Sendo Accuses MS of Stealing Smartphone IP 231
Nate B. writes "According this article in The Inquirer, it seems that Sendo, a UK based development house, has filed suit in Texas as of December 23 to recoup monetary damages for IP it claims Microsoft stole. From the article, 'The company's grievance is that after years of working closely with Microsoft on the development of Windows Smartphone 2002, the fruits of their endeavours were handed straight over to HTC, which manufactures the SPV handset for Orange.' The story also includes this cute footnote, 'When Sendo announced it was to receive funding from Microsoft, I and some other British journalists asked Sendo's Hugh Brogan at the press briefing, in the London Waldorf, whether he wasn't afraid that the company might just take its information and then dump his firm. He claimed then there was no possibility of that.'" Seems there was more to this story than originally thought.
Don't worry (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Don't worry (Score:2)
It does crashes a lot, besides not installing unsigned apps, being slow and having several other problems.
Looks like MS took an unfinished product from Sendo and launched it thru other outlets. I would not be surprised if Sendo had left it unfinished on purpose, either that or MS did not let them have access to the source code to fix it and them they called it quits.
Lesson Learned (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Lesson Learned (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but when you escort her home after the prom and find out the "girl" is really a man who now tells you to bite the pillow, this'll hurt a little, I think you have a right to be upset...
Re:Lesson Learned (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lesson Learned (Score:2)
uhm, no...you didn't get it any more than the Offtopic mods did. You see, my post wasn't about homosexuality or any kinda gay bashing, it was about pretending to be one thing then screwing over the people you fooled when you reveal your true self, I was hoping with such an obvious analogy in the prom context I wouldn't have to explain it...but I guess it's easier to see malicious intent where there is none than to think and try to actually understand? Now put up your sword and take off that shining armor sir knight, there's little need for you here.
Oh, two more things, I'm not american, and are you trying to offend me by implying that I'm homosexual? Sorry, can't really take offense at that, interesting you should chose that as an insult though, some hidden homophobia?
Now we're offtopic
Re:Lesson Learned (Score:2)
Hey, I explained why I chose that particular analogy above, if you're offended by my point, say so, if you're offended because it happened to be about a transexual, tough, I chose my analogy because it conveyed the point well in the context the parent post started. I didn't mean to offend anyone and I don't think there's anything offensive in my comparison, it's all in your head.
Go on and point out offending posts when you see them, more power to ya. But don't go looking for things to offend you where there's no intent.
What's new here? (Score:2)
Re:What's new here? (Score:2, Insightful)
Everything old is new again =)
I'm absolutely amazed how many times, they've done this to corporate entities. And every single time, just as the ink is drying, someone asks, "So, are you afraid MS will take the tech and leave?" And they respond with, "No! That's impossible! They wouldn't do that to us!"
I happen to work for a company where this exact thing transpired at one of their spin-offs a few years back. MS took all the tech and left the spin-off with nothing to productize. Fortunately for the employees, most were folded back into the parent company.
Truely sad they can get away with it. That, and that others are so naive to sign up for this treatment with their track record.
And people wonder why I have such a distaste for Microsoft. And before anyone asks, yes, I'm MS free both at home and at work. =)
-Ducky
Officials commented... (Score:5, Funny)
"We're still looking over the contract to see the ramifications of the "we owe you nothing" clause."
Microsoft officials declined to comment at press time.
Re:Officials commented... (Score:1, Offtopic)
IANAL, YMMV, etcetc.
and in other news (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:and in other news (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:and in other news (Score:2)
Re:and in other news (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:and in other news (Score:2)
The White House stands in contradiction with itself when it claims that greed is a fundamental requirement of Capitalism (contrary to Christianity), and then expects corporations to play fair??
Re:and in other news (Score:2)
Re:and in other news (Score:2)
No, I dont think selfishness is required for capitalism. One can be charitable without the law mandating it. No laws have mandated greed, but so many are greedy. The greed does not make this capitalism any more than charity makes a system communism.
Re:and in other news (Score:2)
There's just no pleasing some people. If Microsoft prevails in a court case, you whine that they never get punished. If Microsoft loses, you whine about the other cases where they prevailed.
Oh, and I haven't "bought" any Microsoft product since 1998.
Re:and in other news (Score:2)
If an entity (a person or a business) breaks many laws they should be punished for all of them. If they get away with one or two then justice is not served.
