[mdlug] MS patents OS crippling

[Aaron Kulkis]

R. Kannan wrote:
> In case you haven't seen this, MS has patented the tools for extortion:
> 
> "On Tuesday, Microsoft was granted US Patent No. 7,536,726 (it was filed in 2005) for intentionally crippling the functionality of an operating system by 'making selected portions and functionality of the operating system unavailable to the user or by limiting the user's ability to add software applications or device drivers to the computer' until an 'agreed upon sum of money' is paid to 'unlock or otherwise make available the restricted functionality.' According to Microsoft, this solves a 'problem inherent in open architecture systems,' i.e., 'they are generally licensed with complete use rights and/or functionality that may be beyond the need or desire of the system purchaser.' An additional problem with open architecture systems, Microsoft explains, is that 'virtually anyone can write an application that can be executed on the system.' Nice to see the USPTO rewarding Microsoft's eight problem-solving inventors, including Linux killer (and antelope killer) Joachim Kempin
, 
>  who's been credited with getting Microsoft hauled into federal court on antitrust charges."
> 
> http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,536,726.PN.&OS=PN/7,536,726&RS=PN/7,536,726
> 

"until an 'agreed upon sum of money' is paid to 'unlock or otherwise make available the restricted functionality.'"

In a closed source world, the technology to do this is trivial,
and therefore fails the obviousness test.

So it sounds more like a business methods patent to me -- all
of which were effectively rendered worthless at the appeals
court level last fall.  SCOTUS has allowed the counter-appeal
onto the docket -- I don't expect business methods to survive
their scrutiny, and software patents might get wiped out by
them, too, as both business methods and therefore algorithms
were allowed ONLY due to a peculiar ruling by a court back
in the 1990's, but in complete contradiction to both the
letter and the spirit of the Constitutional clause which
mandates that the federal government grant patents and
copyrights (the current duration of copyright ALSO violates
the clause which states "for limited periods of time" --
Life of Author + 20 years wasn't ever considered until
Mickey Mouse came in danger of falling into public domain,
and certainly not even during the early years of the country,
when life expectancy was below 50.

I doubt anyone will challenge this patent, though,
because it's worthless.  Even IBM stopped making
crippler-cards for their computers (the cards
would tie up the bus for a technician-selectable
percentage of the time) back in the 70's.  Getting
your mainframe upgraded (i.e. to higher throughput)
REALLY meant paying for an IBM technician to come
and pull the card OUT of the mainframe.