This Week In Techdirt History: November 12th - 18th

from the forgotten-but-not-gone dept

Five Years Ago

We've been talking a lot about copyright in these history posts recently, but this week in 2012 there was more news on the patent front. While patent troll TQP Development was launching a new crusade against hundreds of companies, the patent-aggressive medical device company Medtronic was getting a taste of its own medicine, and HTC and Apple were putting a patent dispute to rest. IBM's patent lawyer was making some vague arguments in defense of the patent system, while an excellet Wired article was laying out said system's many problems, and a Harvard research scientist was declaring sharing discoveries to be more efficient and honorable than patenting them.

Ten Years Ago

There was plenty of patent news this week in 2007 too, with a random patent over computer databases rearing its head to extract some cash from Google, and an astounding new case over a text messaging patent targeting 131 defendants. Patent hoarder Acacia was launching some new attacks while losing at least one lawsuit, and Nathan Myhrvold was raising $1-billion to buy even more patents to troll people with. Garmin and TomTom settled a patent dispute to concentrate on acquisition fights, an analyst firm succeeded in escaping an aggressive patent lawsuit over data collection, and we took a closer look at the sovereign immunity laws that were letting State Universities sue over patents without ever getting sued back.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2002, Hollywood was launching its too-little-too-late VOD service Movielink, while music labels were struggling to catch up with digital distribution after dragging their heels for far too long (with EMI taking an extremely slight lead). While the legal battle over DVD copying software remained unresolved, the software was released anyway, right around the same time that Sony and Phillips teamed up to buy a DRM company.

But probably our most interesting headline in retrospect was US Plans Huge Computer System To Spy On The Public. This, in 2002, referred to the first reports on DARPA's new Information Awareness Office, which was so controversial that Congress would de-fund it the following year. It would be another ten years before the Snowden leaks revealed that its key surveillance programs had simply been renamed and moved to different agencies, and continued to receive funding under classified annexes.

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Filed Under: history, look back