Same reason they do business with Wal-Mart (Score:2)
Re:and in other news (Score:2)
Re:and in other news (Score:4, Funny)
That's really insulting ... (Score:2)
Re:That's really insulting ... (Score:2)
Re:Don't boycot, buy selectively. (Score:2)
Distribnution costs are next to nothing, and marketing and development are single hits.
If the volume of sales of windows dropped then they would start to lose money.
If the volume of sales of say exchange increased then they would start to make money.
It's not stealing (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It's not stealing (Score:3, Insightful)
take verb - to get into one's hands or into one's possession, power, or control
steal verb - to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as an habitual or regular practice
Just because Sendo still have a copy does not mean it was not taken or stoeln. IP is something that can be possessed by more than one party. That does not mean that it cannot be taken or stolen.
Definitions taken from Merriam Webster
Re:It's not stealing (Score:2)
He was clearly being sarcastic.
Re:It's not stealing (Score:3, Interesting)
If true, this is actually much more serious than most IP infringement, because it also involves plagiarism and industrial espionage. It's as if some other company hacked into Microsoft's servers, downloaded the Windows source code, edited it to remove all the copyright messages and other text that refereced Microsoft as the authors, then started selling its own version of Windows.
Of course, Sendo could be lying. Even Bill Gates is innocent until proven guilty.
Re:It's not stealing (Score:3, Insightful)
Any small companies that MS hasn't screwed? (Score:4, Insightful)
It just seems like the first day MS approaches you is the day you should start preparing the lawsuit against them.
Re:Any small companies that MS hasn't screwed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only small. IBM, Sybase, Orange... I think even Spyglass was not so small at the time.
Re:Any small companies that MS hasn't screwed? (Score:2)
I do not call that screwing, but competition. Now AOL charges nothing for Mozilla, yet no one says they screw MS who charges for MS WXP.
Re:Any small companies that MS hasn't screwed? (Score:2)
Stac? (Score:2)
Remember the old MS-DOS days and M$'s illegal bundling of Stac software (DriveSpace, DoubleSpace, whatever)... and in return for Stac's suit, they either bought them out or changed the software enough not to infringe further on the Stac IP (AFAIK, it was a long time ago, hence the details being rather sketchy).
Re:Stac? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Any small companies that MS hasn't screwed? (Score:2)
Microsoft invested in them $18 million, and after a year Microsoft released a competing product and killed VDO.Net product...
Re:Any small companies that MS hasn't screwed? (Score:2)
Rethink that statement. The settlement was about $100 million in a year that Microsoft had revenues of about $2 billion - see here for reference. [base.com] That's about 5% of their annual revenue. That's like a $100 speeding ticket for someone earning $20,000 annually. It's like having $50,000 in income and paying $2,500 in taxes. It's like spilling one mouthful from a can of beer.
BTW, I can no longer find Stac Electronics on the web. I doubt that the cash settlement meant much to them. Microsoft, on the other hand, now has a cash pool of something like $42 billion. They could afford to lose $100 million 400 times.
Re:Any small companies that MS hasn't screwed? (Score:2)
Trusting MicroSoft (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Trusting MicroSoft (Score:2, Funny)
The rest of this post is cut&paste from the Mono FAQ. Maybe if you inform yourself of a few facts before posting you won't seem like such a zealous idiot. I'm not posting to convince people like you that Microsoft is a fantastic social force. I'm posting to provide a little bit of reality to these discussions. It just so happens that the MS topics are so often the ones in the worst need of a reality check.
Question 35: Is Microsoft helping Ximian with this project?
There is no high level communication between Ximian and Microsoft at this point, but engineers who work on
Microsoft is interested in other implementations of
Ximian was also invited to participate in the ECMA committee meetings for C# and the CLI.
Question 36: Is Microsoft or Corel paying Ximian to do this?
No.
Question 37: Do you fear that Microsoft will change the spec and render Mono useless?
No. Microsoft proved with the CLI and the C# language that it was possible to create a powerful foundation for many languages to inter-operate. We will always have that.
Even if changes happened in the platform which were undocumented, the existing platform would a value on its own.
Re:Trusting MicroSoft (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole point of the .NET vs Mono article was that Mono faces an uphill battle. They don't even have so much as any formal working relationship, and (as the original article [zdnet.com] mentioned):
Dealing with MS, even when you think you're getting some great deal, has consistently been proven to be dangerous proposition.Re:Trusting MicroSoft (Score:2)
And with this ad hominem attack you have quickly disqualified yourself and your posts, in my eyes. If you attack the person instead of sticking to the issue, you show that you lack confidence in your own arguments. I have learned to trust this simple rule: if someone attacks the person (usually slandering him/her, like you did), his/her arguments are weak and the person attacked is usually right.
