A company called eSoft was recently granted a patent for “systems and methods for selecting, ordering, installing, managing, updating, and if necessary, uninstalling software applications.” Their first step has been to sue their major competitors, but it appears that online software update systems of all kinds could be covered by this patent, which would mean that Windows
Update, OS X Software Update, Redhat’s up2date, and YUM, among others, would be infringing.
Ehm… someone didn’t do their background checking…
Well, in this case there will be Microsoft and Apple defending against the patent so I guess we shouldn’t worry _that_ much about it…
Thanks for catching that. I’ve made the correction.
We’re all going to have to log off of our computers and go out in the yard and play the Hokey Pokey. Wait… maybe I can patent it!!
Paul Graham has a nice essay about software patents:
http://www.paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html
One of the best writeups on the subject that I’ve read so far.
Whilst Mr Graham presumably has experience in advising businesses operating within the ridiculous US patent regime, and whilst his essay gives a reasonable insight into the forces at work around patents and patenting, his experience apparently only compels him to verbosely and patronisingly sit on the fence (he knows so much on the subject, apparently, but can’t be bothered to do the additional “several weeks of research” to tell the other “99.9% of the people who express opinions on the subject” why we’re so ignorant), absurdly claiming that software development would be a secret society without patents. Clearly, Mr Graham chooses to ignore the growth of large parts of the software industry without everyone licensing everyone else’s patents, the “ideas density” that you get in software, mathematics and business processes where it’s inevitable that people frequently discover the same concepts independently and where new works almost always build on old ones, and the scientific tradition for the free exchange of ideas.
His remark that people who are against software patents must also be against patents in general, presumably formulated to make opponents of software patents seem like anti-capitalist idealogues in light of his “pragmatic” “can we fix the system?” ruminations, accidentally stumbles across a point worth considering: as large corporations such as those in the pharmaceutical industry slap patents on everything, including publicly-funded research, and as patents cause scarcity, price inflation and (especially in the case of “big pharma”) hurt people in the developing world, can we live with such an archaic monopoly-granting system and have a clear conscience?
Yes, Mr Graham, the matter is somewhat more important than whether your “1998-style with Web 2.0 gloss” start-up goes public or gets bought out, presumably with champagne and cabriolets all round.
It is long, but as with many good articles/essays, Paul Graham’s words are best when taken as a whole rather than just a few good points here and there. It certainly puts the term “pirated software” in a different light when you think of the historical and current relationship between merchants and pirates.
eSoft seems to be one of the patent trolls that was mentioned. Are they suing because they truly have something to protect, or are they suing simply because they would like to extort money from real products?
Paul Graham also makes a good point that the patent system was originally established to foster innovation through the sharing of ideas while protecting the creator’s interests. Software patents don’t have to be inherently bad. The rub lies in their implementation.
The USPTO has granted far too many bogus patents, and with software the difference between obvious and non-obvious can be quite difficult to define making the situation worse. Computer-related technology also moves at a much more rapid pace than the technologies that the patent system was originally designed to protect.
I don’t think that the patent system should be abolished (it seems to have served the purpose for which it was created and should be allowed to continue). I think the patent system is in serious need of reform though. The issue of patent trolls should be solved as well as making it possible for computer-related technologies to progress at a natural pace instead of being locked into a pace that seemed appropriate for the first combustion engines.
“eSoft seems to be one of the patent trolls that was mentioned. Are they suing because they truly have something to protect, or are they suing simply because they would like to extort money from real products?”
The latter, no doubt. I work in the networking and security field and I havent ever heard of eSoft as a provider of anything. Actually, until today I hadn’t heard of them at all.
They’re just another worthless company without a sustainable business model that tries to cash in on the flaws of the U.S patent office.
This patent is as ridiculous as “Exercise for your cat to prevent obesity using laser pointer” patent. That’s why lawyer is #1 job in US, while IT only #9.
Problem is, the “exercise your cat” patent was done specifically to prove how silly the patent system has become. This one is serious. I can’t blame this company for wanting to get this patent though. They could end up putting their competitors out of business and extracting a bunch of money from a lot of big commercial software vendors for licenses.
