Microsoft just lost 8.9 M dollars :D

Num3 · Post by **Num3** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 10:28 pm

Reuters announced this today!

Seems MS forgot to pay a copyright patent to a a guy from Guatemala concerning a way to use Access inside Excel.

He developed and patented it back in 1990, and tried to sold it to MS, but they didn't care...

2 years later, the new versions of Office had it incorporated into it...

MS just got sued, and lost, curiously over something they make a flag of, patenting code...

dagcrack · Post by **dagcrack** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:04 am

And why are you so happy?... Seems like you get happy by other's mistakes or errors...

Sad

aszid · Post by **aszid** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:36 am

I remember reading about this story a few weeks back.

Apparently, MS's story is that they were already 2+ years into R&D for their version of the feature (with paperwork to back it up), when the other guy approached them to try and sell them his version of the same thing.

anyhow... the oddest part is... how could this person make an interface between Acess and Excel without trampling all over microsofts patents/copyrights to begin with?

Froggerprogger · Post by **Froggerprogger** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:22 am

Another point: I really dislike software-patents at all. Though in this case Microsoft is hit by them, I prefer a patent law such as in Europe atm. Here you are not able to patent pure software or business ideas.
This makes things easy, you can develop your own non-material ideas without taking care of any such patent-mines.

Poorly this patentlaw is to be intensified, though there's a protest of many people and middle-size-companys. Have a look here:
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/

PB · Post by PB » Wed Jun 08, 2005 11:04 am

> why are you so happy?

Because MS is so quick to sue others for patent infringement, so it's funny
that they got busted for doing it themselves. They're hypocrits!

Psychophanta · Post by **Psychophanta** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:44 pm

Access inside Excel?

since when? Since 1992????

PB wrote:> why are you so happy?
Because MS is so quick to sue others for patent infringement, so it's funny
that they got busted for doing it themselves. They're hypocrits!

More simple and obvious: because MS is the best, and people is envious

aszid · Post by **aszid** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:12 pm

You know, in the recent past i can't think of a single time when MS sued another company for patent infringement....

I can however remember lindows being sued, but that one they totally had coming... i mean really... Lindows... is it even POSSIBLE they weren't trying to piggyback on MS's TM?

Anyhow... My opinion on Microsoft is this:

If MS didn't exist, their same exact role would be played by a different company (Imagine everyone running OS/2 warp right now...), and as far as huge multinational companies go, MS is pretty nice... at least to customers.

utopiomania · Post by **utopiomania** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:21 pm

Psychofant wrote:

More simple and obvious: because MS is the best, and people is envious

I actually like Microsoft and what they have given us, and fail to see whats so ok about them loosing money ??

Post by **Polo** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:27 pm

8.9 million dollars is a lot of money, whoever is losing that much money, it's not a laught.
And by the way, everyone should admit Windows is the best os for what most people are doing

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:29 pm

Polo wrote:8.9 million dollars is a lot of money

heh bill gates car costs less than that.

PB · Post by PB » Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:06 pm

> i can't think of a single time when MS sued another company for patent infringement

Two recent examples are Lindows (already mentioned) and teenager Mike Rowe.
And they sued 8 Southern Californian companies for infringement here:
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stor ... ocus3.html

And $8.9 million is just pocket change for Microsoft.

aszid · Post by **aszid** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:30 pm

erm... that article you linked to was about them sueing companies that were distributing Counterfeitted copies of windows... that's quite a bit different.

Anyhow, I actually kept up on the Mike Rowe thing, and in the end MS paid him off, not the other way around. (also he sold the 600+ pages of MS legal text that he ended up with on ebay for a ton of money)

*edit*
i tried to find the ebay auction... but it's either gone, or it was cancelled...

anyhow here's a thread about it: http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windows/ ... -EBAY.html

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 10:08 am

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/

m$ event threatned denmark with banning us if we didnt make software patents.

well its great to see them loose money on what they want themself.
softwarepatents are really stupid. read on the webpage why they are.

And 8.9 million dollars maybe is a lot, but im pretty sure that the programmer from guatemala notices it more than microsoft. 8.9 million dollars isnt that much for them.

aszid · Post by **aszid** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 5:44 pm

hmmm

Think about the other side though... if there were no software patents, microsoft would not have just been sued for infringing on a patent.

If there were no software patents, the big companies like microsoft would be the ones that benefitted the most. They would be the ones that would take everyone elses ideas and actually turn them into profit, while the ones that came up with the ideas would be SOL.

Jimbo_H · Post by **Jimbo_H** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 10:36 am

<my opinion!>
MS are anti-competitive and either buy out or close down anyone who brings out a product that's better than theirs. They have too much of a monopoly and deserve everything they get afaic. I don't like the way they conduct business and am not a fan of their very buggy, bloatware products (Windows, ISA, IE etc. etc.) Their prices suck (e.g. Office vs StarOffice!) and their licensing model is an absolute joke.
As soon as more games are ported to Linux, I'm switching permanently.
</my opinion!>

Jim