“BetaNet on Monday filed a lawsuit against 18 companies, including Apple, Adobe and Microsoft,” Jim Dalrymple reports for The Loop.
“Filed in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, the lawsuit claims the companies violate the ‘134 patent, entitled “Secure System for Activating Personal Computer Software at Remote Locations.’ The patent was issued on June 22, 1993, according to the lawsuit,” Dalrymple reports.
MacDailyNews Take: The Rocket Docket strikes again.
Dalrymple continues, “BetaNet specifically mentions Apple’s iTunes, Aperture, QuickTime and MobileMe as infringing on its patent.”
Full article here.
Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider, “‘(Apple is) using, selling and offering to sell computer software via a process that provides a program file — including a loader segment and a registration shell portion — to a remote computer having a display,’ the complaint reads. ‘The program file contains a first executive control program, representing a limited version of the program file. License transaction information is entered into the registration shell portion, and that information is transmitted from the registration shell to a separate registration program provided in a registration computer.'”
Hughes reports, “It continues: ‘The registration program merges the license transaction information with the second executive control program — representing a complete version of the program file to — to generate a unique overlay file. The unique overlay file is transmitted from the registration program to the registration shell, and contains the second executive control program. The overlay file is installed on the main program file, thereby allowing complete operation of the program file.'”
Hughes reports, “Other software specifically mentioned by BetaNet in the suit is Adobe’s Creative Suite, Acrobat and Photoshop; Carbonite’s online backup tools; Intuit’s Quicken, QuickBooks and TurboTax; Microsoft Office, OneCare, Windows Server and Silverlight; McAffee VirusScan; and the Rosetta Stone foreign language suite.”
Full article here.
I’m pretty sure the pre and post license binary for Apple software is the same. I don’t think Apple will even bother to settle this one, it will get thrown out.
The DoJ needs to cut the budget for this court to nothing and put it out of business.
This company is going up against the big boys. They could get hurt big time and be worth nothing.
Should be prior art for this.
This is the Rocket Docket, nothing gets thrown out.
I think I will sue Apple for spinning beach balls. They promised there would be none if I bought their most expensive machine. I did and they didn’t. So, does anybody have that court’s email address?
World of hurt
In other words, “We’re a company no one knows about, nobody buys stuff from, and other people took a similar idea and made something that people actually want. And they’ve made money! Let’s get us some….”
Isn’t there a requirement that patents be “aggressively defended” in order to be maintained? This “patent” is <u>SIXTEEN YEARS OLD ! ! !</u> … and all the software mentioned is at least half that. If you have a real property that someone is infringing on, I’m sure it would take you less than half a dozen years to figure that out.
Of course, if your “property” is overly vague and consists of nothing more than a concept of how something <u>COULD</u> be done, skew you, frigtard!
1993? Isn’t that long expired?
Besides, prior art. MacWrite II had that registration shell long before 1993.
@DLMeyer:
That’s exactly the point. The patent is about to expire. The only way for them to get money from it is to sue everyone and anyone that even resembles their IP.
If this does not get thrown out of court, we will be in a world of hurt.
1993 isn’t expired, but there’s nothing quite like trying to enforce a patent 6 months before the patent does expire.
If only I had a “Business Process On How To Abuse The United States Patent System For Profit” patent, I could make a killing off these jokers…
MW: history
@DLMeyer:
Patents don’t need to be defended, trademarks do.
whats the meaning of having a patent unless you actually use it or sell the rights. Waiting long enough for other companies to invent stuff thats similar and then striking down on them like a bat out of hell with lawyers in tow is childish. Grow up damn it!
chabig, thanks for the correction. I was “close”, though. I’m not a lawyer, though I sometimes babble like one.
Mymac4ever, precisely.
Additionally … do they even have working (workable?) code to show this is more than just a “concept”? That it was EVER anything more than a concept”? And, yeah … it would be better if the code in question were more than a decade old – to prove they didn’t just rip off the code from the guys they say were ripping <u>THEM</u> off.
The very fact that these sh*t-can companies file suit in Texas tells you everything you need to know about the value of their claims. What would life be like if a single week passed without another phoney lawsuit against Apple?
Bla bla bla yackety shmackety!
The federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) is one of those far-reaching laws that has been used, sometimes, in strange and mysterious ways to let federal prosecutors go after targets that couldn’t be ‘had’ under other law.
I know of one case that charged an individual for conspiring with himself to commit a crime that was never in fact committed. He was actually convicted, however, for lying to a federal agent, to wit, that he hadn’t conspired with himself. In reality, the prosecutor brought the case and obtained a conviction as a means of bringing pressure against the individual to testify against someone else in a different case. The individual was repeatedly told, before the conviction and afterwards, when he was in a federal prison, that the charges would be dropped (and the subsequent conviction nullified) if he agreed to testify against someone else.
The frequency with which plaintiffs’ trial lawyers choose the federal court in Marshall, Texas for patent cases and the frequency with which plaintiffs receive favorable judgements in that court seem to me to imply a criminal conspiracy between the trial lawyers and the local residents. The trial lawyers choose that court in order to win cases, many of which have little or no merit. The residents profit from the money spent in the community by all those lawyers (from both sides) and their ancillary staff in hotels and restaurants and other businesses. It has become a self-perpetuating system, to the detriment of justice.
Seems to me to be a great candidate for a RICO case. Send them all to jail.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
There’s a lot of whining about software patents, some for, some against. But I think I have a real solution.
The time that a software patent remains in force should be cut way, way down from that of a standard patent. I’m thinking 10 years at the most, maybe 8. The reason is obvious: software innovation moves a lot faster than hardware innovation. The idea that a software idea can be 16 years old and still be under a patent is ludicrous. Cutting the duration of the patent would force the holder to use and defend it immediately. And if competitors start using your idea after 8-10 years, well, it’s old news, dude! Come up with the next big thing!
——RM
@ LordRobin – That might not be a bad compromise fallback. Obviously, the ideal is that software should not be considered patentable at all, but limiting the patent timeframe would be a good way of at least minimizing the damage, and making sure that US companies aren’t at too much of a disadvantage compared to, say, EU companies, where software patents are not recognized as being valid.
When, oh when will someone with ample authority step up and shut down this @*#^$ing district designed only for fleecing. Since the cost essentially filters down to the consumer, we all lose.
Shakespeare said it: All are punishèd!
Another company trying to get rich by suing the company that has legitimately made the money. TOTAL B.S.!!!!
The US government needs to appoint special judges who actually knows about technology so they can just deny troll patent claims. This is ridiculous companies who are desperate always goes to this same court to file stuff like this and they favor them.