Microsoft has filed suit against Salesforce for infringing the following patent:
- Method and system for mapping between logical data and physical data
- System and method for providing and displaying a web page having an embedded menu
- Method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display
- Automated web site creation using template driven generation of active server page applications
- Aggregation of system settings into objects
- Timing and velocity control for displaying graphical information
- Timing and velocity control for displaying graphical information
- Method and system for identifying and obtaining computer software from a remote computer
- System and method for controlling access to data entities in a computer network
Lest you think these are just the headlines and that the abstracts are better. Check out the one for System and method for providing and displaying a web page having an embedded menu:
A method for providing a web page having an embedded menu to a web browser and for displaying the web page to a user of the web browser are provided. A request for a web page is received from a web browser In response to the request, a web page and an applet associated with the web page are packaged for transmission to the web browser. The web page and the applet are then transmitted to and downloaded by the web browser. When the web page is displayed and the applet is executed by the web browser, the applet creates and manages an embedded menu in the displayed web page under control of the applet . This embedded menu provides a user of the web browser with a plurality of links through one action in the displayed web page.
Software patents are a despicable tax on innovation. Companies that use them in aggression are pathetic.
Big companies where both sides have huge patent inventories might have fun with this sort of sue and counter-sue, but when the titans reach outside of their country club gardens to pick on someone a speck of their size, it’s truly disgusting.
These patents are so generic that Microsofts suit against Salesforce is purely selective enforcement against a competitor. What would we do if we were sued in a similar fashion? Probably the same thing a shop keeper on a street run by mobsters would do: Pay up or lose a limb. Extortion at its best.
But hey, maybe five years from now a cut-off-the-air-supply email can emerge, then the justice department can spend another half a decade pursuing a slap on the wrist, and in 15 years we’ll have some “justice”.
Fucking patent trolls. Fucking Microsoft. What a sad day.
mikhailov
on 19 May 10It’s Microsoft, they could not otherwise, it is their direction.
Anders
on 19 May 10Your reference to mobsters is right on spot! And it is a very sad day indeed. :(
Falk
on 19 May 10There is the “Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure e.V.” (see http://www.ffii.org/ which fights against software patents. Here in europe the FFII managed to stop some “eu-law-making procedures”... Support the FFII!
Ben Mills
on 19 May 10The patent laws drive me crazy. In my opinion tech patents should still exist, but should have a very short lifetime (maybe a year). That’s enough time to build your market lead and move on to your next set of innovations.
I like my Tivo, but their patent means that they have no real competition and it hasn’t driven them to make their product as good as it could and should be. Is using a hard drive to record TV such an innovative idea that they should get exclusive rights for so long?
DHH, will you also admit that Apple are just as bad with their ridiculous patent infringement claims against HTC? If Apple want the iPhone is stay ahead of the competition, then they have to keep innovating rather than stopping competitors using obvious ideas like multitouch.
David Andersen
on 19 May 10This reminds me of my lawsuit against the entirety of corporate America for infringing on my patent Method for answering a telephone.
gzmask
on 19 May 10whoever approved these patents, don’t know their shit. They shouldn’t be doing what we are paying tax for them to do.
Duncan Feldane
on 19 May 10Do you assume the title or abstract has anything to do with the scope of the patent? If so, why?
Ask a patent attorney about the claims…
EH
on 19 May 10“The Scorpion and the Frog.”
I’m about three clients away from eliminating a decades-long Microsoft dependency.
Elliott R
on 19 May 10Duncan +1.
Provide the detail of the patent so we can analyse its potential innovation (or lack thereof)
DHH
on 19 May 10Elliott, all the patents are linked up in this post. Knock yourself out.
Rian
on 19 May 10I don’t generally like software patents. I think they’re a tax on innovation, like you, David. That said…
Microsoft is usually on the receiving end of patent lawsuits, not the initiator. In recent history they’ve only sued Belkin (2006), Primax (2008), and TomTom (2009). Hardly a huge list, unlike some of the other tech behemoths. (Apple, Amazon)
You can froth at the mouth all you want about Microsoft, but they’re generally not the as bad as some other companies that 37s has a hard on for.
Jax
on 19 May 10Sounds pretty much like the mafia, generic rules that doesn’t mean anything but can be used to take whatever the mafia (Microsoft) wants.