Re:Trusting MicroSoft (Score:2)
Yeah, and I was one of the poor saps trying to convince him otherwise.
Why go into a business relationship with Microsoft with (i) these kinds of legal unknowns and (ii) their record on the matter?
Reminds of the Simpsons episode I saw a while back where Lisa is conducting an experiment; Which is smarter, Bart or a Hamster. The hamster tries to get at some food gets electrocuted twice and thus gives up. Bart continualy gets shocked but reaches for the food ad infinitum.
Profiting with Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
How to learn from Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
If you are a monopoly, then everyone is a competitor. The key technology is the written contract, not software.
Amazingly, you can usually find companies to agree to these contracts for nothing. They'll sign just to be your friend.
Your post rewritten: (Score:2, Funny)
2) ???
3) Karma!
also the register (Score:2, Informative)
Yawn (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft's Legal Battles [computerworld.com]
Re:Yawn (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yawn (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet bad companies do get sued more often than ones that still try to do good. That is, they would if there were still companies trying to do good, which I do not rule out but seriously doubt.
This is not any Fortune 500 company, but a high-visibility one.
This is not only a high-visibility Fortune 500 company, but one with a bad enough history.
This is also a mean, high-profile big company that happens to be in direct, ruthless, dishonest competition with the main public of Slashdot, that is, free software hackers, users and friends.
Re:Yawn (Score:2, Funny)
You're talking about Oracle?
Re:Yawn (Score:2)
Could be. Could you elaborate?
I know that Oracle wants us to forget about the relational model, its history and creators; and that it refuses to comply with ISO SQL. What other crimes they have on them?
Re:Yawn (Score:2)
Old vs New Advice (Score:4, Insightful)
Talk softly and carry a big stick.
New advice:
Be huge, take IP, run the little guy down with your army of lawyers.
Not saying this is happening, but it's certainly a familiar pattern with Microsoft.
M$ screws someone (Score:3, Funny)
Why don't we just have a weekly "screwed by M$ this week" special, like the slashback? Would help condense a lot of stories, ranting and general anti-M$ flaming into a few places.
Hypocracy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hypocracy (Score:3, Insightful)
Should Microsoft be able to take and use any information just because they are big enough to get away with it? Should they be able to do it when they want all information to belong to them, and not be free?
The "information wants to be free" people will accept free information for Microsoft the day Microsoft agree to share their information.
Of course one shouldn't let Microsoft get away with this when they are in a situation where they basically dominate the desktop market and are trying to use this to take over other markets as well.
So who is the hypocrite? The ones that want everyone to have the same possibilities, or the one who is wondering why the "information wants to be free" people aren't supporting the convicted monopolist who is using this for their own gain - as usual? The one who wants information to be made free for Microsoft so they can continue to screw over others?
The "information wants to be free folks" support people who work to the best interest of everyone, sharing information. Of course they won't support a monopolist which tries to screw others to strengthen its own position in as many markets as possible.
MS has good conmen? (Score:2, Insightful)
The interesting thing is that MS seems to be an expert at entering into these sorts of strategic alliances without incurring any burden of responsibility. In this case MS took the technology, took the manufacturing rights, and left Sendo with nothing. One would think the contract would have prevented this, or specified financial consequences if MS did such a thing. They certainly have a history of destroying partners, and it seems like prudent partner would take this history into account. The MS lawyers and sales people must be excellent con men if they can routinely negotiate deals like this.
My IP Problems... (Score:2, Funny)
Making deals with MS... (Score:2, Insightful)
Reminds me of that Voyager episode called "Scorpion" where the crew tried to make a deal with the Borg. Of course the Borg tried to screw them over in the end. The only good thing about it is it brought us Seven of Nine.
What's the beef? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, Microsoft's business practices are shady at best, but we don't have any substantial information about Sendo's claims at all right now, so it seems foolish to forming opinions so prematurely.
Re:What's the beef? (Score:2)
The flip side of this is how many of us would have heard of Sendo if not for this?? I'm starting to wonder if the next wave of tech start-ups shouldn't just keep suing each other to generate headlines with their names in 90 point helvetica.
Perhaps these companies have been smoking too much of the wacky weed... I leave you with a quote from Frank Black:
"alone with the beast and my skull choppers
now i'm just a name dropper
and i'm bust in these deep slumberweeds
stone was in me"
~Hammy
Re:What's the beef? (Score:2, Insightful)
Is Sendo giving the money back? (Score:2)
I guess I'm just wondering if Sendo intends on giving the money back? If not, could not Microsoft simply consider it payment for the disagreement?
