--> From http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040406/1349225.shtml
Microsoft Patents Saving The Name Of A Game
Contributed by Mike on Tuesday, April 6th, 2004 @ 01:49PM
from the yeah,-that's-non-obvious dept.
theodp writes "As if there weren't enough dodgy patents, here's an
excerpt from one granted to Microsoft Tuesday for a 'Method and
apparatus for displaying information regarding stored data in a gaming
system': 'When saving a game, the saved game data may include a
descriptive name of the saved game, a graphic representation of the
state of the game when the game was saved, a description of the game
state when the game was saved, and a date and time that the game was
saved.'" I'm trying to figure out if there's more to this patent, but
the more I read, the worse it seems. How is this possibly
"non-obvious"?
--> Link to Patent http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...mber=6,716,102
--> Link to Patent File History (Shows Two Earlier Rejections) http://pair.uspto.gov/cgi-bin/final/...mber=6,716,102
Jul 20 '05
138  6594 
On Fri, 09 Apr 2004 00:09:29 GMT, Bruce Hayden <no************ @ieee.org>
wrote:
[hoping that this is still of some historical interest for a few in the
ciwah NG, I know its OT so for any further posts in the thread I will
remove ciwah] Jan Roland Eriksson wrote: [1] Believe it or not, even Gary Kildall of CP/M fame, was not unaware
of Bell Lab's developments in the UNIX area and even though most of
Gary's efforts on CP/M had its roots in Digital Equipment software of
the time, he did implement ways to "tweak" CP/M to behave a bit like
UNIX for a single user environment...
I was frankly surprised when I found CP/M and DOS looking
a bit like UNIX, first time I used them.
Did Gary make a proposal before the IBM/MSFT fiasco?
Not that I know of. The story has it that when IBM called on his
doorstep to ask for a OS, targeting their new PC design, Gary was not
physically there to open the door. He was out flying (he loved to fly
his planes him self) to a business meeting in some other part of the US.
...Gary's unpublished autobiography.. .
...paints an unsurprisingly negative picture of both IBM and MSFT,
with a lot of details that did not make it into the TV special...
I just think he was not visionary enough to see the business potential
that was coming his way. He already "ruled" the 8-bit micro computing
field with something like half a million registered CP/M installations.
At that time such a "momentum" got looked on as "non-destructible" so
IBM could wait a day or two to get what they needed.
OTOH, the PC incentive, inside IBM, was internally looked on as
something "that the cat dragged in"; no real value computing could be
done without mainframes, as every decent IBM'er already knew as a fact
and truth of life :-)
So; the IBM-PC guys that visited Gary's office did not have time at hand
to "wait a day or two", they had a stranglehold budget and a fixed
timeline to meet.
It is exactly at this point where Bill Gates shows his only talent, as
in how to find a product - tweak it into "my" product - and sell it to
the one in need of it.
The full size of Microsoft today is built on the same procedure in all
parts of its products; i.e. no MS product today started out as a
"invented here" thingy, but instead it is "purchase some one else's work
and make sure to move him out of the system while you do it".
I'm totally convinced that the guy(s) behind QDOS[1] are still biting
their nails for selling away the 16-bit CP/M hack they had made, at such
a low price to Bill G, just to see him make his fortune from it in the
times to come.
The name "QDOS" vanished of course and got replaced with "MS-DOS" but
from the IBM start of things it was essentially "QDOS" that IBM
purchased.
[1] QDOS = "Quick'n Dirty Operating System" One of the first free
standing ports of CP/M from an 8-bit environment over to a 16-bit
version.
--
Rex
Jan Roland Eriksson wrote: Did Gary make a proposal before the IBM/MSFT fiasco?
Not that I know of. The story has it that when IBM called on his
doorstep to ask for a OS, targeting their new PC design, Gary was not
physically there to open the door. He was out flying (he loved to fly
his planes him self) to a business meeting in some other part of the US.
...Gary's unpublished autobiography.. .