Wondering what kind of software company worries about patents, I think only the evil ones or the ones aware of their lack of quality.
Seth
on 19 May 10The reason these patents get approved is because congress changed the Patent Office to run off of revenue it collects from fees rather than direct funding. This means that Patent Office has a direct financial motive to approve as many patents as possible and as quickly as possible and that’s exactly what has played out over the years.
Jax
on 19 May 10Sounds pretty much like the mafia, generic rules that doesn’t mean anything but can be used to take whatever the mafia (Microsoft) wants.
Wondering what kind of software company worries about patents, I think only the evil ones or the ones aware of their lack of quality.
Kevin
on 19 May 10Agree with Rian -
I’m by no means a Microsoft Fan boi but c’mon David – Apple is far more into Patent infrig. lawsuits than anyone…
Andy
on 19 May 10“Pay up or lose a limb. Extortion at its best.” Are you implying small shops “kneel before zod” because the cost to litigate could single handedly put them out of business?
Alan Yeung
on 19 May 10I am a litigator currently involved with defending another company against similar early web patents. Independent of the big picture about whether patents are good or bad, this particular lawsuit is abusive.
The problem with quasi-generic web patents like these, especially ones with early priority dates (like some of the patents in suit), is that it’s very difficult to find prior art. “Obviousness” in patent litigation is far more limited a concept than what a rational person would expect.
This particular lawsuit is doubly abusive because there are 7 patents in suit. You essentially need a separate group of people working on defending each one, and you’re looking at roughly $1 million/year for each team, easily. It’s a huge burden that few companies can stomach, and fewer law firms can even handle competently. I can’t imagine what will happen when Intellectual Ventures’ shell companies start suing people. Virtually no one has the resources to defend against focused pools of 35 patents, wielded offensively.
It’s unfortunate that Microsoft has chosen to go down this route. It signals a much more aggressive, offensive stance than they have typically taken with their patent portfolio (though they have previously been aggressive about licensing).
Kevin
on 19 May 10After reading through the dense vomit like pile of words that constitutes the 2nd patent I see that Microsoft actually holds a patent for all drop down menus on the web.
HOLY CRAP!!!! Everyone uses those. Any site that shows additional links as a result of a mouseover or clicking on something on the page is in violation of this patent.
That’s all the patent is for, showing more links when you put the mouse on a certain spot on the web page.
Read it for yourself, pick your jaw up off the floor, and then get very angry that our U.S. Patent Office allows something so stupid. Software patents really need to go.
Jaret Manuel
on 19 May 10Great post. This is such serious and heavy duty bullshit, and it’s why I grossly dislike bunkrosoft: the prevention & innovation killer of much (not all, as they do have BizSpark).
I worked at Salesforce for 2 years (and the following certainly does not make me privy to secret information) and my question is why in the hell if Salesforce is in breech of these patents that Microsoft still us a shitty, slow, and completely useless, ugly CRM?
This beats the shit out of me, and it is all very bizarre. Fred Wilson shared a solid Video on this matter of Software Patent law. http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/05/if-you-have-a-half-hour-today-watch-this.html
@JaretManuel
Elliott R
on 19 May 10Good point :) I will have a read.
stefac
on 19 May 10...and fucking software patents….it’s really really absurd that it’s possible patent “a system and method for providing and displaying a web page having an embedded menu”. So may be it’s possible patent framework methods name too or methods pourpose. Sometime Microsoft make so incredible unbelivable bad moves that vanish any trial by his own developers to join “don’t be evil” developers community… Microsoft lawyers Go home…ScottGU say something!!!
Tom G
on 19 May 10Its been obvious for a while that patent law as envisioned by the founding fathers is no longer encouraging innovation for the public good. Unfortunately due to politics our current government is unlikely to be able to meaningfully correct this. IMHO we would be better off with no patent law for computer software; copyright is better than what we have now which at best stifles innovation.
That being said, Salesforce is hardly a defenseless speck…
And that being said, its very chilling to think that if I become successful in the internet business that a big company with a portfolio of broad patents can kill my product.