Should have used DRM... (Score:2, Funny)
Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
We commonly sell source code to our customers but they usually are limited to a specific product family.
Everytime we deal with them they will not agree the code will turn up in other areas of microsoft, which we deem unacceptable and the deal is off. In our area, MS is not important so it's not a big deal.
I haven't read the article but i wonder how many times, others business "have" to deal with MS overlook things like the above, realize they have been screwed and then sue. Or get greedy for the MS deal, get screwed and then sue. Or maybe just plained got screwed by ole MS.
Or maybe it's all over my head and just business as usual. Yeah that's probably it.
Reuters story (Score:3, Insightful)
"Microsoft's secret plan was to plunder the small company of its proprietary information, technical expertise, market knowledge, customers and prospective customers," the filing said.
So now stealing "customers and prospective customers" is a crime for a competitor to commit? Sounds like a case of another company (hint, Sun) which can't achieve success through selling its product so hopes to achieve it through litigation.
Re:Reuters story (Score:3, Insightful)
It is if you, through contracts, IP sharing, and business ties, do so to the detriment of the owner of the information.
It's one thing if you and I are in the consulting business in competition, and I get some of your customers by calling around and offering them a better price. It's quite another matter if I bribe your accountant and get a list of all your customers.
What Sendio is saying is that MS invested in the company, signed contracts to develop and market cell phones. In exchange, MS promised Sendio that Sendio would make the phone and software, clear it with the cell system operators (no small task that), in exchange Sendio would get a partnership with MS and profits. Sendio says that instead of honoring that contract, MS gave all the work to Sendio's competitor, MS took a larger slice of the profits, and left Sendio to die because all their hard work was given away.
If this is true, (and I don't know if it is or isn't), then MS has a big problem. If the court gets nasty, they could award Sendio millions and millions, list the phone as pirate technology (and WTO treaty partners would have to forbid importation of the phone), and other things that wouldn't make God Gates happy. In fact, if the court really got vendictive, they can say CE copyrights are null/void, and order MS to release the source code to CE. (Not that it will happen or that anyone would want it anyway.) As always, IANAL. IDEPOOTV. (I don't even play one on TV).
IP Law (Score:2)
Re:Reuters story (Score:2)
Re:Reuters story (Score:2)
Not usually... but it's often breach of contract. At a company I worked for, a group of folks decided to take off and create their own competing company. Now, (1) most of the employees who left had a specific NCA clause in their contracts; (2) they actively recruited current accounts and employees of the original company; (3) they stole equipment and supplies from the original company to get started. In that case, yeah, what they did was definitely suitworthy.
Haven't seen the Sendo contract, so I don't know if they had the sense to put that clause in there. Hopefully...
Sendo should have thought before signing (Score:3, Insightful)
MS must have made it clear to Sendo in their deal that they were going to develop a generic cellphone OS that other companies can just bundle in with their telephones.
Anyhow, if Sendo had decided to sue the moment they decided to drop Smartphone, I would have given their lawsuit more credence. Right now, it looks like they're trying to hit up MS to get some $$ before they can get their phone design converted over to Symbian.
Hell, someone should publish the contract that the two companies agreed too. It just a waste of energy to speculate on what happened.
Re:Sendo should have thought before signing (Score:2)
I'm sure that was the case. However, as I read the story, Sendo had first-to-market rights. The only way that they would lose those rights is if they couldn't put a product out and/or went bankrupt. That is what happened, because MS did not give them the OS in a timely fashion or usable form.
Intellectual property (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Intellectual property (Score:2)
However, I wouldn't even claim that half of Slashdotters are against the protection of Intellectual Property, but rather what constitutes valid IP worth protecting. Is it valid to have non-competition clauses in your hiring contract only to be let go 3 months later? Is it valid (or fair) to call something that any shmoe in the computer industry can do on a pocket calculator IP? Is it valid if one owns certain IP to not allow others access to it at all (locking out the competition, rather than leasing / selling the technology)? How long should IP be protected for? Should it be treated like trade secrets?
Has it really come to this? (Score:2)
It's obviously time for us to migrate to IPv6, before this escalates and we have our first full scale war over netblocks.
