IP Innovation sues Red Hat, Novell for patent infringement
By Darren Murph 
posted Oct 12th 2007 2:42PM
posted Oct 12th 2007 2:42PM
Well, would you look at this. Not even a week after Steve Ballmer insinuated that Red Hat users owe Microsoft money for using its patents, IP Innovation has filed a lawsuit against the firm (along with Novell) in the accurately nicknamed "patent troll magnet state (that'd be Texas)." The firm, which also threw a lawsuit Apple's way earlier this year, is claiming that both entities have infringed on the very same patent. As if that weren't enough, Groklaw's digging found that the plaintiff is actually a subsidiary of Acacia, which just so happened to hire on two prior Microsoft execs in the months leading up to this filing. If you're interested in feeding your desire to conjure up some sensational conspiracy theory even further, feel free to grab your coffee and hit the read link.[Via Digg, thanks Ziemowit P.]
Shouldn't that be "IP Stifle Innovation"?
"IP Stifle Innovation"?
You mean like the "keeping it real..fake" articles that show up on this site where the author bashes companies for using the IP of other companies to make clones or variants of their products?
Either Engadget thinks IP is worth going to court over or they think it's stupid because it "Stifles Innovation".
It stifles innovation unless the original product was an Apple product.
Well would you look at this. Somebody calling a company (and somehow alledging that MS is behind it) evil for protecting their IP, but yet when there are threats of law suits (and wasn't there one such suit not too long ago) when anybody allegedly violates the GPL. Hey open source people, you can't have it both ways. If you want people to respect the GPL, then you need to do the same to others (don't make copies of software, don't violate patents, etc.)
There's a difference between blatant violation (stealing code) and prior art (multiple workspaces). They should be suing Microsoft for fast user switching and remote desktop since it fits the description of the "patent".
What I think is interesting here is that by definition Opensource code can be viewed by all, but we really have no idea how much code has been "stolen" or "borrowed" by Mircosoft, because we can't see the source code.
Almost every single computer GUI environment since the beginning of GUI environments has had the feature this patent claims. It looks like even some GUI environments before this patent was even applied for. Even Windows at some point had a feature that could conceivable fall under this patent.
Its pretty obvious to anyone paying attention, that its another round of FUD, to scare potential business away from Linux. The court case may be tied up for a long time, but unless something really crazy happens, it will go no where. Acacia will lose. Save this comment and remember it later when they have lost in court.
This is just marketing by lawsuits.
Sorry, not prior art... I was thinking about something else, and should have said obvious implementation. Either way, I might argue that multiple workspaces have been around since the Unix days with the method of terminal (shell/subshells) switching which is prior art.
@Nathan
Not an expert, here or anything but... as I understand it..
It doesnt matter if we can see the code or not (code is protected by copyright), thats not what a patent would cover. A patent would cover an idea or process, like the 1-click shopping patent from amazon, or the RIM case. Doesnt matter what the code looks like, its the end result that counts.
There is a very large difference between copyright law, and patent law. Please run along and learn the difference before you start trolling to us about the double standard.
@Will:
Correct, which is why it's a flawed process. You shouldn't be able to patent an idea. Only the method or blueprint of producing it. In terms of software, it should be the exact process of drawing the workspaces on the screen, not the idea that you could have multiple workspaces.
My understanding is this patent was purchased from Xerox. If this patent came from Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) I don't think you will find any prior art since Xerox PARC invented GUI.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto_Research_Center
So for the next few years we're going to be seeing more and more IP cases and less and less innovation.
Good for IP bad for end users - how do you kill off a collection of code which can be recompiled with your offensive code taken out and replaced with something else - it's not going to be that long before the patent offices are going to be clogged to death because of cross referenced patents - for software developers that toil away in isolation around the globe just to find out that a bit of code they wrote was patented by someone - what do you do? pack it up and go home? do we now start making PATENT INFRINGEMENT AVOIDANCE updates to our code automatic? What are we going to do? instead of increasing budgets for Information Technology departments companies are going to invest into Patent Infringement instead - goodbye workplace efficiency.
Are there other countries where patent infringement lawsuits are this rampant? The 250 million people that are a market to behold in the united states of america can't be that lucrative - these types of things may just lead to more brain drain - why develop something with all your heart and soul only to have it wiped out by a entity such as the patent office - which seems to have been created with good intentions but had become the slave of the legal system surrounding it.
Why didn't the software developers that created programming language structures patent that along with "Hello world."? Or was that the furthest thing from their minds at the time?
Can I get a recompile that removes the patent in question? thanks - if they thought of it then there must be a better way - it's 2008 coming up in a few months sheesh