MS Palladium Patent

Concerned Citizen writes "cryptome has Microsoft's patent for Palladium. Including such gems as: 2. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein protecting the rights-managed data comprises: refusing to load the untrusted program into memory. 14. The computerized method of claim 1, further comprising: restricting a user to a subset of available functions for manipulating the rights-managed data. And I'm sure we'll all be coerced to agree to Palliadium during a future security patch agreement."

Security Patches

[aivic]

No modifications to the EULA were made in the latest build of XP SP1... maybe the next?

Re:how 'bout apple

[tunah]

Microsoft bought a bunch of non-voting stock in apple as part of a deal that included cross licensing of patents. This settled a long running dispute of MS supposedly stealing apple's look and feel.

Microsoft quietly sold their stock (for a profit) some time afterward.

Doesn't Java do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't Java's sandbox model refuses to load untrusted program into memory (if set up o only run signed applets) and restricta a user to a subset of available functions for manipulating rights-managed data?

Follow-up to Cringely's Column

[donnacha]

Most of you will remember a last week's /. story [slashdot.org] which mentioned Robert X. Cringely's column on Palladium, the maturely entitled I Told You So [pbs.org].

It's probably worth noting that Cringely responds in this week's column [pbs.org] to the reaction that followed that original panicked (and, knowing MS, probably justified) outburst.

Re:Doesn't Java do this?

[marxmarv]

Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't Java's sandbox model refuses to load untrusted program into memory (if set up o only run signed applets) and restricta a user to a subset of available functions for manipulating rights-managed data?

As far as I know there isn't anything in Java that distinguishes the access rights of any particular piece of data, but you can install a custom SecurityManager in the JVM that can deny certain actions taken by particular threads, use a custom ClassLoader to ensure that signed classes can take extra privileges not granted by default, and ensure only signed classes get access to rights-managed data. Unless it's in silicon, you can still break the JVM, a la Ken Thompson's famous login/cc hack.

-jhp

Palladium / TCPA FAQ

[ThatTallGuy]

A prior post mentioned Robert Cringley's articles; I found them less enlightening than one of the things he linked to, a FAQ on Palladium and TCPA [cam.ac.uk] that clearly and logically explains the positive and negative effects of the system. An excellent resource to point your underinformed purchasing manager or congresscritter to.

C'mon, Judge Kollar-Kotelly, make me proud. :)

You folks don't no sh*t about patent law

[Anonymous Coward]

Everytime I read articles like this on Slashdot my head explodes. The claims that were posted are dependent claims. That means that they further limit the parent patent claim. In this case it's claim 1) that's why all the post claims keep saying "the method of claim 1 wherein,.." The scope of the invention is not the posted claim, but the posted claim plus claim 1.

So while all you dorks think the scope of the invention is very broad, it's really very narrow because it further limts claim 1. The real issue is this: did claim 1 meet the requirements of patentability. For those that don't know there are two requirements - 1) is it novel and 2) is it not obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art. To show that it fails to meet requirement 1 you have to show that the invention was published or displayed in public one year prior to the filing of the patent applications. It's very difficult to prove that it doesn't meet the second requirement because what is "obivous to one of ordinary skill in the art" can be subjective. What's obvious to programmer without a degree may not be obvious to one with a Ph.D. or visa versa.

Re:Coercion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well PIII s from 1.13A and above don't have the serial number, noe do any P4 processors, so that's no reason to limit yourself.

None of the AMDs have ever had it I believe.

You Moron.

[Anonymous Coward]

You know nothing. I repeat nothing about patent law.

The patented invention is not just the claim you highlighted. It's claim 1 + what you highlighted. So to be good prior art you need to find a single invention that contains all the elements in claim 1 and 14 or whatever dependent claim you're looking at.