in conjunction with the US Patent and Trademark Office.
A noble goal, if you ask me. Patents should be a tool to foster competition – not one to just make money and consequently stifle innovation. I strongly believe that any filed patent should be accompanied by a working prototype (instead of just some vague drawing a la “warp drive goes here“), and that only that specific implementation as used by the prototype is covered by the patent. If that patent is not used in a product within, say, three years, the patent becomes void, allowing others to do a better job of doing so.
This seems more like fighting the fire, rather than pinging the arsonist. The patent system is ridiculous and until it’s reformed nothing will change.
I’ve given up trying to understand it.
Edited 2009-02-14 10:14 UTC
And the death and beyond Copyright system, and airport (in)security, and the War on Drugs…
Truth is we are ruled by complete incompetents controlled by the big corporate cartels. And people don’t care about politics because they are just too damn stupid.
In this case I hope some old mainframe will have prior art. At least IBM has left the dark side and might help.
Edited 2009-02-14 12:01 UTC
They really should not have any problems proving prior art:
http://toastytech.com/guis/guitimeline.html
The USA wonders why it is slipping into irrelevance?
This stupidity is a prime example. Ludicrous patents stifle innovation. Patents should only cover totally novel inventions not ideas or concepts. The patent also must be backed by an actual prototype not just a theoretical concept.
Up until last year, the EU had the sense to throw out all debate on software patents. However, the cheque book of a certain software company soon changed that.
Currently, software patents are still illegal in EU countries, but if we do not do something, that will change and we will have a crippled market like the US will have in the future.
Sign the petition !
http://stopsoftwarepatents.eu/
You have to understand how my countrymen (and women) think. In our own minds, we will still be “The Greatest and Most Free Country in the World”, with heads firmly planted in the sand (or up our asses), long after the rest of the World is just snickering up their sleeves at us.
America: Love it or leave it! We see brain-drain as a good thing.
Edited 2009-02-14 14:28 UTC
This is yet another version of “let the market decide”. Let the corporations do what they want, and it will all sort itself out. You know, kind of like the massive bank failures we just saw.
Not hard to believe here… my dad grew up in the US and spent a few years in the army. He still tells stories about people he served with, who had been stationed in dozens of different countries – yet were actually proud of the fact that they had never technically left American soil (the bases they were stationed on were considered US territory, and they made a point of never going off-base).
Of course, the lack of any frame of reference didn’t stop them from being convinced that they were citizens of (as you say) The Greatest Country on Earth.
Maybe you should also consider the metric system too!
How many pecks in a bushel, fluid ounces in an oil barrel and rods to the acre again?
This is a real problem. And I think it is a bit like language. Children pick up new languages easily; But for adults, it’s hard. I’m not talking about simple resistance to change, which is very real, and what most people in my country suffer from. I’m talking about shifting one’s brain from thinking in terms of one set of units to another, after one has decided that he really wants to.
I use SI units all the time, and have since about grade 7. Maybe even earlier. But I *learned* Imperial units first. My brain *understands* imperial units. Oh, not all the ridiculous conversion factors, but the units themselves. I *know* what 70F is. I *know* what a foot and a yard are. And even though I have, for years, conscientiously set the weather applet in my top panel to metric units, I still do a quick “times 9, divided by 5, add 32” (or double it, and add 30, when I’m tired) to get the “real” temperature. The same kind of mental gymnastics go on regarding meters (a little over a yard) and liters (a little over a quart). And it is frustrating, because I *want* to *think in metric*.
I suspect that to make any progress on this, we are really going to need to catch children before their brains are ruined for it.
Edited 2009-02-14 15:05 UTC
New Zealand over 30 years ago moved from Pounds/Shillings/Pence to Dollars and cents, from pounds to kilo’s, from miles to km’s etc and it was done quickly, promptly, and all the whiners were told to go play with themselves. 30 years later, kids learn about the ‘old days’ before metric in history books and are happy not having to learn the 12 times table.
The US could do it, but it won’t. It would require some gritt and determination, in every case where those qualities are required – the US collapses like a Styrofoam container.
Add to the fact that the education system is a disaster from top to bottom – why isn’t the funds allocated on a per-student and the funding follows the child to what ever school they go to? its going to keep getting worse.
Australia introduced metric in 1973. We had a dual labelling system for a few years before – eg rulers and scales had metric and imperial markings. The imperial markings were eventually banned. It is actually now technically illegal (they will be confiscated) to import imperial measuring devices. Virtually everyone seems totally comfortable with the system. Older people still tend to express their height in inches but that is only a very minor problem.
You and Kaiwai have both suggested immersion. I think that is what is missing. Immersion would probably get my brain over the hump. Again, like language.
I would support this. Good luck getting the arrogant ignoramuses around me, my fellow U.S. citizens, to support it though.
Speaking as a child of the 70s who was forced to learn both systems in public school, I can tell you that learning wasn’t the major issue, it was the fact that nothing besides the rulers we used t measure things changed. No speed limit signs were changed to reflect mph/kph, no gages were changed to reflect gallons/liters, etc. It was learned, but for all intents and purposes, useless (kind of like the OSI model :-P).
And let’s face it, kilograms suck – something that heavy needs to have something larger than a gram as in intermediary – even when we were learning this stuff, being told that something was about 500 grams made no sense at all.
Agreed there. I’ve often thought the same thing about metric distance measurements – centimetres are too small, metres are too large. Canada standardized on the metric system long ago, but most of us know our height in feet rather than centimetres.
There is the “decimetre” unit (1 decimetere == 10 centimetres), and I assume there is an equivalent for mass (decigrams?) – but they’re almost never used outside of elementary school math & science exercises.
That’s a Canadian problem. The decimeter is frequently used in other places. I’ve never heard anyone having problems with meters and grams being too small.
