MOTHERFUCKING MICROSOFT PATENT ASSHOLES!

[Darth Wong]

Check this out:

Microsoft frowned at for smiley patent
Ingrid Marson
ZDNet UK
July 22, 2005, 17:15 BST

A software patent filed by Microsoft in the US has been described as 'very dangerous'

Various organisations have criticised Microsoft for attempting to patent the creation of custom emoticons.

The patent, which was published by the US patent office on Thursday, covers selecting pixels to create an emoticon image, assigning a character sequence to these pixels and reconstructing the emoticon after transmission.

Mark Taylor, the executive director of the Open Source Consortium, said on Friday said this is such a basic concept that he would not have been surprised to see it posted as a fictional patent on a technology site.

"I would have expected to see something like this suggested by one of our more immature community members as a joke on Slashdot, and probably would have chuckled at the absurdity of the notion. We now appear to be living in a world where even the most laughable paranoid fantasies about commercially controlling simple social concepts are being outdone in the real world by well-funded armies of lawyers on behalf of some of the most powerful companies on the planet," said Taylor.

He said the patent could be particularly problematic as it covers basic human communication. "Emoticons are a form of language, and a precedent allowing patenting of language constructs is very dangerous indeed," said Taylor.

Jonas Maebe, a spokesman for the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), said that such a patent could be used by Microsoft to prevent competitors from developing applications that compete with its MSN Messenger application.

"It is unfortunately quite clear such patents have nothing to do with protecting investments nor R&D, and only with obtaining exclusion rights which can help them [Microsoft] maintain their dominant position in the market," said Maebe.

Such patents are in contradiction to the original purpose of the patent system, according to Maebe's colleague at the FFII, Felipe Wersen.

"Patents were ultimately designed to benefit society — to have companies disclose things that benefit society which they wouldn't otherwise disclose. Who does this patent benefit?" said Wersen.

Although Microsoft does not appear to have filed this patent in Europe, it has filed a number of patents around natural language. These include a patent for segmenting text strings into tokens to allow further language processing.

Microsoft was unable to comment in time for this article.

The Microsoft patent that organisations are concerned about is patent number 20050156873, which was filed in January 2004.

Yes, that's right. Microsoft wants to patent fucking emoticons. I hate these bastards, and quite frankly, given some of the precedents already set and the fact that they haven't already rejected it out of hand, I have absolutely zero confidence that the people in the Patent Office will stop this.

[SirNitram]

Oh, but patents are needed to promote innovation. How would inventors ever get reward without patents?

Gods, so infuriating. Between Microsoft, the Movie/Recording industry, and everything else, personal rights get trampled. For what? Corporate bottom lines.

[DrkHelmet]

I wish I had thought of this years ago. It's ingenious! Now we can patent something that people have been using every day for years. for thinking of it first MS! Still, you gotta see the humor in it.

[Antares]

I am voting for killing that god damn asshole at M$, who came up with this utterly stupid idea

[Chmee]

Had this one in my graphics library for a couple years ... and it never goes out of date.

[General Zod]

I smell a massive lawsuit against Micro$ith. I can imagine the field day lawyers would have with this one. . .

[Dillon]

How the fuck is this even possible? Did MS invent emoticons? I thought you had to be the creator of something in order to patent it.

[DrkHelmet]

How the fuck is this even possible? Did MS invent emoticons? I thought you had to be the creator of something in order to patent it.

Wrong. You just have to be the first one to submit a patent application. Who invented it is, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant.

[General Zod]

How the fuck is this even possible? Did MS invent emoticons? I thought you had to be the creator of something in order to patent it.

Not necessarily, according to the US Patent & Copyright Office. I seem to recall Micro$ith pulling off similar shit with wanting to Trademark/Patent the word x86, and they were promptly smacked down for doing so.

[Praxis]

Not that I disagree with the post at all, I fully agree that Microsoft should not be doing this, but...looking at the title...

People call ME a Microsoft-bashing fanboy?

[Durandal]

Can we say "prior art"?

[bilateralrope]

Can we say "prior art"?

But whoever tries to invalidate the patent will be faced with huge costs even if they succeed

[HyperionX]

I think it's pretty obvious that patent laws needs to be revamped in this country. This is ridiculous as patenting abstract art.

[Durandal]

Sorry for the pun, but this is patently idiotic. The idea that assigning a character sequence to a certain map of pixels has been around for ages. In fact, it's used in every single library out there that decodes image formats and displays them onscreen. If Microsoft gets this patent, are they going to sue everyone who displays a graphic from a file?

[Mr Bean]

Do we have a first instance use of emotcons?

And to the people foaming at the mouth about MS getting sued... What exactly for?(Besides the things they are already getting sued for)

I mean, since when is attempting a patent on something(No matter how insane) been illegle by common law defintion? Would the person intiating the suite have to aurge MS very position? That they(The people sueing MS) infact DO own the emotcon patent and not MS?

[Gandalf]

But surely the image of a smiling (or whatever) face would be public domain... right?

[DrkHelmet]

I mean, since when is attempting a patent on something(No matter how insane) been illegle by common law defintion? Would the person intiating the suite have to aurge MS very position? That they(The people sueing MS) infact DO own the emotcon patent and not MS?

I agree. I only wish that I had thought of it first. It's really ingenious, when you think about it. The best patent in my opinion is on something that everyone uses already. Suddenly, you can charge the entire country for doing something that was free last week.

[Xon]

Yes, that's right. Microsoft wants to patent fucking emoticons. I hate these bastards, and quite frankly, given some of the precedents already set and the fact that they haven't already rejected it out of hand, I have absolutely zero confidence that the people in the Patent Office will stop this.

Yet another example of the fuckedup stupidity that is the US patent Office.

The current copyright & patent laws make it corporate suicide not to patent(or at least apply for one) every fucking thing you use/might use under the sun.

Microsoft got sued for patent infrigment on supporting fucking plugins objects for html(aka ActiveX), despite the fact they had pior art.

[Xon]

The patent, which was published by the US patent office on Thursday, covers selecting pixels to create an emoticon image, assigning a character sequence to these pixels and reconstructing the emoticon after transmission.

This patent covers an emoticon distribution protocol, not the actual emoticons themselves.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Under this ruling, could one not patent using paints on canvas to create an image?

And Chmee, I've saved a copy of that graphic.

[Alyeska]

According to the US patent office you do not own your own body and companies can and have patented it. Right now your own body is divided up and owned by litteraly hundreds (if not thousands) of companies and to make use of any of these parts of your body and your in violation of the law and subject to financial ruin.

This actualy got to court. A doctor patented a patients kidney (think it was his kidney) behind the patients back. Patient is given something to sign and refuses. Patient gets lawyer and lawyer says doctor is trying to get the patient to sign over rights. Patient gets pissed and sues doctor. This goes to court. Court says "You do not own your own body. You can't own your body or else the patent office couldn't have allowed the doctor to patent your kidney".

The patent office is so fucked up the courts used its stupid fucking decisions to hurt people.

[Praxis]

Apparently Vista is suing Microsoft for copying their name.

[Uraniun235]

How long before the Patent Office effectively brings all U.S. commerce to a screeching halt? Ten years? Twenty?

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

Do we have a first instance use of emotcons?

Wikipedia always suprises me.

[Shinova]

If every company that had ever made emoticons collectively sued Microsoft for this, would it do a thing?