...paints an unsurprisingly negative picture of both IBM and MSFT,
with a lot of details that did not make it into the TV special...
I just think he was not visionary enough to see the business potential
that was coming his way. He already "ruled" the 8-bit micro computing
field with something like half a million registered CP/M installations.
At that time such a "momentum" got looked on as "non-destructible" so
IBM could wait a day or two to get what they needed.
There is a saying that the victors get to write history. And in this
case, absent publication of that autobiography, MSFT and IBM probably
will have done so.
There are two points of interest in Gary's autobiography. First,
IBM apparenlty continued to negotiate with Gary up until the PC
announcement, long after they had signed the MSFT/QDOS agreement,
but not of course telling Gary that they had that alternative already
covered. He tells of feeling completely betrayed by IBM, as he
had talked to them the day before.
The sticking point was not that IBM was in a hurry, but rather that
they were offering too little. Their offer was apparently a flat
$500,000 for unlimited usage. The problem was that DR already had
millions in CP/M sales, and wanted a per box license. They felt
that this would canabalize the 16 bit CP/M sales.
The other interesting factoid in this entire mess came from a couple
of other sources, incluuding Gary's second wife (his first wife was
the one who initially talked to IBM). A couple of years later, DR
signed a hold harmless agreement with IBM. In return, IBM was to
put CP/M in its catalogs. Unfortunately, their price point was
somewhere in the range of $250, and you could get DOS for maybe $50.
The conversations with her were in a bar in Austin about two years
after Gary's death.
The problem, from an IP attorney's point of view, was that when
MSFT bought QDOS and repackaged it as DOS, cloning an operating
system interface was not copyright infringement, since at that
time, infringement required copying of the actual code. But a
couple of years later, the pendulum swung in the other direction,
and non-literal (including, but not limited to "look and feel")
copying became potentially infringing. I think that an argument
could be made that, esp. at the height of this, that DOS non-
literally infringed CP-M, et al., even in the 9th Circuit, and
more likely in others - esp. in the 1st Circuit (Lotus v. Borland).
But that is where that hold harmless came in - by then DR had
signed away their rights to sue.
Note BTW that as far as I know, MSFT never sued DR-DOS for C/R
infringement, and DR-DOS only sued MSFT for antitrust.
(Prof. Hollaar is the expert on that litigation).
OTOH, the PC incentive, inside IBM, was internally looked on as
something "that the cat dragged in"; no real value computing could be
done without mainframes, as every decent IBM'er already knew as a fact
and truth of life :-)
So; the IBM-PC guys that visited Gary's office did not have time at hand
to "wait a day or two", they had a stranglehold budget and a fixed
timeline to meet.
Again, see above. This conflicts with Gary's autobiography.
Of course, you can always claim that he was bitter about this.
He managed to get rich enough to buy himself a private jet, but
never got anywhere near Bill Gates.
It is exactly at this point where Bill Gates shows his only talent, as
in how to find a product - tweak it into "my" product - and sell it to
the one in need of it.
The full size of Microsoft today is built on the same procedure in all
parts of its products; i.e. no MS product today started out as a
"invented here" thingy, but instead it is "purchase some one else's work
and make sure to move him out of the system while you do it".
But in this case, the product arguably ultimately infringed another
company's product.
I'm totally convinced that the guy(s) behind QDOS[1] are still biting
their nails for selling away the 16-bit CP/M hack they had made, at such
a low price to Bill G, just to see him make his fortune from it in the
times to come.
But remember, it was a hack/clone and IBM was still negotiating
with Gary until the last minute (at least apparently, until the
day before the IBM PC announcement) for exactly what the QDOS
guys would have wanted - a per box license. But I would suggest
that IBM would have done the deal with Gary first on those terms,
since QDOS was the clone.