I cant help but wonder how you two can work with computers since, you know, there are just way too many bytes to a kilobyte. Where’s the decibyte (or perhaps ounce of bytes) when you need it?
Congratulations?
And you still haven’t. If you read my post, you’ll see that I didn’t actually say anything about metres or grams being too small.
Since when are bytes or kilobytes used as a measure of distance or mass?
Edited 2009-02-16 14:37 UTC
Condolences? I dunno. My point is that you don’t have a problem with the metric system but how it is used in Canada.
Correct, I was referring to the other person who did.
Those are meaningless measurements compounded by the fact that we frequently just increase them by an order of magnitude and expect the world to know what we’re talking about. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you cant, w/o the aid of google, tell me how many pages of text fit in a megabyte. Furthermore, there’s the whole 1024 versus 1000 thing that really gets some people upset. Further proof is that the layman has no idea that a 10 MP picture mailed over dialup will never leave their machine, let alone how “big” it is. When you start describing things to people in terms of how many you could fit on a DVD, you’ve pretty much ceased to make sense.
My point is/was that as soon as a base unit of measurement is so large that the common practice is to use fractional chunks of it, it loses attractiveness to those not already using it. “Gimme the 350 gram burger” sounds lame to American ears, and frankly, in America, that’s all we care about.
Well, “Gimme a quarter-pounder burger” sounds lame to people used to metric, and franky, that’s all we care about.
That, and using a measurement system grounded in science rather than one using entirely arbitrary and subjective means of measurement.
“Grounded in science?” Surely you jest. Or, wait, should we rework geometry and trig to include a 1000 degree circle? Or to go back to your computer remark, should powers of two be abolished since people find it so much easier to round off that last 24 in 1024? Subnetting would also be a hell of a lot easier if we just rocked the 1000.1000.1000.1000 ip space – it would have made IPv6 unnecessary for a good hundred more years!
There’s nothing scientifically significant about base 10. This however, is sorely off topic.
The kg is actually a very convenient measure. A litre of water weighs very close to 1kg. In Australia we simply ask for 1/2kg of chicken or say some one is 1.8m tall.
In Australia (like Britain) we never measured height in just inches but always feet and inches eg 6’1″ not 73 inches. Weight of people was always expressed in stones (14 pounds) and pounds not just pounds eg 10st 5lbs not 145 lbs.
A pint’s a pound the world ’round holds true here in the states. A liquid pint is exactly one pound in most liquid measurement (obviously very fatty liquids break the rule, etc) so a quart is exactly two pounds – 33.8 ounces is an unfortunate one for us, but we’re usually happy to get a liter instead of a quart, assuming the price is equal. You’ll never hear anyone but a baker refer to liquid in measurements of pounds though
Of course, there are the dumbasses who insist that two cups of flour weighs a pound since it’s 8 liquid ounces, and unfortunately this even includes some teachers…
Really? Certainly here in Sweden decimeters and hektograms( 100 g ) are used all the time. Hektograms are for example a common unit when buying things like food by weight.
But to be honest I’ve never seen it as a problem to talk about 400 grams or 170 cm, nor have I ever heard anybody complain about it before.
I’m not sure whey “deci” units aren’t used frequently here (Canada) – food sold by weight here is usually listed as grams or kilograms.
The metric system is the standard here, but many still use imperial units colloquially. And most measuring devices (thermometers, measuring cups, measuring tapes, etc) sold here will have both imperial and metric units.
I wouldn’t call it a problem per se, but I do generally find it easier to visualize 6 ft than the equivalent distance in cm.
What’s wrong with the US/US economy has very little to do with corner case sue-happy foolishness like this.
In other words, RedHat enlisting trolls to fight trolls, Come on RedHat, wasn’t Bruce Perens enought troll for you?.
This particular “innovation” should be relatively easy. The Amiga had “multiple workspaces” via the Screen feature back in Release 1.0.
…or do I misunderstand what is meant by “multiple workspaces”? There’s the fun.
This seems like community marketing to me.
If they had not found any prior evidence or thought that the patent would stand, they would have settled.
But since they think they are gonna win, why not gain more traction within the community as part of the whole circus?
Attacks on GPL software are attacks on the users of GPL software. Why not involve the potential victims? The reason for attacks on GPL software is to redirect limited resources from innovation and development to spending time and money in court to prove baseless claims as such. A little googling will show you who provided the capital for SCO’s famous FUD attack.
Here in New Zealand there is a “vexatious litigant” law (I’ve seen articles in the news where it has been used).
The most common use of it here seems to be against stroppy reclusive individuals (usually grumpy old gits who sue anyone within a km or so, for anything).
You know the sort – the type who snarl “LEAN THAT BIKE AGAINST MY FENCE AND I’LL SUE YOU!”. People who file lawsuits just for the hell of it. However, I’m sure that it could also be used against companies.
IANAL, but iirc when someone has been declared a “vexatious litigant” they are banned from pursuing any further litigation in court. ( I don’t know if the ban is permanent, or just for “x” years…).
The US sounds like it could use a law like that. Ban scumbag companies like this from getting anywhere near a courtroom.
Edited 2009-02-15 08:32 UTC
The same measure exists in US law. However, because of US legal culture the bar for an individual to be declared vexatious is very, very high. And it’s almost impossible to have a company declared as such.
I agree with your law, Obsidian…I wish they would implement it everywhere. The U.S. Patent system is a plague upon mankind. The sooner they reform it, the better. I hope that with a new administration in place, they’ll take a closer look at it and make the proper overdue changes.
Edited 2009-02-15 13:59 UTC
It is my understanding that patents are valid for 12 years and than in some instances they might be extended to 15 years. How come a patent that is 22 years old be valid now? Or are they suing for “previous” infringement?