Lucent Sues Microsoft, Wants All 360s Recalled

robyannetta writes "Lucent has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, demanding that they pull all Xbox 360s from the market. Lucent claims that Microsoft has violated their MPEG2 patents which they claim they patented in 1993." While it's unlikely console will be pulled from shelves, it's one way to generate some publicity.

Not at all comfortable with the implications ..

[Entropy]

Wow. Suppose this were to happen with other electronics ..

I mean, how exactly are they supposed to really enforce such a thing? Would owning an XBOX 360 then be illegal? If that becomes precedent, that frankly scares the shit out of me. Ten years down the line, having some of my electronics retroactively made illegal to possess?

I'm no MS fanboy by the stretch of anyone's imagination - frankly I loathe them.

But given the wider implications here, I hope they get a partial victory out of this - such that people who allready have this equipment can keep it.

Is MS at fault or the graphic chip maker?

[t0qer]

See above. So which is it? Nvidia makes thier graphics chip right? So wouldn't the blame chain trickle down to them?

PS, typin live at my karaoke show right now. Follow the link in my sig, say hi, if you like streamin video of drunk girls singin.

All 360s?

[JoeShmoe]

So that's like, what, ten or twelve tops? It's still on preorder everywhere I've visited.

In all seriousness...how can this even be possible as a lawsuit. I think someone didn't refresh their browser and saw a joke news story from April 1st.

MPEG2 and all MPEG related standards are "owned" by MPEG LA, who licenses the technology. It would be one thing if Microsoft deployed a product with MPEG2 playback capabilities without paying the license, but then where is Lucent in all this? Is this some crappy dredge up of a vague compression scheme like Unisys pulled?

If so, why Microsoft? There's about a billion DVD players out in the market right now that would be infringing on this patent. Maybe the patent is only related to MPEG2 and networks? Whoops...a billion PCs out there that would be targets. Isn't Lucent in the middle of being bought by some French company? Does it make any sense to begin some protracted NTP vs Blackberry type war in the middle of that?
ite
The whole article amounts to two lines on some website I've never heard of so...I'm calling it a belated April Fool's...the April Fool being CowboyNeal.

-JoeShmoe
.

I hope Lucent wins and the 360 is scrapped.

[mark-t]

Not because I want them to stick it to Microsoft, but because Microsoft has the dollars behind it to be able to make a difference in the future, and would be motivated to do so when they personally feel the impact that software patents are having on software development.

Re:The continuing problem of patents...

[gameforge]

I personally like how John Carmack relates software patents to getting mugged... to state loosely what he said, you think of the patent system as being in place to help the poor inventor guy who spends his whole life working on his one little invention, and then some large billion dollar company comes along and steals the idea and gets rich, leaving no credit to him. In that case, patents are great.

But if five companies hire five programmers to set out and do the exact same thing, the first one to make it to the patent office takes the cake and everyone else gets sucked into the legal blackhole (or just goes home with their tail between their legs).

It's definitely time to revisit our patent laws regarding technology; the industry moves too fast - patents like this literally stop innovation and cause consumers to pay out the ass for everything.

I agree that copyrights are a little more reasonable; it should be illegal to clone the next guy's solution; but it should not be illegal to solve the same problem.

Re:The Patent

[servoled]

Seeing as how the article mentions a decoder, I'd assume this is the claim they're talking about:

13. An apparatus for decoding a compressed digital video signal, comprising:

a means for receiving a compressed digital video bit stream; and

a means responsive to a motion compensation type signal for selectively and adaptively performing motion compensated decoding of frames of the compressed video bit stream.

Claims that include "means for" fall under the provisions of 35 USC 112, 6th paragraph which states:

An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.

So, if you want to figure out what this is actually claiming, you have to read the entire specification to determine what the claimed "means" actually correspond to. However, I'm guessing the vast majority out there will condemn the claim, patent and lawsuit without bothering to take the time to find out what the actual issue is.

M.A.D. Software Patents

[Phat_Tony]

I thought that, among huge companies, the current insane state of the patent system functioned the way the superpowers did in the cold war- under the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction. Since they all have thousands of patents covering every inane and obvious aspect of doing anything from writing software to building jets to flipping a hamburger to taking a piss, I thought they couldn't afford to start suing one another, because any suit would be met with a dozen counter-suits, and both companies would be assuring the annihilation of their profits into a bloody cataclysm of endless legal fees.

I understand how little extortion, er, "Property Management" firms can sue the likes of RIM, because they don't make or do anything but leech off anyone successful, so you can't threaten them with anything. Or a company on its last legs can make a crazy last-ditch effort to sue themselves into profitability, like SCO. But what's Lucent really doing here? Isn't Microsoft going to turn around and use it's double-click patent [slashdot.org] to try to make Lucent stop selling everything they make that involves a GUI at any point? Among thousands of other similar suits they could doubtlessly file covering every aspect of everything Lucent does.

Basically, what's Lucent thinking, and why doesn't MAD work here?

Re:Just because it is MS

[jambarama]

Not to plug my blog, but I recently wrote about patent abuse [blogspot.com]. The problem isn't so much unethical companies, the problem is that the incentives to patent are all wrong.