Obviously, pure speculation on all of our parts. I will suggest
that we will probably never really know everything that happened,
at least not in the forseeable future.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 2004 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
My work may be copied in whole or part, with proper attribution,
as long as the copying is not for commercial gain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
Dillon, Colorado bh*****@highdow n.com
Phoenix, Arizona bh*****@copatla w.com
Jan Roland Eriksson wrote: Did Gary make a proposal before the IBM/MSFT fiasco?
Not that I know of. The story has it that when IBM called on his
doorstep to ask for a OS, targeting their new PC design, Gary was not
physically there to open the door. He was out flying (he loved to fly
his planes him self) to a business meeting in some other part of the US.
...Gary's unpublished autobiography.. .
...paints an unsurprisingly negative picture of both IBM and MSFT,
with a lot of details that did not make it into the TV special...
I just think he was not visionary enough to see the business potential
that was coming his way. He already "ruled" the 8-bit micro computing
field with something like half a million registered CP/M installations.
At that time such a "momentum" got looked on as "non-destructible" so
IBM could wait a day or two to get what they needed.
There is a saying that the victors get to write history. And in this
case, absent publication of that autobiography, MSFT and IBM probably
will have done so.
There are two points of interest in Gary's autobiography. First,
IBM apparenlty continued to negotiate with Gary up until the PC
announcement, long after they had signed the MSFT/QDOS agreement,
but not of course telling Gary that they had that alternative already
covered. He tells of feeling completely betrayed by IBM, as he
had talked to them the day before.
The sticking point was not that IBM was in a hurry, but rather that
they were offering too little. Their offer was apparently a flat
$500,000 for unlimited usage. The problem was that DR already had
millions in CP/M sales, and wanted a per box license. They felt
that this would canabalize the 16 bit CP/M sales.
The other interesting factoid in this entire mess came from a couple
of other sources, incluuding Gary's second wife (his first wife was
the one who initially talked to IBM). A couple of years later, DR
signed a hold harmless agreement with IBM. In return, IBM was to
put CP/M in its catalogs. Unfortunately, their price point was
somewhere in the range of $250, and you could get DOS for maybe $50.
The conversations with her were in a bar in Austin about two years
after Gary's death.
The problem, from an IP attorney's point of view, was that when
MSFT bought QDOS and repackaged it as DOS, cloning an operating
system interface was not copyright infringement, since at that
time, infringement required copying of the actual code. But a
couple of years later, the pendulum swung in the other direction,
and non-literal (including, but not limited to "look and feel")
copying became potentially infringing. I think that an argument
could be made that, esp. at the height of this, that DOS non-
literally infringed CP-M, et al., even in the 9th Circuit, and
more likely in others - esp. in the 1st Circuit (Lotus v. Borland).
But that is where that hold harmless came in - by then DR had
signed away their rights to sue.
Note BTW that as far as I know, MSFT never sued DR-DOS for C/R
infringement, and DR-DOS only sued MSFT for antitrust.
(Prof. Hollaar is the expert on that litigation).
OTOH, the PC incentive, inside IBM, was internally looked on as
something "that the cat dragged in"; no real value computing could be
done without mainframes, as every decent IBM'er already knew as a fact
and truth of life :-)
So; the IBM-PC guys that visited Gary's office did not have time at hand
to "wait a day or two", they had a stranglehold budget and a fixed
timeline to meet.
Again, see above. This conflicts with Gary's autobiography.
Of course, you can always claim that he was bitter about this.
He managed to get rich enough to buy himself a private jet, but
never got anywhere near Bill Gates.
It is exactly at this point where Bill Gates shows his only talent, as
in how to find a product - tweak it into "my" product - and sell it to
the one in need of it.
The full size of Microsoft today is built on the same procedure in all
parts of its products; i.e. no MS product today started out as a
"invented here" thingy, but instead it is "purchase some one else's work
and make sure to move him out of the system while you do it".
But in this case, the product arguably ultimately infringed another
company's product.
I'm totally convinced that the guy(s) behind QDOS[1] are still biting
their nails for selling away the 16-bit CP/M hack they had made, at such
a low price to Bill G, just to see him make his fortune from it in the
times to come.
