Win95 product keys did not involve activation nor hardware locking, they were simple CD keys (i.e. serial numbers). MS didn't implement Product Activation (which is the concept behind this patent) until Windows XP's release in 2001. This infringement lawsuit apparently occurred in 2003. Knowing the pace at which legal proceedings move, and the likely event Richardson attempted to negotiate/settle with MS prior to going to court, 2 years for the lawsuit to happen doesn't sound that unreasonable.

The Internet was around a helluva long time before 1993, but it had virtually no consumer market penetration until the mid-90's. Before then it was primarily available only via educational and research institutions and the military, a few corporations, and as you mentioned via shell access from some proprietary networks like CIS, Genie, AOL, etc. However that was hardly common to market mainstream products like games and shareware against, and without TCP/IP stacks and socket APIs built into most home OSes at the time it was next to impossible to have an external application transfer data through a 3rd party bridge. As a developer in those days, my employers spent big bucks on IP stacks and libraries for DOS and Windows 3.x. On that note, being a lifelong geek from back in the day when you built your own computers, and working in the industry since the mid-80's, I was one of the first dozen or so people in my city to have my own internet dial-up account in '94 or '95. Therefore, while in 1993 there may have been a few homes with internet access, there was virtually nothing marketable to consumers that relied on internet access. The internet did not become a widespread consumer technology until the WWW really took off, which didn't happen until the mid-90s. The Mosaic browser wasn't even released until 1993, which is widely considered the initial launching point of the WWW.

Again, I think most of you are missing the details in this patent claim. This is NOT a simple serial number scheme. The shareware/games of the 80's and 90's, not to mention the Windows releases up through Win2000, typically used a serial registration scheme that simply verified through some algorithm and checksum that the serial was valid. However it did not:

(a) verify anything online (since there was no universal online network, just some proprietary networks like CompuServe, Genie, etc. and private BBSes). The majority of PC owners didn't even have modems in those days. Making them dial-in to a proprietary activation network would have been a nightmare, and having been around in those days and installing a LOT of software back then, I never recall one doing so. And...
(b) lock itself to the hardware platform

These two distinctions are what appear to make this quite likely a novel patent at the time, and again while I don't care for much of the current state of patent law, patent trolls, et al, this does seem to fit the requirements for a novel and unique way to do something, and thus be protectable by patent. It's NOT just a conglomeration of existing patents or schemes.

Think about it from the following perspective:

- Someone has this idea about how to lock a software activation to the user's hardware AND require them to validate the activation online, years before it can even be practically implemented
- Years later, after successfully licensing said scheme to the gaming industry, this person approaches Microsoft with this activation scheme as a suggesting for protecting upcoming versions of of their software
- MS says "No Thanks!"
- MS then proceeds to implement a virtually identical protection scheme on their new Windows XP release.

How could anyone criticize the patent holder, and find MS not liable, given that information (assuming it is all correct, I just listed it as I understand it)? It's a classic case of bully infringement, one that mega-corporations often do against little guys who they figure won't have the guts/resources to sue, and if they do, they'll just wear them down in litigation costs. They have little to lose other than their integrity, which most don't really care about when it doesn't affect their bottom line, and even then they have a massive PR machine to vilify the victim as a greedy, money-hungry lech.

The only issue I have is with the way the legal complaint was written, claiming that "The company alleged Microsoft earned billions of dollars by using the technology in its Windows XP and Office programs." MS didn't earn billions because of this activation scheme -- in fact if you believe some of the anti-DRM folks, it cost them some sales, though likely negligible. They would have earned billions without it as well. And hell, the activation scheme they implemented was hardly successful against piracy anyway. So at least that part of the claim is disingenuous at best.

But this doesn't describe a simple serial scheme. The serial registration from the 80's was merely a serial/CRC algorithm that verified a valid serial format was entered, but did nothing to check the user's hardware. This patent, as well as Microsoft's activation, uses a hash derived from hardware configuration, making the serial unique to the PC installed on. So if this patent was indeed registered in the 80's (not sure it was, just assuming so from the above comment as I haven't looked it up), then it would seem novel to me unless someone can point out a similar mechanism from that time period. And from other comments it appears that the Richardson approached MS with the idea, which MS declined but went on to develop a virtually identical mechanism. I don't normally favor patent legislation like this, but being as that is SOOO like MS to steal instead of innovate, I'd be inclined to support Richardson on his claim. That said, MS isn't alone here. As mentioned, many other software developers use similar schemes that utilize hardware parameters to lock a registration to the current machine. Not only the CP schemes used by games, but many others as well. MS has the deepest pockets, though, and if the claims that they snubbed Richardson and then copied his idea is true, they deserve to be sued for it. /Devil's Advocate

Microsoft only? If one wants to run Linux on their Sony PC, there is nothing stopping them. Whether they use VirtualBox or any other VM solution, with or without CPU VM extensions, or install natively. I've been running Ubuntu on my VAIO for 18 months now, and everything is supported, including the special buttons, webcam, etc.

As was mentioned, Google is your friend. You can find out how to "hack" this to work on a number of laptop forums. Within a week of buying my VAIO AR670 about 18 months ago (also with VT disabled in the BIOS), I found the hex byte signature to look for in a BIOS image file and patched them to enable VT.