“I can’t blame this company for wanting to get this patent though”
Of course you can blame them. It’s total unethical bullshit.
“They could end up putting their competitors out of business and extracting a bunch of money from a lot of big commercial software vendors for licenses.”
So? That’s like saying that anything is ok as long as you can make money.
“Of course you can blame them. It’s total unethical bullshit. “
You deserve to be modded up just for that.
Patents in general are total bullshit, only the rich can get anything out of the patent system because of the cost of legal battles, and it’s a biased system with retards passing almost any patent without putting any mental effort behind it. I mean come on people, Microsoft got a patent for tabbed browsing long after Mozilla Firefox and Opera had implemented it, RIM got screwed over a patent on something as simple as wireless e-mail which the prosecuting company hadn’t even implemented. Hey, there’s even patents on stiff envelopes that stick out so CD’s and small books can be put in them, just look up “bevelope”. We’re sabotaging our own industries and future here people!
> “I can’t blame this company for wanting to get this patent though”
> Of course you can blame them. It’s total unethical bullshit.
So you blame them for not waiting until their competitors get that patent and sue them out of business?
It’s the patent system which is to blame, not this company.
Patent was filed in 2001 – many of the threatened applications mentioned must of themselves constitute prior art.
Correct: and you need only *one* prior art example to invalidate a patent.
“Apt” in particular definitely existed before 2000: I can remember Debian having it in ’97, actually.
And cvsup, that is even older…
Is it the idea they’re patenting, or actual technology? If ideas alone are patentable, well…
…next, we’re gonna hear of someone patenting my route to work.
IMHO
Jb
Well, if it’s non-obvious and innovative…
Does it mean they’re going to provide their own version of software/os update for every operating system that they sue?
Nope, probably they’ll just expect the manufacturer of that OS to pay them money for the right to update it.
This is really getting absurd. Seems like ANYONE can get a patent for ANYTHING now. Does the patent office bother to check anything anymore? Theres years of prior art on this one!
I mean, really, wtf?
…it’s always funny to see how broken the US patent system is.
Sooner or later americans will understand how seriously devastating patents are.
If you don’t want competition don’t produce anything. If you produce something, expect competition. Instead of trying to prevent competition by buying politicians, so they will pass competition preventing laws.
Anyway… the system is going down bigtime. And the rest of us can laugh at the silly american patent system.
…it’s always funny to see how broken the US patent system is.
There *should* be a lot of bright minds checking over submitted patents. Lately it appears there is just a few people that rubber stamp everying that comes across their desk. Not exactly surprising to see a government run operation be mismanaged in this way though.
“There *should* be a lot of bright minds checking over submitted patents.”
Shouldn’t it be a big, obvious sign that something is wrong when you need to end up employing more people to police submitted “inventions” than to actually produce them, and where those doing the reviewing need to be smarter than those doing the “inventing”? (Although a lot of the patent applicants don’t exactly seem to be rocket scientists, judging by the quality of the more high-profile claims.)
I live in the UK and being part of the EU, it means we do not have to put up with this crap.
The US should dump it before its IT industry gets left behind in the dark ages while everywhere else advances.
Perhaps you don’t remember how close the EU came to allowing “software patents”. It was only a year or so ago. I think that we can all agree that we haven’t seen the last of them either.
430 votes against to 14 votes for does not come close in my book.
I understand that you meant that it got as far as a vote in the first place… but it had to, in order to be defeated..
Since the vote last year, the US patent system has shown on numberous occasions how stupid it is.
This has been the last we have seen of it.
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/61487
It was not against software patents, it was against the directive in general. You would be naive to think it’s all over.
The European Parliament voted against software patents with a margin of 648 votes to 14. However, this means nothing, since the EU Commission can totally ignore the European Parliament’s vote. The EU Commission is still aiming for Software Patents to be introduced this year: http://wiki.ffii.de/ComPat060118En
So, an unelected body can overrule the European Parliament and introduce software patents anyway. Welcome to European “democracy”.
