RSSTitans Clash over Speech Patent
By David Worthington | Published June 6, 2001, 4:03 AM
This past Monday, two giants clashed over intellectual property rights. Cable and long-distance behemoth AT&T alleges that the world's largest software company infringed on its patent for a voice compression algorithm. AT&T engineered a technology which isolates and encodes speech, allowing for more efficient file transfer rates and an optimized use of storage space. According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, AT&T was issued a patent on January 19, 1988. Microsoft first incorporated the technology into Windows 95 and has continued to do so with each subsequent release of Windows.
First reported by Reuters, AT&T informed Microsoft of the alleged infringement in April of 1999, and offered to license the technology to Microsoft. The software giant refused AT&T's offer, triggering a legal response. The lawsuit states "AT&T has been, and will continue to be, damaged and irreparably harmed by Microsoft's infringement, which will continue unless Microsoft is enjoined by this court."
Microsoft has also recently been cited for patent infringement in another suit. Earlier this year, a little-known California company named InterTrust accused the Redmond giant of violating its patents for protecting digital media from theft and copyright infringement. In this latest case, AT&T is seeking unspecified damages and a reimbursement for legal fees incurred in the courtroom.
Wasn't the original Windows 3.x just a rip-off of a soon to be released Apple OS? Seems like all the programers @ Redmond have done lately is build on other people's work. I mean DOS wasn't even theirs. Sure they bought it "fair and square", but all they did was take it add some Apple and Xerox tech and call it Windows. They've been doing that ever since, except now they have lawyers, and do it 'legally'.
I wonder where the NT kernel really came from. Anyone know? Programers everywhere use other people's 'examples'. I don't really think that's wrong however.
If I can put A,B,C,W,N,D,O, and Z together to make something completely original, then I don't think that the guy that came up with the 'C' should be able to sue me. Teachers/Programers should be paid but they shouldn't own the information. "If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants"
Yes Microsoft has made a lot of money, but it's not because they incorporated some voice compression algorithm in '95, and if both of them had the same thing then AT&T didn't lose anything, they just didn't use it in the same way.
Let's say that the code is the same,
Microsoft didn't deprive AT&T of they're property. There wasn't, to the best of my knowledge, any actual damages, and AT&T wouldn't have made any more money than if Microsoft didn't use their tech.
Unless you look at it like, back in the day, Microsoft could have agreed to pay something like a nickle to American Telephone and Telegraph every time they sold a copy of their OS, then AT&T is out millions.
I don't know. This is why we have a judicial system.
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|Hmm. Let me think.. Wasn't the NT kernal part of IBM/Microsoft's Warp OS thing.. Could be wrong..
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|>>Seems like all the programers @ Redmond have done lately is build on other people's work.
Oh my god! We can't have people learning and building from existing technology!!!
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|I hate all the dumba**es that assume people can't improve on technology. *Cry, Cry* Microsoft didn't invent anything, waaaah, they just bought DOS.. Your right, Microsoft didn't invent DOS, and they weren't original in a GUI OS, THEY ARE INNOVATORS (and no Innovation does not mean original idea, look it up). They make things better (and yes there is the crowd that says Windows isn't better, but that's an opinion), or in other words they improve on an idea. I don't know about this Patent crap, who knows, we'll soon find out. Oh, a little interesting note, Henry Ford didn't invent the internal combustion engine, Chrysler didn't invent the Car, just like GM didn't. Apple didn't invent the GUI, Xerox did. This is what people do, they improve upon ideas. Get over it. (pssst, Americans didn't event the English language, we just improved it =).. SCANDAL)
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|Both Microsoft and Apple are equal successors to the Xerox Star. Apple got Jef Raskin for the Lisa/Mac and Microsoft got Charles Simonyi, so to say that "Microsoft copied Apple" and not "Apple and Microsoft equally benefited from Xerox Parc" is less than disingenuous.
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|::I wonder where the NT kernel really came from. Anyone know?
a long time ago they took over something called OpenNT, which originated as open source...did you ever notice how windows NT 3.51 was rock stable (more than NT 4...it's because they didn't modify openNT much for that version)
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|Hi boiz&girlz,
can y0u Z/-\y phishbait?
I know that you can.
You know you hate it every time MS junk makes your comp crash too.
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|my bad
sorry
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|AT&T sure did take their sweet time informing MS of this "infringment". So they're saying MS just "stole" the code and dropped it into Win9x and W2K? Not likely. Sure, I remember Stacker, but I also remember Apple. There's a good possibility that MS is fighting this because they are certain their code is completely different than AT&T's, even tho' it accomplishes the same results. MS most-likely has a patent of their own algorithm (I'd be VERY surprised if they didn't...they patent EVERYTHING they do). AT&T may just want easy cash thru out-of-court settlement, or may want to force MS to open their code so that AT&T can improve their own.
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|:AT&T sure did take their sweet time informing MS of this "infringment"
That could be because AT&T just found it. They are one of the people who got limited read only access to the M$ source code.
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|I sure wish more info would be given out- Like, are the technologies similar in the way they are made (same code, etc) or just work alike? There needs to be distinction made in cases like this. 2 companies can make the same *type* of product, but use different technologies. I sure hope more facts come out soon! I would also like to know why it takes years for these people to put out a lawsuit, instead of doing it right when it happens. Is there a statute of limitations for this kind of thing??
James
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