Microsoft, Autodesk Guilty of Patent Infringement

rfunches writes "A Texas jury has awarded $133 million in damages to David Colvin, after finding Microsoft and Autodesk guilty of infringing upon Colvin's two software patents for software antipiracy protection. Colvin's company, z4 Technologies Inc., filed patents for 'passwords and codes assigned to individual software copies to prevent unauthorized copies.' Microsoft was ordered to pay $115 million, and Autodesk $18 million for infringement of the product-activation schemes. A spokesman from Microsoft contends that 'Microsoft developed its own product-activation technologies well before z4 Technologies filed for its patent.' Appeals are expected."

Oh for the love of crap...

[Rob T Firefly]

That is a groundless patent, with tons of prior art and such a basic part of the software industry that David Colvin has no business owning a patent on it any more than MS deserves ownership of the double-click. *sigh* I'm going to have to side with MS on this one.

Anyone else reminded of the "South Park" election episode, where the only available choices were a big douche or a turd sandwich?

Or, make the other person give up their sword

[ciroknight]

Microsoft has a lot of money, and with that money, they can afford these things called "lawyers". Since they can afford more of these than the smaller company, it really doesn't matter if Microsoft believes the patent truly is invalid or not; they can wave enough FUD around until the company settles, or until the Judge in the case gets a headache and starts doing silly things.

Sadly, David vs. Goliath only really works on Television.

Re:Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword

[paladinwannabe2]

Sure Microsoft patents stupid things, but they don't go around suing people for using double-clicking... the purpose of those patents is to keep morons from suing Microsoft when Microsoft uses double-clicking. If Microsoft was going around suing people for patent infringement, I would say that they were getting what they deserve. This, however, just encourages companies like Microsoft to patent every simple thing they do, no matter how obvious, because if they don't someone else will and sue them.

Re:Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword

[morgan_greywolf]

As much as I love the idea of the sweet justice of Microsoft getting slammed by a nuisance patent suit, I gotta say that I can't understand why the jury awarded damages other than Colvin was "the little guy."

I'm a CAD and PDM systems analyst, and I know for a fact taht Autodesk has been using their current product activation scheme at least since AutoCAD R13 was released, I think in 1996 or so. I think they may also have used it in R12, R11, and R10, but I'm not sure if it's the exact same one they are using now. As the parent poster noted in a different post, Colvin got his patent in 2000.

Re:Or, make the other person give up their sword

[peragrin]

That doesn't work. Eloas, this guy, Burst are all Patent trolls. less than 5 men companies with lawyers who smell Money.

MSFT routinely pays out hundreds of millions of dollars per case. You want easy money. patent something stupid and sue msft for it. Chances are you will not only win money but enough to cover your time and expenses for the couple of years your in court.

Re:No activation codes?

[jim_v2000]

The single biggest thing that held back WinXP OTS sales is the product activation scheme.

Good point. I still haven't purchased a copy of XP for that reason alone. I don't mind hte price, I just don't want to have to reactive everytime I change hardware.