From Marlor:
So, an unelected body can overrule the European Parliament and introduce software patents anyway. Welcome to European “democracy”.
—-
Ok, I’m no expert on the EU system, but I think unless the individual countries do something to enforce the law, the commission is just blowing in the wind. And if the parliment voted against so strongly against it, it’s hardly likely the individual countries will do anything about it. But it’s definitely something to keep an eye on. And thank goodness for the protests against them. Btw, the EU had a lot of trouble just deciding on how to write out the laws in different languages – so it’s really not the most empowered organization in the world.
Sure, but if the member countries do not implement the commission’s directives in some way they get fined for hundreds of millions of EUR.
No, because shut down a computer will be patented and no OS could include a shut down order.
You can always just unplug the computer.
Oh wait… That’s patented too!
From eSoft’s website
About eSoft Inc.
eSoft is a leading provider of integrated Internet security solutions offering organizations of all sizes unparalleled protection from dynamic Internet-based threats. eSoft’s award winning InstaGateTM and ThreatWallTM platforms offer high-performance Deep Packet Inspection security services including Firewall, IPSec VPN, Anti-Virus, Anti-Spam, Anti-Spyware, Intrusion Prevention, Web Content Filtering, Email Content Filtering and even Web, Email, File and FTP servers. eSoft solutions are based on purpose-built hardware platforms and optional security software modules called SoftPaksTM, which are distributed and maintained through eSoft’s patented SoftPak DirectorTM technology. Overall, the eSoft solution offers the IT manager extreme simplicity and flexibility when deploying and managing network security, resulting in less time demands on IT staff, a reduced need for in-house security expertise, and a lower total cost of ownership.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.. leading provider… MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAW…
“a patent for to systems and methods”?
i’d expect better from osnews…
Thanks. Fixed.
I suggest the members of this group all get together and help me develop and patent an idea I have. I will be willing to share the royalties with anyone who helps out.
We will patent an idea I have for an organic device that facilitates the interchange of carbon dioxide with oxygen. Royalties to be charged on a per breath basis. 🙂
We will be richer than Bill Gates.
Worthless patents can be had for the asking (almost: I think you have to pay a lawyer first, sort of like you do to get medical disability payments), and access to the legal system is almost entirely dependent on one’s bank balance.
Something is going to have to give soon, or “global warming” will come as a result of burning cities.
can microsoft buy into their stock and takeover the company?
possibly…. but why should they ?
microsoft cannot buy EVERY company with a patent.
No matter how close to godlyness you think they are
Really why are they doing this, I use to put fries on my Hambuger before eating it, should I patent it? Anyway software update systems have been around for many years, & just now I hear about this, a little late I think.
Edited 2006-04-04 16:30
What if MS (or Apple, IBM, …) *buys* this company, or at least an exclusive patent license? Suddenly, they’d have a very powerful tool against their competitors…
Who would like to patent “to use a computer” ?
Then, he would be able to sue any computer user!
This case is, of course, only a small example of much larger political and economic, global scale problems.
Now how stupid and ridiculous can the US software patent system – and so, the whole US economic and political system governed by big greedy corporations? – get, before the people in charge like politicians will at last realize it and do some necessary and justified major democratic changes to the whole system?
I said the US system, because the USA (with e.g. Japan) with its big IT corporations and hard wing captalism happens to be the leading software patent propagator in the world. If the USA would have a more sensible legislation concerning the so called intellectual property, also other countries wouldn’t have so big needs to get some similar legislation.
Like many experts have already pointed out dozens and hundreds of times, software patenst serve mostly only the greedy interest of big corporations. Software patents don’t serve competition nor innovation. They have basically the same function as economic monopolies have: someone wants to have all the money from some technology that he may not even have invented and that may be rather trivial and common too (like also in this case).
No end for stupidity caused by greed?
Edited 2006-04-04 17:14
I agree with you, we live in a world full of greedy and nasty people. I’m sick of it too.