Finally HTML5 represents a major shift in computer technology. It will take a while, but the paradigm of native apps and a big OS are in decline. Kiss Windows/Unix/MacOS whatever goodbye for most users. The web browser will become the OS and HTML/CSS/Javascript will become its native programming environment. Microsoft and the others all know this. Apple and Google are working hard to usher in the new era.
Don’t expect the big existing companies we gave all this money to go down without a fight.
thomas
on 19 May 10Agreed, however one note on Microsoft’s behalf is that I believe they’ve only pushed 3 large patent suits in the past years? TomTom, and one other one. I could be wrong and it isn’t an excuse just a note that they seem to pick their battles when they know they will win.
Luis
on 19 May 10Microsoft needs to chill the hell out.
David Andersen
on 19 May 10@Tom G -
You jumped the shark about here:
The web browser will become the OS and HTML /CSS/Javascript will become its native programming environment.
Frank
on 19 May 10I’m not a regular reader so could someone tell me if there was a big long rant about “Fucking Apple patent trolls” when they sued HTC not long ago?
Mike Grace
on 19 May 10Microsoft needs to get a life!
David Andersen
on 19 May 10HTC is also suing Apple. And Apple and Nokia are suing each other.
Nettle
on 19 May 10I wonder if Einstein approved any patents that are like this when he work in his patent position.
Jens
on 19 May 10@Frank I don’t think so ;-)
Not Microsoft is the problem, they only do their best to please their share holders. The problem is the patent offices that grant silly software patents like these.
Chris
on 19 May 10What’s the deal with just moving your software outside the US? Would that then exclude you from the restrictive US patents office?
Alan Jackson
on 19 May 10I wonder how many asp.net controls violate these patents? Are they providing tools to infringe on themselves?
pZoom
on 19 May 10Pinch zoom. Slide lock.
Ken Mayer
on 19 May 10Do you want to help?
We need crowd-sourced searching for prior art.
If you can show that these inventions existed before the patent date, you take the wind out of their litigious sails.
BD
on 19 May 10I recently opened a brick-and-mortar business that is undergoing something similar with regards to a lawsuit on ridiculous terms. The idea in question is whether a company ‘owns’ a sales person’s contacts or the sales person ‘owns’ them.
We just opened and are immediately forking over tens of thousands of dollars to lawyers (this is just to compile all the documents necessary to begin proceedings) and we are a sub-$30k/month company.
This same risk applies to every single business in America and it’s tough when your entire investment fizzles out because someone decided they wanted to randomly sue you.
The worst part isn’t that you can sue for anything, it’s that a small company can go bankrupt defending itself from an abusive lawsuit.
I would share more details but I don’t want it to affect our case :(
Anonymous
on 19 May 10This coming from a company that bullies others over a ridiculous idea that a “look and feel” can be copyrighted. For more info on this see the well written blog post at:
http://blog.pastie.org/2008/05/copyright—-des.html
I guess 37 Signals doesn’t mind threating smaller companies but when a bigger company does it to a company similar to their is starts to scare them a bit.
Helmut Baker
on 19 May 10Reminds me of Metallica suing other bands for using their ‘patented’ E power chord!
However, upon closer look, things are not as bad as they seem. Basically what Microsoft is saying is that anyone who is stupid enough to use their patented desktop-centric methodology/technology/infrastructure etc. will be destroyed. Fair enough. If you want to shoot yourself in the foot, continue using those Stone Age technologies, such as relational databases with rows and columns and the concept of physical and logical data, as well as embedded menus and applets and other shitty technologies (as I’m typing this, I can’t believe that these technologies are still in existence).
So then the joke is on you (meaning, on the sued party).
The moral of the story: don’t play with fire, coz you’ll get burned. Pranking and punkin’ Microsoft is about as prudent as pranking and punkin’ Taliban. Let the sleeping dogs lie, embrace the 21st century technology, move on with your life, and all will be well.
Ken Jackson
on 19 May 10I must admit that it’s odd that there were no patent troll posts when Apple sued HTC.
At the end of the day the courts will decide. And if you can’t play with the big boys, stay inside.
Jay
on 19 May 10All this most likely means is that Microsoft is making a play to buy them… First weaken them, and then offer them below market value for their company. All in the name of pushing MS’s Dynamics CRM.
Scott
on 19 May 10Starve Microsoft?