But remember, it was a hack/clone and IBM was still negotiating
with Gary until the last minute (at least apparently, until the
day before the IBM PC announcement) for exactly what the QDOS
guys would have wanted - a per box license. But I would suggest
that IBM would have done the deal with Gary first on those terms,
since QDOS was the clone.
Obviously, pure speculation on all of our parts. I will suggest
that we will probably never really know everything that happened,
at least not in the forseeable future.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 2004 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
My work may be copied in whole or part, with proper attribution,
as long as the copying is not for commercial gain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
Dillon, Colorado bh*****@highdow n.com
Phoenix, Arizona bh*****@copatla w.com
In article <40******@news. peakpeak.com>,
Bruce Hayden <no************ @ieee.org> wrote: Roger Schlafly wrote: "Rahul Dhesi" <c.*******@Micr osoftX.usenet.u s.com> wrotePatent attorneys are
not cheap, even when on staff in a corporation....
How expensive are they? The web site mentioned below says that patent
attorneys in the USA with 5-8 years experience earn in the range of
$105,000 - $127,000 annually. Presumably one would add around 30% for
the employer's cost in overhead/benefits/taxes.
Assuming that a Msft patent lawyer could investigate a patent
and send a dozen letters relating to that patent in a week, then
I figure a cost of about $250 per letter.
Doesn't work that way, at least in my experience in the real world.
A $250 infringement investigation and letter is not going to be
sufficient to overcome being frivilous. Also, why should they
bother? Where is the monetary return to MSFT?
One problem with hiring patent attorneys for this, whether inside
or outside, is that you need to be able to justify their cost.
Something as nebulous as slightly reducing competition from
mom and pop operations will not be easy to financially justify.
It is just too hard to quantify.
What you overlook is the following situation. Your "mom and pop"
operation doesn't even have a lawyer involved. They are pressed to
sign some agreement put before them that looks like the least trouble.
This agreement includes a secrecy clause.
Nobody even knows what is going on.
The same tactic can put a a programmer contributing GPL-software
out of action.
I would value your opinion about adding a clause to
patent law that make such agreements unenforceable unless
registered with the patent office (or an appointed instance.)
At least this would allow to quantify the damage done to
free enterprises.
<SNIP>
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
Groetjes Albert.
--
Albert van der Horst,Oranjestr 8,3511 RA UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
One man-hour to invent,
One man-week to implement,
One lawyer-year to patent.
In article <40******@news. peakpeak.com>,
Bruce Hayden <no************ @ieee.org> wrote: Roger Schlafly wrote: "Rahul Dhesi" <c.*******@Micr osoftX.usenet.u s.com> wrotePatent attorneys are
not cheap, even when on staff in a corporation....
How expensive are they? The web site mentioned below says that patent
attorneys in the USA with 5-8 years experience earn in the range of
$105,000 - $127,000 annually. Presumably one would add around 30% for
the employer's cost in overhead/benefits/taxes.
Assuming that a Msft patent lawyer could investigate a patent
and send a dozen letters relating to that patent in a week, then
I figure a cost of about $250 per letter.
Doesn't work that way, at least in my experience in the real world.
A $250 infringement investigation and letter is not going to be
sufficient to overcome being frivilous. Also, why should they
bother? Where is the monetary return to MSFT?
One problem with hiring patent attorneys for this, whether inside
or outside, is that you need to be able to justify their cost.
Something as nebulous as slightly reducing competition from
mom and pop operations will not be easy to financially justify.
It is just too hard to quantify.
What you overlook is the following situation. Your "mom and pop"
operation doesn't even have a lawyer involved. They are pressed to
sign some agreement put before them that looks like the least trouble.
This agreement includes a secrecy clause.
Nobody even knows what is going on.
The same tactic can put a a programmer contributing GPL-software
out of action.