Microsoft is remarkably clean of patent/copyright abuse. Most other companies have less than perfect records. Even companies we see as victimized (ex - Apple sued by creative over 'heirarchal displays' and the Apple record label) have sued others (ex - apple again suing over trade secrets and tried to get gag orders for blogs).

Yeah the Mac fans will bury this comment (just like criticizing Linux is dangerous on /.) but the patent system does need some reforming.

Re:This is a nonsense article.

[Twench]

If you had RTFA, you'd realize that their goal might not be to really get the Xbox360 pulled.

I managed to take the 3 seconds to RTFA. The passage you mention is simply an editorial add-on from this presumably Sony affiliated gamer site. They have no more knowledge of Lucent's intentions than anyone here. Though, no lawsuit is filed with the intention of having a product pulled from the shelves. There is no profit in that. My guess is Lucent wants a big pay day and they hope M$ will simply pay up because it will be cheaper.

Doesn't seem like the Microsoft we all know...

[OwlWhacker]

Wasn't Microsoft claiming that it would protect all users of its software from intellectual property threats? Wasn't Microsoft suggesting that Linux/Open Source software was unable to provide indemnification in this way, and using this in its fight to bring down Linux/Open Soruce?

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/facts /topics/policy.mspx [microsoft.com]

So why isn't Microsoft offering the same protection for Xbox users? Is it because it doesn't have enough power behind it to fight back against these issues in the console market?

Re:Doesn't seem like the Microsoft we all know...

[zcat_NZ]

Microsoft was claiming it will indemnify _some_ of it's most valuable corporate customers.

Home and small businesses users were never included, and anyone who wanted this protection had to be prepared to immediately upgrade/downgrade to whatever non-infringing alternative Microsoft offers, which may include the removal of functionality your business has come to rely on.

All very reassuring, as long as you don't read the fine print!

Re:The continuing problem of patents...

[gameforge]

The main area that patents should be allowed is in truly revolutionary technology, not evolutionary.

Exactly!

Even in this case, the poor inventor will have very hard time to defend itself against a company that can afford a whole lawyer company during 100 years.

This is true. But, people like to think of the lone inventor who's spent his entire life, yada yada yada.

not every 'little invention' is a 'revolutionary invention'...like something that improve lawnmowner blade durability by 5%

I agree with you. In that case, if ten lawnmower companies all hire ten alloy chemists to improve the durability of their blades, then it's just ten people doing their jobs. Neither the chemists nor their employers should have any patents on anything - they took an existing invention (the power lawnmower) and improved it (slightly).

Neither MS nor Lucent invented MPEG, and neither of them invented microchips. MPEG and microchips are both patent-deserving revolutionary inventions; but putting a software algorithm into a chip is basic stuff. If MS used Lucent's exact specification for doing so, perhaps there's a copyright infringement somewhere... that's about it.

The more I think about it, the more I think we should do away with patent law altogether, or mainly apply it to credit's sake i.e. if I come up with a new kind of telephone, I would have to give credit to A.G. Bell for his invention; not pay him a bunch of royalties. He didn't build my phone, he built his own and has every right to market and sell his phone. He also has every right to claim that he's the inventor. But I built my phone, and thus should be making the money for it, while stating something like "Based on technology from Alexander Bell, etc."

There's six billion people on the planet. Two of them are likely to have the same idea; it's absolutely not fair that one of them gets all the money just because he made it to the patent office first, or that he thought of it first, or whatever. People work for money. If I think up a brilliant idea and patent it, I did a little work... but all of the other people who perfect my idea, produce it, market it, support it, etc. are the real workers, and should be compensated as such. Essentially, the lone inventor is at fault for trying to do everything himself and not trying to work with all of the other talented people in an organization that could really make his idea work for society in a beneficial way. It's a radical idea I suppose, but very applicable to software. After all, we as programmers are constantly taught not to reinvent the wheel, when in fact patent law forces us to.

Am I in another universe here, or does that seem reasonable?

This would be good news if . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . Microsoft couldn't just buy all of Lucent, fire everyone and part the company out to the highest bidder.

Don't mess with people who have enough money to buy you and all of your competition . . . There is no job security in that.

Re:I definately agree

[DrSkwid]

> Unless things have changed MASSIVELY at Lucent within the past 3-4 years

Does this count ? :

On April 2, 2006, Alcatel and Lucent announced that they entered into a definitive merger agreement to create the first truly global communications solutions provider with the broadest wireless, wireline and services portfolio in the industry.

http://www.lucent.com/news_events/merg.html [lucent.com]

Re:This is a nonsense article.

[mausmalone]

From the patent:

a means responsive to the digital video input signal for producing a field frame coding type signal which directs a selected one, but not both, of the frame coding means or the field coding means to code the digital video input signal.

Wait, let me see if I'm reading this right. They're going after people who use MPEG2 because they patented the interlace bit? You've gotta be out of your freaking mind! Can anyone really own a patent to add a single bit to a frame that says 0=progressive, 1=interlaced?

I don't see how this could possibly hold up, being a patent from 1993. There were video codecs before 1993, and surely they all had information stored in each frame that described how to decode the frame. Storing whether or not the frame is interlaced isn't enough of an advance from just generically storing frame information to warant a patent, and it never should've been granted.