Oh, sure, it's going to start with this sort of scuffle over a
History Repeats Itself (Score:2)
erm... (Score:2)
This gives me an odd feeling... (Score:2)
Re:You know... (Score:1, Offtopic)
I would suggest the CK patchset [optusnet.com.au] for the 2.4 series.
or maybe 2.6.3-4 (I expect any incompatabilitys in common software will have been resolved by then and any binary drivers will have been updated)
I hope that was your question?
Re:this is stale news... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Microsoft's business plan (Score:2, Troll)
It works for most companies/governments/countries, and not just the 'evil' ones.
Re:Ohh yeah??? (Score:2)
Re:Ohh yeah??? (Score:2)
Seems the point is that all IP should have the same protection. Our current laws give huge advantages to big companies with lots of lawyers. If we want to change *all* the laws, fine... until then, the big companies should be held to the same standards that they hold others to.
Besides, MS didn't steal Sendo's IP in order to make it publicly available. They stole it in order to keep it and make money off of it themselves. Not exactly an action that bears any relationship to free software concepts.
Re:Well they are gona need all the money they can (Score:2)
I would say that almost every single product originating from inside Redmond sucks really hard. only the ones that are bought from the outside is usable.
Re:List of past cases? (Score:2)
Re:List of past cases? (Score:2)
BeOS could not sell their system because MS had exclusivity contracts with OEMs.
IBM codeveloped OS/2 with MS, then the agreement was broken and MS started playing its FUD, exclusive contracts etc.
NeXT had a real industrial strength, OO OS. MS promised that MS WNT was industrial strength, and Cairo would be OO. This, together with exclusive contracts, killed NeXTStep. MS WXP still is not reliable, and Cairo still is not here.
Orange is selling a substandard product that was ripped off from Sendo. MS did not dare sell it under its own brand. Perhaps they will after Orange and others take the flak and correct the bugs.
Sendo has put tremendous effort in making MS WCE useable in a phone, but where denied enough access to source code. Now their work has showed up in HTC.
Spyglass was promised a percentage on MS IE revenue. Then MS IE was bundled with the OS and given away for free, so no revenue to calculate a percentage on.
Sun signed a license agreement with MS in which MS promised to keep Java cross platform. First they tried corrupting Java to make it MS W32-specific, then they stopped distributing it until they could finish their competitor, C#.
Sybase taught MS everything they know about databases, and even shared the source code for their SQL DBMS. MS learned what they could, then broke the partnership.
Other people have added:
Digital Research had the original CP/M, of which MS-DOS was a poor imitation. Later MS played FUD and exclusivity to crush DR-DOS.
Stac Eletronics created the filesystem compression utility when disks were expensive and slow. Microsoft copied parts of Stacker in its Doublespace.
Also mentioned were 3Com (NetBEUI, NetBIOS & SMB), Go!Computing (PenPoint) and Silicon Graphics (OpenGL), but I am not familiar with the details in these cases.
Re:List of past cases? (Score:2)
Re:List of past cases? (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple: Rip-off
Hardly. Xerox was ripped of by both MS and Apple (and others)
IBM: OS/2
It was a joined effort. MS has worked on OS/2 as well. No-one talks about the fact that IBM used MS' work when selling OS/2
Sendo: Rip-off
This is to be seen. If Sendo signed a contract MS could use the material, Sendo'll stay empty handed. And most of the time when it comes to a Company A sues company B because of IP theft it is basicly regret of company A that they've signed the wrong contract with B.
Sun: Java & C#
Come on... Both have C++ as their predecessor. If you say C# is based on Java, you then claim also that Java is the start of a new, unique path in the languages-tree. But that's not true. Java is based on C++, so C# is also based on C++.
Sybase: SQL Server
Also very wrong. MS and Sybase worked together on SQLServer, using a codebase provided by Sybase. However after 6.0 MS decided to part ways with Sybase, resulting in a 100% rewrite of SQLServer in v7.0.
Besides that, doing business with companies when IP is involved is a thing where you have to keep your IP attorney at hand for most of the time: nail everything off in tight contracts so no-one can fool you, steal your IP or rip you off in the long run. But what happens most of the time is this:
Company A, large big company, decides it's cheaper to work together with company B, small company with some intellectual property A wants. A does a proposal to B, which B rejects because it means B is selling the IP to A for a bargain. A then decides it is perhaps better to work it out in-house, so leaves B alone. B sees its targetmarket soon be transfered to the targetmarket of A, so decides to accept the offer of A. However, after a few years, B regrets this decision and wants to turn back the tables. No can do. Contracts are signed, B should have payed more attention. B can go to court, perhaps A will settle the case for some money to stop the bad press, but that will be all.
