Les brevets sur les logiciels et leur danger pour le shareware

Europe Shareware software patents newsletter #5
9 June 2003

Webpage: http://www.europe-shareware.org/pages/brevets.fr.html



CONTENTS:

1. US Patent on an impossible algorithm

2. Verisign's patent on checking domain names

3. Spam-blocking technique patented

4. W3C adopts royalty-free policy

5. New EU directive on IP enforcement

6. eBay pays $35 millions for patent infringement

7. Is it possible to develop a PDF reader ?

8. Intellectual Ventures purchases General Magic patents

9. Movies on demand patented by Microsoft

10. Microsoft hires top IBM's patents manager




----
1. US Patent on an impossible algorithm

Jean-loup Gailly (author of gzip and expert in compression algorithms)
has commented on his website a few software patents.
Among them the US 5,533,051 patent on compression of random data.
(Filed Mar. 12, 1993; granted Jul. 2, 1996)

It happens that this patent covers a mathematically impossible process.

Jean-loup Gailly's comments:
http://gailly.net/05533051.html

A few quotes:

  � The US patent office no longer grants patents on perpetual 
    motion machines, but has recently granted at least two 
    patents on a mathematically impossible process: compression 
    of truly random data. � 


  � The first line of the patent abstract is: 

    Methods for compressing data including methods for 
    compressing highly randomized data are disclosed. 
    Page 3, line 34 of the patent states: 
    A second aspect of the present invention which further 
    enhances its ability to achieve high compression percentages, 
    is its ability to be applied to data recursively. 
    Specifically, the methods of the present invention are 
    able to make multiple passes over a file, each time further 
    compressing the file. Thus, a series of recursions are 
    repeated until the desired compression level is achieved. 
    Page 27, line 18 of the patent states that the claimed 
    method can compress without loss all files by at least one 
    bit:
    the direct bit encode method of the present invention is 
    effective for reducing an input string by one bit regardless 
    of the bit pattern of the input string. 
    A very simple counting argument shows that this is 
    mathematically impossible: 
    Assume that the program can compress without loss all 
    files of size N bits or more. Compress with this program 
    all the 2^N files which have exactly N bits. All 
    compressed files have at most N-1 bits, so there are at 
    most (2^N)-1 different compressed files [2^(N-1) files of 
    size N-1, 2^(N-2) of size N-2, and so on, down to 1 file 
    of size 0]. So at least two different input files must 
    compress to the same output file. Hence the compression 
    program cannot be lossless. 
    For more information about the counting argument, see 
    section 9.2 of the FAQ for newsgroup comp.compression. 

    If the method were indeed able to shrink any file by at 
    least one bit, applying it recursively would shrink 
    gigabytes down to a few bits. �

  � It took three years to the patent office to ascertain 
    the validity of such a patent. A person with basic 
    knowledge in mathematics and data compression can find 
    the flaws immediately upon first reading. �



----
2. Verisign's patent on checking domain names

Verisign was granted a patent on a method of simultaneously checking if
company.com company.org and company.net are taken.
This method is used by almost all registars (companies selling domain names).

The US patent: US 6,560,634

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P
arser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/
srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,560,634.WKU.&OS=PN/6,560,634&RS=PN/6,560,634



----
3. Spam-blocking technique patented

The WebTV founder, who managed to sold an unprofitable company for a
hefty $425 million to Microsoft, purchased two patents on the Challenged-
Response technology and is agressively using them against competitors.

The two patents are:
US 6,199,102 (filed in 1997) and 6,112,227 (filed in 1998)

The Challenged-Response (CR) technology is working the following way:
when someone tries to contact you, he receives a response saying
something like "click on this link to deliver this message" or "type in
the word you see in the box above." Well-designed CR utilities won't
challenge mail from known correspondents or mail that you specifically
asked to receive.


See Declan McCullagh's article "In-boxes that fight back":
http://news.com.com/2010-1032_3-1003921.html


A few quotes:

  � The problem with CR systems is that one company, 
    Mailblocks of Los Altos, Calif., claims to own all 
    rights to the concept and hopes to prevent anyone 
    else from selling such a system without paying hefty 
    licensing fees. �
   
  � Mailblocks has purchased two patents, 6,199,102 
    (filed in 1997) and 6,112,227 (filed in 1998), and 
    has been aggressive in wielding them against 
    competitors. Mailblocks' targets so far include 
    Seattle-based SpamArrest and EarthLink (after the 
    Internet provider said it would begin offering CR 
    technology to subscribers by the end of May). 
    Mailblocks has asked for a preliminary injunction 
    in both suits. �



----
4. W3C adopts royalty-free policy

After months of debate between large patent portfolio owners (IBM,
Microsoft and the likes who are in favour of royalties on next web
standards who use patented ideas) and royalty-free advocates (independent
software publishers, scientists and the open source community), the W3C
board has decided to adopt a royalty-free policy for the next web standards.

