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Microsoft just launched Windows 8 last week and it’s already getting sued over Live Tiles by an OS development company called Surfcast.
Surfcast claims that it already owns the rights to technology that does the same thing, naming in a lawsuit a patent for “presenting information from variety of sources on a display device” and a graphical user interface that “organises content from a variety of information sources into grid of tiles each of which can refresh its content independently of the others.” For the record, Microsoft’s Live Tiles patent is for “tile space user interface for mobile devices.” It’s kind of hard to see how the two are that different. Microsoft’s patent is above. Surfcast’s looks like this:
Though both companies clearly have patented the tech they’re using, but Surfcast is saying that Microsoft’s patent actually includes prior art. Microsoft has yet to comment on the suit, and we’ll see if the claim has any legs.
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Hmmm,. let me see… who’s got the bigger lawyers then….
Also, Surfcast are a bit cheeky submitting patents with Microsoft images. Wonder if they got copyright permission to use them in a patent submission.
OHH ffs this is just getting silly, they should just cancel all the ridiculous patents, its fuuny how these patent trolls wait until something is launched before taking action, the courts should just dismiss them all.
or just screw america and let the rest of the world have the phones
Totally agree they need to scrap the US patent system and start again, this time with a straight face
ive written web apps that do this. i wonder if i can get sued.
oh, btw, they were 10+ years ago!
Only if you making large enough wod’s of cash to interest thieving US companies and lawyers
Patents are there to protect people who, when discovering their ideas have been infringed upon, would say this: “What? they’ve taken our idea and tried to make money from it? We shall take them to court and insist that they back down so that we may continue our innovative work.”
But these days the system is used by people like this: “FINALLY!!!! Someone with enough cash to be worth pursuing has created something somewhat similar to one of our many concept ideas! We’ve been waiting for this day for years! Come on boys, let’s go Ferrari shopping! High five!”
agreed. i thought you used to have a product built/made. not come up with just a concept.
all this is just stifling innovation these days.
These days nobody does any real invention. Just patent some VAGUE concept and wait to sue someone else for money. Same thing with other aspects of life. People want to trip on the floor wherever they go so they can sue the cleaner for leaving the floor wet and make money in form of compensation. Just leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth…
I’m thinking of patenting the ability to patent stuff.
Good idea, now why didn’t I think of that before? I’m going to patent the ability to patent a patent. Then I can sue you.
But when I’ve patented the ability to sue I’ll only licence it to you for twice the sum you’re suing me for.
Why has it taken them this long to come forward?
They’re just jealous because microsoft are doing it right and nobody has ever heard of Surfcast….
Maybe Surfcast are trying to be like Apple and are suing companies for the hell of it…
The law should be changed so that a patent for software should only become valid if the patent owner has actually produced and sold products that implement the software. How on earth is an average software guy supposed to know if he’s re-inventing something that already exists at the back of a filing cabinet at “Patent Trolls Inc.” At least if the patent had to be commercialised it would be easier to know if you were cloning an existing design/technology. The patent should then only apply to the technology as implemented, not the rough scribbles on broad brush patents.
Surfcast patent reads more like they tried to retroactively patent a grid of html iframes! It’s certainly full of html and talking about showing portions of websites (just like an iframe can) and some clientside imagemap javascript.
Screenshot looks like OS tiled windows, something Microsoft operating systems have been able to do at a single command since ooo, the start of the ’90s!