Is there a way to know every company or subsidiary that Microsoft has a vested interest in? At least I personally can avoid feeding them at all. If I know where they eat, I won’t drop dollars there.
Bitches.
Alan Yeung
on 19 May 10One way you can help is to agree to serve as expert or prior art witnesses for the defence in these cases, particularly if you were involved in the web early on.
Because software patents are generally strongly frowned upon among developers, I often face a lot of resistance just trying to get people to help by making time to talk about specific projects they were working on at the dawn of the web. If contacted by a law firm, it is perfectly acceptable to ask if they are representing the plaintiff or defendant, and refuse to help if they are representing someone aggressively wielding a patent. You will always be compensated for your time (generally between $200-750 an hour; i.e. not trivial amounts).
It would obviously be better to change the system (and the decision in Bilski is forthcoming, which may help), but for now, being an expert can really help. One creative person with appropriate and timely prior art can stop some of these trolls in their tracks.
Foobar
on 19 May 10Funny how you jump at the guns to troll MS, David, yet you don’t mention your precious Apple and their patent troll suit against HTC.
Reality Distortion Field indeed.
swedegeek
on 19 May 10As some have already eluded to, this seems to just be part of standard operating procedure amongst large tech companies. According to sources I know, MSFT is currently a co-defendant in a similarily baseless patent claim. Presumably they have other claims against them as well. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
But yes, it could indeed suck if the big legal departments get bored of suing the other big legal departments. If they start hunting down the smaller fish, it could get bloody. We’re talking Black Knight/Kill Bill bloody.
Greg
on 19 May 10@Foobar: Follow @dhh on Twitter. He called Apple’s patent trolling out publicly more than once.
Luis Morales
on 20 May 10The best way to prove an argument is incorrect is taking it to the absurd.
I’m really concerned that Microsoft sues me: yesterday I published a web page with p tags and links that form a stackable series of actions the user can click to obtain additional information about a concept.
Jeez, I should had filed my patent application for the idea I had last year: a system to accelerate the creation of web applications by naming the folders according to a convention.
See? Dont worry, I’m sure Salesforce’s attorneys will not dedicate a lot of time to answer this stupid claim. They will just take it to the absurd: that’s what lawyers do, and that’s why Microsoft filed this claim.
Tim
on 20 May 10YOU ARE ALL INFRINGING ON MY “A method to be able to take oxygen from the atmosphere and through a cardio-pulmonary system and other inter-related complex systems, convert oxygen into energy, expelling carbon dioxide, thus providing the ability for a human to be alive. Rinse. Repeat”. Generic, much?
It’s time to pay up, mofos.
Patents like this are an indictment on our fear and inability to see the bigger picture. M$ [and other patent monsters like Apple, Inc] ought to read a bit of Seth, Jarvis, 37S et all, to get a feel on where we’re all heading.
Here’s my take on patents: link – I gave away my Super Great Idea (sarcasm) as well as high level design.
Someone, go knock yourself out with it.
Give, increase the pie. We all win.
-t
Foo
on 20 May 10Before blaming M$, just look at how pathetic the US Patent Office is.
DHH
on 20 May 10Foobar, I enjoy calling out software patent trolls of all kinds: http://twitter.com/dhh/status/9931291336—but this one hit even closer to home as Microsoft is basically suing Salesforce for being a web app.
DHH
on 20 May 10Giving Microsoft a free pass on this because software patents exists is mindless. Nobody is forcing them to sue Salesforce. Nobody is forcing anyone to use patents aggressively. They chose to so they could cut off the air supply of a growing competitor. Fuckers.
Anon
on 20 May 10Join Microsoft Research! Develop weapons for the troll army!
Winkler R
on 20 May 10Something that no one here has mentioned is that MSFT is bound, at 2 levels, to pursue action against folks who infringe on their patents:
1) If you do not protect your patent when you know it is being infringed upon, you will weaken your claim to it. This applies to all intellectual property.
2) If you are a director of a public company, your shareholders can oust or sue you for not acting in their best interests. Corporations have a fiduciary and legal duty to their shareholders. None of us knows the inside scoop about these negotiations, but even if MSFT were to feel that they should be kind to Salesforce, they would not have that option, unless they could justify the business decision not to sue.