I would value your opinion about adding a clause to
patent law that make such agreements unenforceable unless
registered with the patent office (or an appointed instance.)
At least this would allow to quantify the damage done to
free enterprises.
<SNIP>
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
Groetjes Albert.
--
Albert van der Horst,Oranjestr 8,3511 RA UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
One man-hour to invent,
One man-week to implement,
One lawyer-year to patent.
In article <ba************ **************@ comcast.ash.gig anews.com>,
Barry Margolin <ba****@alum.mi t.edu> wrote:
I'm not sure why Microsoft considers this an important feature of the
invention. Even if one game can access the saved game files of another,
they're not likely to make sense to it. It hardly seems necessary to
take special steps to prevent the access. Maybe this narrowing of the
patent's scope was necessary for them to get the patent approved.
Similar to taking a garden variety mouse trap. Then add the requirement
that it should be made of gold plated titanium which doesn't relate to
its functionality of catching mice?
I hope not that if you get this past the patent bureau, you could start
using makers of ordinary mouse traps.
Barry Margolin, ba****@alum.mit .edu
Arlington, MA
--
--
Albert van der Horst,Oranjestr 8,3511 RA UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
One man-hour to invent,
One man-week to implement,
One lawyer-year to patent.
In article <ba************ **************@ comcast.ash.gig anews.com>,
Barry Margolin <ba****@alum.mi t.edu> wrote:
I'm not sure why Microsoft considers this an important feature of the
invention. Even if one game can access the saved game files of another,
they're not likely to make sense to it. It hardly seems necessary to
take special steps to prevent the access. Maybe this narrowing of the
patent's scope was necessary for them to get the patent approved.
Similar to taking a garden variety mouse trap. Then add the requirement
that it should be made of gold plated titanium which doesn't relate to
its functionality of catching mice?
I hope not that if you get this past the patent bureau, you could start
using makers of ordinary mouse traps.
Barry Margolin, ba****@alum.mit .edu
Arlington, MA
--
--
Albert van der Horst,Oranjestr 8,3511 RA UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
One man-hour to invent,
One man-week to implement,
One lawyer-year to patent.
In article <40******@news. peakpeak.com>,
Bruce Hayden <no************ @ieee.org> wrote:
<SNIP> But there is a subtle distinction here that may have some
relevance. In those systems (including UNIX), access control
is/was by user or group of users. As noted, this is essential
for effective multiuser or timesharing systems. But in the
MSFT system, access control can be by application. It was not
clear from the patent why that was that overly useful, but there
it was, logically somewhat orthogonal to the typical practice.
For all practical purposes a user that can't login (like uucp)
and is only used to run a program or a couple of cooperating
programs is the same. So if this has relevance for patentability
there is something wrong with patentability: "assigning
a temporary monopoly as an incentive for progress."
Note that the user id, group id solution has broad application
and solves a great many similar access control problems.
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
--
Albert van der Horst,Oranjestr 8,3511 RA UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
One man-hour to invent,
One man-week to implement,
One lawyer-year to patent.
In article <40******@news. peakpeak.com>,
Bruce Hayden <no************ @ieee.org> wrote:
<SNIP> But there is a subtle distinction here that may have some
relevance. In those systems (including UNIX), access control
is/was by user or group of users. As noted, this is essential
for effective multiuser or timesharing systems. But in the
MSFT system, access control can be by application. It was not
clear from the patent why that was that overly useful, but there
it was, logically somewhat orthogonal to the typical practice.
For all practical purposes a user that can't login (like uucp)
and is only used to run a program or a couple of cooperating
programs is the same. So if this has relevance for patentability
there is something wrong with patentability: "assigning
a temporary monopoly as an incentive for progress."
Note that the user id, group id solution has broad application
and solves a great many similar access control problems.
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
--
Albert van der Horst,Oranjestr 8,3511 RA UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
One man-hour to invent,
One man-week to implement,
One lawyer-year to patent. This thread has been closed and replies have been disabled. Please start a new discussion. |
