Microsoft, Apple Sued For Patented Online Updates
from the how-dare-they! dept
Last month, a company named BTG announced that they held the "worldwide licensing rights" for a patent on automatic updates over the internet -- and (of course) they expected everyone to pay up, including Microsoft. Well, it appears that the Microsoft lawyers laughed them out of the room, so now BTG has been forced to sue both Microsoft and Apple for violating patent 6,557,054 on "A method and system for distributing updates by presenting directory of software available for user installation that is not already installed on user station." And people still think our patent system works great? The patent was applied for in April of 2000. There must be a ridiculous amount of prior art of applications that updated themselves prior to that.
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Debian
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Date of 'Invention'
LIST OF RELATED APPLICATIONS
This is a combined Continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 08/641,010, filed on Apr. 29, 1996, and entitled "COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED TRANSPORT OF ELECTRONIC INFORMATION OBJECTS," which is a Continuation-in-Part of U.S. application Ser. No. 08/251,824, filed on May 31, 1994, and entitled "SYSTEM FOR AUTOMATIC UNATTENDED ELECTRONIC INFORMATION TRANSPORT BETWEEN A SERVER AND A CLIENT BY A VENDOR PROVIDED TRANSPORT SOFTWARE WITH A MANIFEST LIST," which as U.S. Pat. No. 5,420,820 on May 30, 1995, and U.S. application Ser. No. 08/982,157, filed on Dec. 1, 1997, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,125,388 and entitled "COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED TRANSPORT OF ELECTRONIC INFORMATION OBJECTS," which is a Continuation of the aforementioned Ser. No.08/251,724 filed May 31, 1994 (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,694,546). All of the above-identified applications are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
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skeptical
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Re: skeptical
The strategy would be to ‘fly under the radar’ for some time.
You mean like SCO did ?[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: skeptical
Because in a litigation-based economy, it would be a tactical mistake to sue the biggest players.
Not necessarily. Big companies have a) deep pockets and b) an obligation to maximize their profits. If the patent-owner can convice the company that it'd just be cheaper to settle, they'll often roll over.
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own medicine
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