Jay
on 20 May 10Its Microsoft’s genuine strategey to servive in the market. They are doing it from the very beginging.
Svoop
on 20 May 10Yesterday, the german BGH (roughly similar to the supreme court) has ruled that a software patent from Siemens for a “procedure to dynamically generate structured documents” is valid – despite the fact that by law software is explicitly exempt from patent protection. In other words: After german and EU patent offices have issued illegal software patents for years, a high court has now declared one of those valid and thus opened the gates for the same nuts “sue and counter-sue” game you are so rightly upset about.
I’m Swiss and would love to see Switzerland as sort of a safe haven for software development. Unfortunately, the same twisted lobby morons even sit in the swiss patent office and thus the above seems a little likely scenario at the moment.
What a sad week.
David O.
on 20 May 10These patents are so board they essentially give Microsoft a monopoly on web apps. This shouldn’t be Microsoft vs Salesforce This should be Microsoft Vs “Everyone else who makes Web Apps”. That’s how board these patent as are.
Anonymous Coward
on 20 May 10Wait, isn’t the Java specification prior art by definition?
Talking of the “System and method for providing and displaying a web page having an embedded menu” If somebody wrote the code to do what they proposed, would that constitute prior art? I’m pretty sure that the whole point of applets was to do this kind of thing. How is that even a patent?
Brice
on 20 May 10^ I am not an anonymous coward, Just distracted!
Jorn Mineur
on 20 May 10Would this be a SLAPP suit?
Sidharth Dassani
on 20 May 10All this shows is the patent system is totally screwed. Now that Apple has a patent on a “Computer Store” , the electronic retailers have to pay royalty to Apple or shut shop.
Jack Viers
on 20 May 10I may be underinformed, but isn’t it possible to circumvent a generic patent by improving upon a prior invention? So if drop down menus are patented by Microsoft, if those drop-down menus are generated in a different way, say, not from transported markup directly, but on the client via a template or generative dom insertion, would that not be an improvement on the general invention patented by Microsoft and not be patent infringement? In other words, since the method is what is patented, does a menu not generated via the exact method Microsoft has patented not constitute patent infringement?
Chris Kaminski
on 20 May 10@winkler R:
[quote] Corporations have a fiduciary and legal duty to their shareholders.[/quote]
This is so not true. If it were, every DotBomb CEO/CFO would be in steel cages right now.
Abdu
on 20 May 10When a company applies for a patent and it KNOWS it’s too broad and generic, you know they are deliberately piling up their evil doing bag to be used in the future. How many generic patents does Microsoft have and waiting for the right moment to strike?
Anonymous Coward
on 21 May 10Microsoft is afraid because they are losing over Salesforce… Salesforce is a great company with a great product that is getting a lot of market, and Microsoft does not want to lose!
Winni
on 21 May 10Apple does the same every day: They steal the ideas of others and hit on unwanted competition with their own patent club. The only difference between Apple and Microsoft is that people still regard Microsoft as the evil corporation and Apple as the creative underdog, while in reality both are just ugly big corporations and this is their way of doing business. Apple just has the better marketing machinery.
Jeff Putz
on 21 May 10I know it’s unending great fashion to bash Microsoft (I work there, so I’m used to it), but as several people have already pointed out, they’ve sued a couple of companies over patents for several years. For a company that big, with that many patents, that’s remarkably low. As others have pointed out, patents (as well as trademarks and copyright) have to be enforced in order for them to have any value, and with public companies in particular, that’s a responsibility they’re bound to. Whether or not that’s moral or right is a different issue.
So what would the 37signals folks say about their lone investor’s company, Amazon, suing Barnes & Noble over 1-click purchasing? That strikes me as the most absurd software patent ever.
I don’t have a problem with questioning and criticizing “the system,” but selectively applying it is a bit disingenuous.
Ariel Meilij
on 22 May 10This is the effect of a software company hiring one lawyer too many!
Steve Jobs
on 24 May 10There were no fucking Apple rants because he uses a mac and has an iPhone.
Pies
on 25 May 10If you condemn Microsoft for selectively litigating competition, you have to condemn Apple for their suying of HTC. Their lawsuit clearly serves to slow down their main competitor OS, Android.
So, you’re moving to Linux then?
This discussion is closed.