The debate has outlined the danger of an embezzlement of the universality
and openness of the web by large corporations by the means of deep
software patent portfolios.

Nevertheless the web standards are still endangered by software patents
holders who don't take part in the W3C workgroups. Such parasites can
wait for the release of a new standard and then to sue all companies
using the standard.

http://www.w3.org/2003/05/12-director-patent-decision-public.html



----
5. New EU directive on IP enforcement

The European Commission released its directive proposal on the
enforcement of intellectual property rights (copyright, patents).

The proposal, written under pressure of the movie and music sector lobby,
 compares piracy to drug trade and terrorism. 

Particularly irrational is the Article 20 which considers the
infringement of intellectual property as criminal offence if it is
intentional and for commercial purpose.
Sanctions include imprisonment, a permanent or temporary ban on engaging
in commercial activities, and many other sanctions usually deserved to
high-level criminals.

For example any developer releasing a MP3 player could be treated as a
criminal since the judge will consider that the MP3 patent is well-known
and that the developer infringed it wilfully.

Also embarassing is the fact that the European Parliament rapporteur is
Janelly Fourtou. She is wife of Jean-Ren� Fourtou, CEO of the media
conglomerate Vivendi-Universal and president of the International Chamber
of Commerce (an organization which considers patents on pharma drugs not
the source of the African problem). Vivendi-Universal has a clear
incentive to see such a directive being enforced.
Therefore Janelly Fourtou is asking for even tougher sanctions against IP
infringement.


The proposal, adopted by the Commission at the end of January, is currently 
under discussion in the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament. 
A first draft of a 'Working Document' was presented to that Committee by 
its rapporteur Janelly Fourtou on 28 April. The vote in Legal Affairs is 
foreseen for 11 September, the one in Plenary for the week following 20 
October.

References:
"Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council
on  measures and procedures to ensure the enforcement of intellectual
property 
rights"
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/pdf/2003/com2003_0046en01.pdf

"Working Document presented by Fourtou to the European Parliament's Legal 
Affairs Committee"
http://www.europarl.eu.int/meetdocs/committees/juri/20030428/495099EN.pdf

EFFI statement:
http://www.effi.org/julkaisut/lausunnot/ipr_enforcement_lausunto.en.html

The News.com article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-1003578.html

A few quotes:

  � A new European Union proposal for harmonizing 
    intellectual property law enforcement across 
    member states has come under criticism from the 
    first parliamentary committee to review it.  

    The committee has suggested that the proposal may 
    need to be modified to better reflect the 
    interests of the music and film industries. �

  � Janelly Fourtou, the committee's rapporteur, 
    included many of the record industry's arguments 
    in the report. "The Commission considers it 
    essential to crack down on the 'big' offenders, 
    and the proposal accordingly focuses on 
    infringements committed for commercial purposes 
    or causing significant harm to right holders," 
    she wrote, noting: "This view has been severely 
    criticized by some industries." �

  � Fourtou also saw as problematic the proposal's 
    insistence that the pursuit of intellectual 
    property pirates should not create "barriers 
    to legitimate trade," suggesting that this 
    appeared to be an unnecessary caution. �



----
6. eBay pays $35 millions for patent infringement

A US Court stated that eBay must pay $35 millions to MercExchange since
it founds that eBay infringed on 3 of its patents on auction softwares
and processes.

One of the patents covers the "Buy immediately" (sofort Kauf) feature
offered by most e-commerce websites, that is to say $1,4 billions of
products sold on the net during this year's first quarter.