A isn't necessarily Microsoft. All big companies have this kind of cases regularly, especially companies who are in markets where having IP is having the advantage over your competitors.
Re:List of past cases? (Score:2)
Re:List of past cases? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but MS Win was a direct rip-off of the Apple Macintosh System, not of the Xerox Alto. Perhaps we would have had a better MS WXP now if its ancestry had been more than a toy...
Anyway, the point is that MS built a relationship with Apple, then abused it by doing what it asserted it would not do. Granted they have been prompted by Apple being stubborn about leaving off OEMs MS depended on, such as Compaq.
Yes, but then MS deceived IBM on its commitment to OS/2 until they had MS W16 3.1 ready. Then they refused to make MS W32 an open standard on which OS/2 could compete.
Agreed, but apart from the common type system C# has little point in existing other than providing MS its own Java competitor geared to keep and foster a preference for the MS W32 OS. Also, MS tried first to create its own Java quirks to the same effect.
It hardly matters, as by then they had learned all they wanted from Sybase. They sucked all the knowledge they wanted, then dumped their partner. As always.
Re:List of past cases? (Score:2)
Not exactly. Once you say "no, we don't like it, we're not going to use it" it's not really "ripping off" a company to then market your idea somewhere else.
Erm... IBM and MS had a contract to produce OS/2. That contract included clauses about joint marketing, and I think even non-competition agreements. While OS/2 was under development, MS was also developing Windows NT. Not only that, but they were approaching applications developers, telling them that OS/2 was going to bomb, and if they really wanted to get the jump on things, they should be developing for Win NT. Of course, since MS was involved in both projects, the other developers had every reason to believe them. Then OS/2 failed in large part because there was no software for it, and there was for NT.
Re:List of past cases? (Score:2)
Re:Xerox stuff was licensed (Score:2)
What! What I heard when I was at Xerox was that they were going to sue Apple but waited too long. I could be wrong, do you have a reference to back up your claim?
Re:Typical selective perception from a MS toadie (Score:2)
Well, that's the Apple spin on history. Xerox actually sued Apple over their GUI, so it's clear that they didn't believe they gave them permission to use it.
Re:List of past cases? (Score:2)
Stacker was a PATENT INFRINGEMENT CASE, not a stolen IP case.
here's some words from an
expert in the field of compression and patents:
http://www.ross.net/compression/
" Waterworth patented a LZ77 variant (US Patent 4701745). This algorithm
is generally referred to as as LZRW1, because Ross Williams reinvented
it later and posted it on comp.compression on April 22, 1991. The same
algorithm has later been patented by Gibson & Graybill (US Patent
5049881). The patent office failed to recognize that the same algorithm
was patented twice, even though the wording used in the two patents is
very similar.
The Waterworth patent is now owned by Stac, which won a lawsuit against
Microsoft, concerning the compression feature of MS-DOS 6.0. Damages
awarded were $120 million. (Microsoft and Stac later settled out of
court.) "
From his resume: "Consulting to Microsoft: In 1993 Stac initiated a
software patent lawsuit against Microsoft over the doublespace data
compression feature of MS-DOS 6. As part of its defence, Microsoft
retained me as an expert in text data compression. Tasks involved
searching for prior art and evaluating patents. "
Most importantly, however:
http://www.ross.net/compression/introduction.ht
"Unfortunately, during this happy rollout, some patents popped out of
the US patent system that cast a shadow over the LZRW series algorithms,
and they became effectively unuseable in any practical application. If
you want to use them in any product (whether free or commercial), you
will have to do some in-depth patent homework and algorithm
development/modification so as to avoid infringement. If you think
that's easy, then you should be aware that Microsoft tried to use an
LZ77/LZRW1/etc variant, specifically designed not to infringe existing
patents, in its MS-DOS V6 operating system, and ended up having to pay
Stac about $80m in the resulting patent lawsuit. For this reason, I
would like to take this opportunity to state that the code provided in
this web (and FTP site) is provided with the intention that it be used
for educational and recreational use only. "
Re:We might be fat... (Score:2)
Re:We might be fat... (Score:2)
I know shit all about football, I don't think anyone plays it in Scotland any more.
Most people are right-handed, so we drive on the left so they can change gear with their left hand (keeping their "good" hand on the steering wheel). We use manual gearboxes over here because slushboxes are for wusses who can't drive.
Princess Di probably wasn't a slut, but she was pretty bloody useless. Now the Russians, they really know how to treat royalty....