The problem is that it isn’t a matter of software patents vs. non-software patents. Perhaps that’s the matter for people outside of the U.S., but really I agree with Paul Graham that it’s a trivial extension to consider machines configured with an initial state by “software” to perform tasks as following naturally from a patent framework. The problem is in the very nature of excluding others from being able to independently discover and profit from ideas. Marconi and Tesla were prominently demonstrating the wonders of patents before software patents were anyone’s problem.
As far as I know is APT older than this patent so this should be a prior act.
There’s too many idiots working at the pattent offices. Most of the time, they do not even have a clue about the things they grant pattents for. It’s like being an IT-wizz in Tuttle i guess. Those offices need to remember their good recruting practices and hire more Einsteins ;P
An all out software pattented world would make for a nice little orwellian novell. Rogue underground coders, addicted to caffeine living in international waters. Oh those would be the days.
… and up2date, unlike apt and like the patented “invention”, actively notifies the user when updates are available.
Because of this, I think that Debian and Red Hat can safely ignore this patent.
Why doesn’t someone patent “the idea and practice of patenting”.
That would be a quick and easy fix.
This is just as riducluous as patenting software updating.
Ridiculous indeed.
Just another trivial patent that promises to sap productivity — a good thing?
Yes! As the ridiculous patents start piling up, it is only a matter of time before our patent system undergoes a major revamp. It must or it will collapse under its own weight. Sooner is better than later, so I advise all concerned to go out and come up with the most inane collection of obvious patents possible.
Even if the extended patent laws are themselves not repealed (as US laws rarely are), they will become de facto unenforceable and thus largely ignored, if this insanity continues.
Hmm… Maybe the EFF could actually take donations to effect this.
Everyone hold on for a sec..if you look at who is getting sued, it’s not Apple, Microsoft and Redhat, but:
Claims Filed Against Astaro, Barracuda Networks, Blue Coat, Fortinet, and SonicWall for Violating eSoft’s Software Management System Patent
So what does this mean? Either the patent is much more specific than ‘a general OS/software updater’ and the companies listed indeed use the same idea, meaning it’s not as completely terribly as it seems (STILL a horrible patent to be granted)…or they’re using this to create a beneficial prior ruling/jurisprudence.
Look at what this company is doing… They sell network appliances. Also, look who they are suing… their competitors. This is typical Microsoft-ish predatory business practices.
I hope this company burns.
There’s not much to go on, but from what I gather their patented “process” involves updates/automatic installation combined with a license/subscription validation mechanism. If that’s the case, yum and apt are definitely off the hook.
The companies mentioned are all security product vendors that incorporate an online “service” update mechanism that can be used to add/renew services like anti-virus etc. I assume they’re also competitors to esoft. Though I had never heard of eSoft before this, I am familiar with the defendants. FWIW Fortinet has been sued so many times over patent/GPL violations that they’re lawyers will probably cover this one as a freebie.
The other interesting thing here is that the suit overlooks dominant security companies like Juniper and Check Point, both of whom use similar online subscription/update mechanisms for add-on services.
If I had to venture a guess, this is simply a case of a little known Tier-3 security vendor trying to generate some publicity by going after some Tier-2’s and hoping they stay off the radar of the Tier-1’s legal eagles.
I doubt this will have implications for general purpose OSes etc., in fact I’d be surprised if it even holds water against the present victims.
Still, just my 2c based on much speculation and little else to go on.
two words for this company… “prior art”
As soon as they take one of the big boys like Novell or Microsoft to court, they will lose. Then they will be open to countersuits from the smaller vendors like Astaro, Sonicwall, and Baraccuda networks (whom they are currently suing).
Wait is “lol” patented? It is a process and is useful.
There isn’t a patent on oxygen is there?
(Holding breath)
I wrote a software installer/updater/remover utility for MS-DOS.
The system would take a package (something like RPM), install it into the appropriate directories as described by the package file. It would also perform upgrades, by checking the version, migrating the data to the new format and removing old files.
..and yes it would even uninstall the package if requested. Boy, I forgot I did that — used it in a medical facility.
I wonder if the disk still works, lol.
I’ve seen worse patenting attempts:
“Method of swinging on a swing”, United States Patent 6368227
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6368227.html