The article from Heise (in German):
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/see-28.05.03-000/

A few quotes (German):

  � Woolston [the patente owner] wirft dem 
    Internet-Auktionshaus vor, unter anderem 
    gegen sein Patent 5,845,265 versto�en zu haben, 
    das im Web angebotene Marktpl�tze juristisch 
    sch�tzt. Nach Angaben der New York Times dreht 
    sich der momentane Streit vor allem um den 
    Festpreis-Verkauf bei eBay. �

  � Der Festpreis-Verkauf hat f�r eBay an 
    st�ndiger Bedeutung gewonnen, seit Half.com 
    im Juni 2000 seine "Sofort-Kauf"-Option auf 
    der Auktions- Plattform von eBay platziert hat. 
    Die dazugeh�rige Software soll zu gro�en 
    Teilen von Woolstons Software, ohne Nachfrage 
    oder Anteilszahlung, kopiert worden sein. 
    Allein durch die "Sofort-Kauf"-Option sollen 
    im ersten Viertel des Jahres Artikel im Wert 
    von 1,4 Milliarden US-Dollar umgesetzt worden 
    sein. Das w�ren rund 26 Prozent aller Verk�ufe 
    auf eBay. MercExchange m�chte durch eine 
    einstweilige Verf�gung sogar die Einstellung 
    der "Sofort- Kauf"-M�glichkeit erwirken. �



----
7. Is it possible to develop a PDF reader ?

I did today a research in the US Patent Office database about the way
Adobe protects its PDF reader.

Adobe's lawyers were quite imaginative and found the way to file 39
patents on the "technologies" used by Adobe Acrobat reader.  

4,837,613; 5,050,103; 5,185,818;
5,200,740; 5,233,336; 5,237,313; 5,255,357; 5,546,528; 5,625,711;
5,634,064; 5,729,637; 5,737,599; 5,754,873; 5,781,785; 5,819,301;
5,832,530; 5,832,531; 5,835,634; 5,860,074; 5,929,866; 5,930,813;
5,943,063; 5,995,086; 5,999,649; 6,049,339; 6,073,148; 6,185,684;
6,205,549; 6,275,587; 6,289,364; 6,324,555; 6,385,350; 6,408,092;
6,411,730; 6,415,278; 6,421,460; 6,466,210; 6,507,848; 6,515,675;

Developers must be cautious when developing applications that support
PDF. Probably any PDF program without license from Adobe is illegal. 



----
8. Intellectual Ventures purchases General Magic patents

The technology licensing firm founded by ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold
just bought the patents of General Magic.
The patents cover software agents and voice communications (patents
granted during the early and mid-nineties) 

Even if Intellectual Ventures didn't said what it will do with such
patents, intellectual property professionals say that the only thing you
can do with
such patents is sue someone else.



----
9. Movies on demand patented by Microsoft

Microsoft has just been granted exclusive United States patent rights to
a "networked interactive entertainment system" which "allows viewers to
create their own customized lists of preferred video content programs,
such as movies, games, [and] TV shows.". Main claim being "Interactive
entertainment network system and method for customizing operation thereof
according to viewer preferences.".
That is to say that all movies on demand solutions infringe on the
Microsoft patent claims. For example in Europe movies on demand
technologies are offered by satellite networks or cable operators such as
Canal+ or TPS.

The US Patent: US 6,571,390

The Heise article (German):
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/ola-05.06.03-003/

The Embedded Watch article:
http://www.embeddedwatch.com/wolfemicrosoftexclusivemay31.htm

A few quotes:

  � If your company is thinking about delivering 
    interactive video-on-demand cable-television 
    programming or movies via satellite to 
    consumers, maybe it'd better start thinking 
    about paying royalties to Microsoft first. �
     
  � Indeed, judging by the summary description 
    included in the patent filing, it looks like 
    Microsoft may have locked up rights to any 
    system which offers up time-shifted movies or 
    television programs over cable, broadband, or 
    satellite systems. �

  � A casual observer might question whether 
    Microsoft's patent is anything original, 
    especially since most cable systems offer 
    movies on demand along with viewer program 
    guides. However, the patent inspectors 
    employed by the U.S. government apparently 
    felt Microsoft's work was original. 
    Regardless, under U.S. law, once a patent is 
    granted, the assignee (in this case, 
    Microsoft Corp. has legal control of the 
    patent filed by two of their engineers, 
    Matthew W. Dunn and Daniel J. Shoff) holds 
    all rights to the ideas described in the 
    patent filing. �



----
10. Microsoft hires top IBM's patents manager

Microsoft hired the IBM manager who was in charge of patents.
This man worked since 28 years for IBM as an expert in IP.

The article from Heise:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/anw-06.06.03-005/

 

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